There are many mysteries about Newgrange. Many Irish legends were written down by Catholic monks about a millennium ago. Some of these texts record descriptions of Newgrange including: “Mac an Og’s bright brugh to approach”, “further place of much light” and “Boyne’s white-headed brugh”. If the cairn had slipped into the Bronze Age, as archaeologists tell us, sweeping the white quartzite that decorated its front into the ground, to be covered by subsidence boulders and gravels, are the signatures Mythical memories like memories of Newgrange as if it were in the distant past?
The entire valley is dedicated to the goddess Bóann, or Boin, whose name means ‘white cow’. This white cow goddess gave her name to the River Boyne, which flows around the great peninsula where Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth are located. Of great significance is the fact that the river seems to be seen as an earthly reflection of the Milky Way, the bright band of our galaxy that runs across the night sky. This river is Abhann na Bó Finne. The Milky Way was known to the Irish as Bealach/Bóthar na Bó Finne, the Way/Way of the White Cow. Newgrange is known in Irish as Brú na Bóinne, Bóinn’s mansion or womb.
Besides the fact that Newgrange’s chamber receives sunlight at dawn on the winter solstice, there are several other aspects of its design, arrangement, cosmology and mythology that attract attention. of those who discovered its true function. And there are some aspects of Newgrange that remain a puzzle to archaeologists.
Until 1967, after excavation, conservation and archaeological restoration, sunlight could not penetrate inside. This is due to the slow subsidence of the roofing stones of the walkway, which gradually sank as the supporting pillars leaned inward over long centuries. Before 1967, when archaeologist Professor Michael O’Kelly became the first person to witness the summer solstice event in modern times, no one had been able to witness this phenomenon. And yet, local folklore claims that the sun shines on Newgrange on the shortest day of the year. O’Kelly pointed to this as one of the reasons he visited this room in December 1967 when he became the first person to witness alignment in the modern era.
In addition to local folklore describing the arrangement of the winter solstice, some authors have previously suggested that its passage is arranged according to the direction of sunrise on the winter solstice. General Charles Vallancey hinted at it in the 18th century. In 1909, astronomer and director of the Solar Physical Observatory, Sir Norman Lockyer, declared that Newgrange was facing the rising sun on the winter solstice. In 1911, WY Evans-Wentz alluded to the same thing.
But the astronomical mysteries of Newgrange run deeper than all this. In 1958, in his book on primordial mythology, Joseph Campbell recounted a folk tale from the Boyne Valley in which a local man told him the light of the Morning Star, Venus, shone into the room. Newgrange’s room at dawn one day in eight years. and threw a beam onto a stone on the floor of a room with two worn sockets. This might seem like an incredible suggestion, except for the fact that it’s astronomically accurate. Venus follows an eight-year cycle and one year every eight years it rises in the sky before the dawn of the winter solstice and its light can be seen from inside the room.
Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, authors of Uriel’s Machine, suggest that a series of eight X-shaped markings on the lintel of the aperture above Newgrange’s entrance – the so-called ‘roof box’ allowed light in in the room – symbolizes the eight-year cycle of Venus. However, they did not know when they wrote the great book the story that had been told to Joseph Campbell about the Morning Star shining into the room.
How did locals living in the Boyne Valley in the 1950s acquire knowledge describing an astronomical phenomenon that may have occurred at Newgrange in the distant past? This is a question not easily answered by archaeologists. No one could have witnessed Venus in Newgrange’s room in the mid-20th century because not only did the roof of the gallery collapse, but the entire roof box was completely sealed with soil and grass, as evidenced from Time-lapse photos. Indeed, it is unlikely anyone has ever seen light from the sun or Venus entering Newgrange’s chamber since the entrance was rediscovered in 1699. Given the structural state of the monument, it would have been impossible to witness such an incident.
So how far back did this folklore go, if the penetration of light from the sun or Venus could not be observed for three centuries after the 1699 rediscovery? When Newgrange was excavated in the 20th century, it was discovered that large quantities of cairn had “slipped” through layers of paving stones retained at some distant period. All of the large boulders – 97 in total, each weighing an average of three tonnes, equivalent to the weight of an Asian elephant – were covered when this collapse occurred, as were the entrances and roof boxes . What’s amazing is that archaeologists tell us that the rock slide occurred about 500 years after the monument was built. With an estimated construction date of around 3,150 BC, this means that the cairn slipped around 2,650 BC, which at that time marked the end of the Neolithic period and the beginning of the Neolithic period. bronze age. According to archaeologists, Newgrange has been hidden for four thousand years. Its appearance resembles a miniature hill covered with trees, with only a few large outer stone circles visible.
In his 1911 book Fairy Belief in the Celtic Countries, WY Evans-Wentz said: “But when we hear legendary stories that have never been recorded in the minds of countless generations of men , we should not underestimate them for that reason. ; for they are often of better authority and more trustworthy than many ancient and carefully recorded manuscripts in the British Museum; and they are probably much older than the oldest book in the world.”
We can agree. During the 20th century, folk memory preserved knowledge of astronomical phenomena at Newgrange that could not have been witnessed at the time. Based on the archaeological evidence – first that the stones in the passage have subsided, and second that the sliding of the cairn has obscured the passage and chamber since the late Neolithic period – it seems likely that This knowledge can go back to when Newgrange was built.
