Had been waiting for the winter solstice, after which the days begin getting longer. Not surprising that our ancestors for millennia before us waited with the same and even more anticipation, but somehow had missed learning about Newgrange, an Irish World Heritage Site.
Newgrange is a passage grave constructed some five thousand years ago in a crook of the Boyne River, sixty kilometres north of Dublin as the crow flies. Most descriptions are more than bloglength but Wikipedia gives a fair précis, falling, inevitably, somewhat short of the stunning reality:
“Newgrange consists of a large circular mound with an inner stone passageway and cruciformchamber. Burnt and unburnt human bones, and possible grave goods or votive offerings, were found in this chamber. The monument has a striking façademade mostly of white quartz cobblestones, and it is ringed by engraved kerbstones. Many of the larger stones of Newgrange are covered 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 its purpose, but it is believed it had religious significance. It is aligned so that the rising sun on the winter solstice shines through a "roofbox" above the entrance and floods the inner chamber.”
A number of Irish sites filmed the sunrise and broadcast live, hoping to catch the seventeen minutes when the rising sun shines through the roof box to fill the inner chamber. We watch and catch the final minute of the seventeen possible after sixteen minutes of horizon cloud when a shaft of light can be seen in the tomb.
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| Courtesy Heritage Ireland |
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