Newgrange

 Newgrange (Irish: Sí an Bhrú) is a prehistoric monument located in County Meath, on the eastern side of Ireland, about one kilometre north of the River Boyne.^[1] An example of a megalithic passage tomb mound, Newgrange was built between circa 3100 and 2900 BC, during the Neolithic period, in order to house the remains of the dead. Newgrange is very similar to the famous Maeshowe tomb in Orkney, Scotland^[2] and Bryn Celli Ddu site in Wales, both of which point to the midwinter solstice. It has also been suggested that a feature similar to the 'lightbox' at Newgrange may be matched at Bryn Celli Ddu.^[3]. It has also been speculated that it had some form of religious significance, particularly in regards to an afterlife, because it is aligned with the rising sun on the winter solstice, which floods the tomb with light.^[4] It is in fact just one monument within the Neolithic Brú na Bóinne complex, alongside the similar passage tomb mounds of Knowth and Dowth, and as such is a part of the Brú na Bóinne UNESCO World Heritage Site. After its initial usage as a tomb, the entrance to Newgrange was sealed and it remained closed for several millennia, subsequently gaining several associations in local folklore and mythology. It first began to be studied as a prehistoric monument by antiquarians in the 17th century AD, and over subsequent centuries various archaeological excavations took place at the site before it was largely restored to its original Neolithic appearance by conservators in the 1970s. Today, Newgrange is a popular tourist site, and according to the archaeologist Colin Renfrew, is "unhesitatingly regarded by the prehistorian as the great national monument of Ireland" and is also widely recognised as one of the most important megalithic structures in Europe.

The Mound and Passage Tomb

The Newgrange monument primarily comprises a large mound, built out of a cairn of stones, with grass growing on top and a white quartz wall stretching around it. This mound is 76 m (250 ft) across and 12 m (40 ft) high, and covers 0.4 hectares (one acre) of ground. Within the mound is a chambered tomb passage, which can be accessed by an entrance on the south-eastern side of the monument, and this chamber stretches for 18.95 metres (60 ft), or about a third of the way through into the centre of the structure. This passage ends in a cruciform, or cross-shaped chamber at the end, which has a corbelled vault roof and was where many of the bones of the dead were originally deposited. The walls of this passage are made up of large stone slabs, 22 of which are on the west side and 21 on the east, which average out at 1.5 metres in height.^[6] Situated around the perimeter of the mound are located a circle of standing stones, which some archaeologists have speculated were erected later, during the Bronze Age, centuries after the original monument had been abandoned as a tomb. Art: Newgrange contains various examples of abstract Neolithic rock art carved onto it which provide decoration.^[7] These carvings fit into ten categories, five of which are curvilinear (circles, spirals, arcs, serpentiniforms and dot-in-circles) and the other five of which are rectilinear (chevrons, lozenges, radials, parallel lines and offsets). They are also marked by wide differences in style, the skill-level that would have been needed to produce them, and on how deeply carved they are.^[8] One of the most notable examples of art at Newgrange is the triskele-like features found on the entrance stone, which has been described as "one of the most famous stones in the entire repertory of megalithic art."^[9] Archaeologists believe that most of the carvings were produced prior to the stones being erected in place, although the entrance stone was instead carved in situ before the kerbstones were placed alongside it.^[10] Various archaeologists have speculated as to the meaning of the decoration, with some, such as George Coffey (who studied Newgrange’s art in the 1890s), believing them to be purely decorative, whilst others, like M.J. O’Kelly (who led the 1962-1975 excavation at the site), believing them to have some sort of symbolic purpose, because some of the carvings had been in places that would not have been visible, such as at the bottom of the orthostatic slabs, below ground level.^[11] An extensive study in Irish Megalithic art was carried out in the late 1970s by American Irish researcher Martin Brennan (author of The Stars and the Stones, Thames and Hudson 1983, republished as The Stones of Time 1994). Brennan establishes a credible link between the art and the function of the mounds, which he claims is astronomical. Brennan's findings make a compelling case for interpretation of the art as a form of notation as opposed the decorative label offered by standard archaeology. History: Newgrange is one of around 150 Neolithic Irish passage tombs that survive to us today, so it seems clear that it was constructed by a culture that built many similar structures, albeit most of which were smaller and simpler. Archaeological evidence shows that some of the simpler passage-graves, such as the ones situated near to the main Neolithic mound at Knowth and also that atop the nearby Slieve na Calliagh, were older than Newgrange and so it has been proposed that the Irish tomb builders gradually developed the skills to create larger and more complex tombs over the generations.^[12] The Neolithic people who built the monument were native agriculturalists, growing crops and raising animals such as cattle in the area, where their settlements were located; they had not yet developed metal, so all their tools would have been made out of stone, wood, antler or bone. Source: Wikipedia