Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Entering the tomb, you walk down a narrow 60-foot passage lined with big boulders.
Occasionally you have to duck or turn sideways to squeeze through. The passage opens
up into a central room—a cross-shaped central chamber with three alcoves, topped by a
20-foot-high igloo-type stone dome. Bones and ashes were placed here in a ceremonial
stone basin, under 200,000 tons of stone and dirt.
While we know nothing of Newgrange's builders, it most certainly was a sacred
spot—for a cult of the dead, a cult of the sun, or both. The tomb is aligned precisely east-
west. As the sun rises on the shortest day of the year (winter solstice, Dec 21), a ray of
light enters through the roofbox and creeps slowly down the passageway. For 17 minutes,
it lights the center of the sacred chamber (your guide will demonstrate this). Perhaps this
was the moment when the souls of the dead were transported to the afterlife, via that ray
of life-giving and life-taking light. Then the light passes on, and, for the next 364 days, the
tomb sits again in total darkness.
Knowth
This site is an impressive necropolis, with one grand hill-topping mound (similar to New-
grange)surroundedbyseveralsmallersatellitetombs.Thecentralmoundis220feetwide,
40 feet high, and covers 1.5 acres.
You'll see plenty of mysteriously carved kerbstones and new-feeling grassy mounds
that you can look down on from atop the grand tomb.
Knowth's big tomb has two passages: one entering from the east, and one from the
west. Like Newgrange, it's likely aligned so the rising and setting sun shone down the pas-
sageways to light the two interior chambers. Neither passage is open to the public, but you
can visit a room carved into the mound by archaeologists, where a cutaway lets you see
the layers of dirt and rock used to build the mound. You also get a glimpse down one of
the passages.
The Knowth site thrived from 3000 to 2000
B.C.
The central tomb dates from about
2000
B.C.
It was likely used for burial rituals and sun-tracking ceremonies to please the
gods and ensure the regular progression of seasons for crops. The site then evolved into
the domain of fairies and myths for the next 2,000 years, and became an Iron Age fortress
in the early centuries after Christ. Around
A.D.
1000, it was an all-Ireland political center,
and later, a Norman fortress was built atop the mound. Now, 4,000 years after prehistoric
people built these strange tombs, you can stand atop the hill at Knowth, look out over the
surrounding countryside, and contemplate.
