The passage tomb at Newgrange is Ireland’s most famous megalithic monument.
Newgrange, located on hillside overlooking the River Boyne, 8 kilometers (5.0 mi) west of Drogheda, is a passage tomb built during the Neolithic Period, around 3200 BC. It is older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids.
Newgrange is the main monument in the Brú na Bóinne complex, a World Heritage Site that includes the nearby passage tombs of Knowth and Dowth, as well as other henges, burial mounds and standing stones.
Newgrange consists of a large circular mound with an inner stone passageway that leads to a cruciform chamber. Burnt and unburnt human bones, and possible grave goods or votive offerings, were found in this chamber.
The mound has a retaining wall at the front, made mostly of white quartz cobblestones. It is encircled by kerbstones, with many of the stones engraved in megalithic art. The mound is also ringed by a stone circle.
Some of the material that makes up the monument came from as far as the Mournes and Wicklow Mountains.
There is no agreement about the Newgrange tomb’s purpose, but it is believed it had religious significance.
It is aligned on the winter solstice sunrise so that the rising sun shines through a ‘roofbox’ above the entrance and floods the inner chamber with sunlight.
The engineering and construction of the roofbox and tomb indicates a highly sophisticated ancient culture existed in Boyne River valley.
Archeologists disagree about the construction of the Newgrange tomb.
Irish geologist and naturalist Frank Mitchell, who studied Newgrange, suggested that it could have been built in as little as five years. His estimate was based on the likely number of local inhabitants during the Neolithic age and the amount of time they could have devoted to building it rather than farming.
Mitchell’s estimate, however, was challenged by archeologist Michael J. O’Kelly and his archaeological team, who believed that it would have taken a minimum of thirty years to build.
DNA analysis revealed that bones found in the most chamber belonged to a man whose parents were first-degree relatives, possibly brother and sister. Such inbreeding was usually only found in royal dynasties headed by ‘god-kings’, such as the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, who married among themselves to keep the royal bloodline ‘pure’. The man was distantly related to people buried in the Carrowkeel and Carrowmore tombs.
This, together with the prestige of the burial, could mean that an elite group was responsible for building Newgrange.
The largely unknown Boyne valley culture used the site for about 1,000 years. The site then feel into ruins but area remained in use by the Beaker Culture, another group that replaced the culture that built the passage tomb, into the Bronze Age.
During the Bronze Age large timber circle (or henge) was constructed to the southeast of the main mound and a smaller timber circle to the west.
Newgrange evidently continued to have some ritual significance into the Iron Age. Some of the objects deposited around the mound include two pendants made from gold Roman coins of 320–337 and Roman-era gold jewelry including two bracelets, two finger rings, and a necklace. These Roman finds are interesting since the Romans did not occupy Ireland as they did Brittan and never had a long-term presence in Ireland.
Music Used in this Video:
Artist: RDScally and the Obstweedles
Song: Gardening With Candide
https://obstweedles.bandcamp.com/album/gardening-with-candide-the-optimist-grows-it-alone-jardiner-avec-candide
Album: Gardening With Candide
QZ-6V5-16-00175 ASCAP
Copyright 2020 RDScally / Wounded Weasel Publishing
Available from Bandcamp
https://obstweedles.bandcamp.com/track/gardening-with-candide