Megalitter i Irland
Newgrange, General Information
1 Newgrange is one of the best examples in Ireland and in Western Europe,
of a type of monument known to archaeologists as a passage-grave or passage-tomb.
2 It was constructed around 3200BC, according to the most reliable Carbon
14 dates available from archaeology. This makes it more than 600 years
older than the Giza Pyramids in Egypt, and 1,000 years more ancient than Stonehenge.
3 Newgrange was built in a time when there was only stone, not metal,
used as an everyday material for tools and weapons. According to Clare
O'Kelly, who assisted her husband Michael O'Kelly in the excavations of
Newgrange, no metal has yet been found in a primary context in an Irish passage-grave.
4 Considerable damage was caused to the stones in the chamber of Newgrange
in times past due to "evily-disposed visitors" who carved their names onto
the stones. This graffiti can still be seen to this day.
5 More damage was done during the construction of nearby roads. Pownall
said that large quantities of stones had been removed and the roads paved
with them, and archaeologists found that the flat-topped mound had a number
of hollows and craters as a result of the removal of stones.
6 In 1993, Newgrange and its sister sites Knowth and Dowth were designated
a World Heritage Site by UNESCO because of their outstanding cultural legacy.
7 Newgrange was "rediscovered" in 1699. The landowner at the time, Charles Campbell,
needed some stones and had instructed his labourers to carry some away from the cairn.
It was at this time the entrance to the tomb was discovered.
8 Newgrange sits on the top of an elongated ridge within a large bend in the
Boyne River about five miles west of the town of Drogheda. This area has great
eminence thoughout Irish history - legend tells us the foundations of Christianity
were laid here. Two miles or so downstream is Oldbridge, where the Battle of the Boyne took place in 1690.
9 Access to Newgrange is through the Brú na Bóinne Visitors' Centre at nearby Donore,
just across the river Boyne. In recent times, there have been as many as 200,000 visitors
to Newgrange each year, making it the most visited archaeological monument in Ireland.
10 The name "Newgrange", or New Grange, is relatively modern. The area around Newgrange
was once part of the lands owned and farmed by the monks of Mellifont Abbey, and would have
been known as a "grange".
Although not as visually impressive as the remodelled behemoth that is Newgrange,
Loughcrew as a significance of its own. While the main chamber is illuminated at
sunrise on the Winter solstice, Cairn T at Lough crew does the same at sunrise on
the autumn Equinox - with light coming into the chamber onto the megalithic art inside.
As the light moves along the solar symbols carved into the rock, the sunlight is formed
into a beam by the entrance stones.
Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery
The largest and one of the most important megalithic sites in Europe. Carrowmore (Irish: Ceathrú Mór, meaning Great Quarter) is the site of a prehistoric ritual landscape on the Knocknarea or Cúil Irra Peninsula in County Sligo in Ireland. It is one of the four major passage tomb cemeteries in Ireland.
Around 30 megalithic tombs can be seen in Carrowmore today, and the traces of more (ruined) tombs have been detected. The tombs (in their original state) were almost universally 'dolmen circles'; small dolmens with boulder circles of 12 to 15 meters around them. The tombs are distributed in a roughly oval shape surrounding the largest monument, a cairn called Listoghil. The dolmen 'entrances' - crude double rows of standing stones - usually face the area of the central tomb.
Carrowmore is the largest cemetery of megalithic tombs in Ireland. The tombs are spread out over 3.8 sq km (1.5sq mi) in the shadow of the Knocknarea to the east, over a number of fields and townlands, most of them situated near the road.
Externe referencer
For yderliger information, prøv at se på følgende hjemmesider:
The megalithic tombs of Eire
Newgrange sunstice
Newgrange sunstice
Irish megaliths
Loughcrew Megalithic Tombs, Meath
astronomical overview of Ireland's megalithic sites
Category:Dolmens in Ireland
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