Category Archives: Co. Meath

Exploring Dowth, House of Darkness, Entrance To The Otherworld

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Dowth is one of the three main tombs of the Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Site – a landscape of prehistoric monuments including the large passage-tombs at nearby Newgrange and Knowth.

Dowth, Knowth and Newgrange are actually all part of single ancient ritual landscape, rather than separate sites.

Unlike Newgrange and Knowth, Dowth has not been independently dated and has not undergone extensive restoration.

Dowth is less developed as a tourist attraction than Knowth and Newgrange, partly because the site has been damaged by centuries of looters, plundered by Vikings, and had stones taken by quarrying. Ill-advised archeological work in the 19th century included the Royal Irish Academy dynamiting the roof, causing a large still visible crater.

Dowth is set in a spectacular location on the highest point in the Boyne Valley. Newgrange, 2 kilometers distant, is visible from Dowth.

Dowth’s mound is approximately 15 meters high and 85 meters in diameter. It one of the largest and oldest megalithic structures in Ireland, larger than Newgrange.
http://www.carrowkeel.com/sites/boyne/dowth1.html

White quartz stones found around the base of the Dowth mound indicate it may once have had a bright white exterior wall like Newgrange.

Dowth was once surrounded by 115 kerbstones. Kerbstone 51, known as the Stone of the Seven Suns, features a number of radial circular carvings. A kerbstone with cup-marks and a spiral and a flower-like design, marks the entrance to Dowth South.

Three stone-lined passages lead into the mound. There are two passage tombs, known as Dowth North and Dowth South, and a souterrain. A third entrance on Dowth’s west side of is an early Christian souterrain that leads into the passage of Dowth North. It was built during the 10th or 11th century CE.

Like the other Boyne Valley passage tombs, Dowth has a rich mythological history.

According to one legend, Dowth is the burial place of the goddess Boann. Boann was said to have created the River Boyne.

Dowth was also believed to be the entrance to the Otherworld, a magical realm that was home to the Tuatha Dé Danann, mythical gods who lived in Ireland before humans.

In legendary lore, Dowth is called the Fairy Mound of Darkness, Dubhadh (‘darkening’), and The House of Darkness.

The medieval Dindsenchas (lore of places) says that king Bresal Bó-Díbad ordered the construction of a tower in a single day to reach heaven. Bersal’s sister cast a spell, making the sun stand still so that one day lasted indefinitely. Bresal then committed incest with his sister, breaking the spell, a legend similar to one associated with Newgrange.

With the spell broken, the sun sets and the builders leave. Hence the name Dubhadh (‘darkening’).

There may be a kernel of fact in the incest myth. Recent DNA analysis of human remains of a man at found Newgrange revealed he had parents who were most likely siblings.

These tales of light and darkness have been linked with solstice alignments at Brú na Bóinne.

Dowth’s tombs have winter solstice solar alignments like Newgrange.

Martin Brennan, author of The Stars and the Stones: Ancient Art and Astronomy in discovered the alignment during a ten-year study of the Boyne Valley.

From November to February light from the evening sun reaches into the Dowth South tomb passage and into the chamber. During the winter solstice, the sun light moves along the passage, into the circular chamber, where three stones are lit up by the sun.
https://www.knowth.com/dowth-sunsets.htm

Music:
Newgrange, RDScally & the Obstweedles, from the album Entropy: The Last Word In Everything
Available on Bandcamp
https://obstweedles.bandcamp.com/track/newgrange
ASCAP: QZ-6V5-16-00148 Published by Wounded Weasel Music Copyright 2019

Clouds Obscura, RDScally & the Obstweedles, from the album Entropy: The Last Word In Everything
Available on Bandcamp https://obstweedles.bandcamp.com/track/clouds-obscura
ASCAP: QZ-6V5-16-00156 Published by Wounded Weasel Music Copyright 2019

Entropy: The Last Word In Everything
https://obstweedles.bandcamp.com/album/entropy-the-last-word-in-everything
Published by Wounded Weasel Music Copyright 2019

#Dowth #ireland #irish #irishhistory #ancientireland #countymeath #passagetomb #archeology #irisharcheology #newgrange #knowth #ireland_travel #megalithic #kerbstone #runes

The Marvels And Mysteries Of Newgrange, County Meath, Ireland

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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

#ireland #newgrange #passagetomb #irish #irishhistory #ancient #ancientireland #countymeath #riverboyne #boynevalley #history #prehistoric #prehistoricireland #megalithic #megalithicireland #archeology #kerbstone #ritual #mysterious #bronzeage #henge #standingstone #stonecircle #neolithic #neolithicage #runes #wintersolstice #megalithicart