Newgrange: Flooded with light

Newgrange  (Photo by Popsracer)

Long before there was a Stonehenge or a Pyramid of Giza, there was a Newgrange.

Millennia later, crowds are still gathering at Newgrange in order to celebrate the winter solstice.  RTE News/Ireland reports that "around 200 people" were there yesterday "when a narrow beam of sunlight broke through the opening known as the roof box and lit up the chamber of the 5,000-year-old tomb at 8:56 am."

Wikipedia describes Newgrange as "a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland."  It is estimated to have been built around 3200 BCE (before the Mayans and the Minoans, and way before the age of Classical Antiquity).

It consists primarily of "a large mound," within which lies a 60-foot chambered passage with walls of "large stone slabs."  Some of these walls are decorated with "Neolithic rock art."  This art appears to be "abstract," but may very well have had symbolic meaning.

The purpose of the structure remains unclear.  There is no firm evidence that it was used as a burial site, and the ceiling seems free of smoke indicators.  The Neolithic people of that age were farmers with tools made of "stone, wood, antler or bone."  Metal tools had yet to be developed.    

    

In the late 1960s, archaeologist Michael J. O'Kelly rediscovered that during the winter solstice "the rising sun shines directly along the long [Newgrange] passage… for about 17 minutes," thus causing the chamber floor

to be flooded with light.

Resources

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/1221/494199-newgrange-solstice/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange

Copyright December 22, 2013 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved