Day 10: Fri 6 Sep - Dublin
Met Sylvain downstairs at 0630 h
for a McD’s breakfast before catching the tram to O’Connell Street. Walked to Suffolk Street to buy a ticket, but
that office was closed! Back to
O’Connell Street and found a place that was able to tell us that we needed to
buy a ticket from the bus driver outside the Chelmer hotel. So, we waited ….. and bought our ticket. It took 45 minutes to get to Newgrange and Knowth
where we visited the stone passage tombs.
Did Knowth first and then Newgrange.
Knowth is a Neolithic passage grave and an ancient monument in the Boyne Valley (Brú na Bóinne). Knowth is the largest of all passage graves situated within the Valley complex. The site consists of one large mound (known as Site 1) and 17 smaller satellite tombs. The large mound is about 12 metres high and 67 metres in diameter, covering roughly a hectare and contains two passages, placed along an east-west line, and estimated to date from between 2500 and 2000 BCE. It was encircled by 127 kerbstones (some are lost or broken). The passages are independent of each other, and each leads to a burial chamber. The east-west orientation of the passages at Knowth suggests astronomical alignment with the equinoxes. The megalithic sites of the Boyne Valley were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1993.
Newgrange is a prehistoric monument about one kilometre north of the River Boyne. It was built about 3200 BC, during the Neolithic period, which makes it older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. Newgrange is a large circular mound with a stone passageway and chambers inside. The mound has a retaining wall at the front and is ringed by 'kerbstones' engraved with artwork. There is no agreement about what the site was used for, but it has been speculated that it had religious significance – it is aligned with the rising sun and its light floods the chamber on the winter solstice. Newgrange contains various examples of abstract Neolithic rock art carved onto it which provide decoration. One of the most notable examples of art at Newgrange is entrance stone which is about 3m long, 1.2m high, and about 5 tons in weight. Various archaeologists have speculated as to the meaning of the decoration, ranging from purely decorative to highly symbolic.
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