Travel back thousands of years in Ireland

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June 27, 2009

By Joy Crutchfield The McAlester News-Capital Sat Jun 27, 2009, 05:46 PM CDT

Did you know that within 50 miles of Dublin the passage tombs of the Bru na Boinne Complex (built between 3300 and 2900 B.C.) are 500 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza and about 1,000 years older than Stonehenge?

Newgrange is a burial mound, 250 feet across and 40 feet high. It covers one acre. Inside the mound a 60 foot long passage leads to a cross-shaped chamber featuring a corbelled roof (a roof of progressively overlapping stones topped with a capstone) rising to 20 feet. After 5,000 years the roof has remained intact and waterproof.

Newgrange, like many ruins of ancient civilizations, is aligned with a particular equinox. In this case on the winter solstice, or shortest day of the year, a narrow beam of sunshine shines directly onto the passage into the chamber and illuminates the floor of the chamber, lasting for about 17 minutes. Every year tens of thousands enter a drawing to be one of the 50 or so allowed inside to witness the event.

Newgrange was surrounded by huge standing stones about 1,000 years after it was originally built. Bronze Age peoples placed 37 stones around Newgrange, although only 12 remain.

Access to Newgrange is by guided tour. You’ll be happy to note that a reenactment of the winter solstice event is observed for each group. An individual is chosen to stand in the center of the chamber, the lights are turned off. A single light is them illuminated simulating the sun during winter solstice. It’s the highlight of the tour.

Knowth is twice the size of Newgrange. It is the largest of the passage graves situated within the Bru na Boinne complex. Knowth contains two passageways into the burial chamber and has 127 curbstones.

More than one third of all known megalithic art in all Western Europe is found at Knowth. It seems stones were even “recycled” and carved on one side, then later flipped and carved on the other. The artwork at Knowth contains a large variety of images, such as crescents, spirals, lozenges, and serpentiform.

Scientists believe the mound at Knowth was originally aligned with the spring and summer equinoxes, however that alignment does not exist today. The original passages have been destroyed or distorted so it is impossible to conclusively determine if the alignment ever existed.

Knowth appears to have also been used as a burial site by the Celts as some 35 graves have been found during excavation. Most graves are those of females; however one grave contained the bodies of two young decapitated men buried together with a gaming set.

Access to Knowth is by guided tour only, and there is no access into the interior. At Bru na Boinne there are also 17 smaller satellite tombs, so time invested here is well spent.

While you’re in Ireland, take a day and step inside a 5,000 year old monument of ancient mankind. A day spent at Bru na Boinne in County Meath will be pleasantly re-visited in your mind for years to come.

Joy Gawf-Crutchfield owns The Joy of Travel. Contact her at 918-339-4805.

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