BRÚ NA BÓINNE

Knowth. Knowth is the site of a Neolithic corridor tomb, part of the spectacular Brú na Bóinne archaeological complex. Although not as famous as its neighbor Newgrange, just a stone's throw away, Knowth is a must-see. A visit here promises a journey into the past, through Ireland's ancestral culture.

The main corridor dolmen houses two burial chambers located back-to-back at the end of two corridors 34 and 40 m long. The main tumulus is surrounded by 18 other, smaller corridor dolmens... What's most fascinating about this site is the continuous succession of "dwellings", from the Neolithic period (3000 to 2000 BC) to the Norman occupation (^12th to ^14th centuries). As early as the Christian period, from the ^1st to the ^12th century, the top of the main tumulus was used as a base for housing: houses were built there. This passage, this geological layer giving a vertical reading of history (first a burial chamber, then a Christian and Norman dwelling), is not without wonder, especially as the engraved stones surrounding the main tumulus bear the marks of these different periods: spirals, hollows, circles from the Neolithic period, right up to the figurative attempts at fish from the Christian era... While the Newgrange site pays homage to the Sun, Knowth, with its lunar maps engraved in stone, is dedicated to the Moon.
Of the Boyne Valley's necropolis-sites, Newgrange is certainly the most famous, the most visited and the most impressive. It is one of the finestpassage tombs - a grave consisting of a long passage and a burial chamber, covered by a tumulus - in Western Europe. Carbon-14 dating of Newgrange places its construction around 3200 BC, i.e. before the construction of the pyramids in Egypt.

Newgrange. When you arrive at the site, after a short minibus ride from the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre, a massive mound rises out of the rolling Boyne landscape like a wave of green earth. You're looking at the mythical tomb of Newgrange.

Surrounded by a circle of 97 monoliths, a 19-metre long corridor leads to the three alcoves of the burial chamber where, according to current hypotheses, the ashes of four or five people were interred. The entrance to the corridor is defended by a spectacular monolithicEntrance Stone, superbly engraved with spiral motifs, the significance of which remains unexplained to this day. Inside, several stones, either hidden or visible, are engraved with simple motifs: triangles, lozenges, spirals. The roof of the chamber (6 metres high) is so beautifully built that no water can seep through, thanks to gutters cut into the stone.
The mystery of the winter solstice. A cavity in the tomb chamber allows a ray of light to pass through on December 21st, illuminating the corridor and the chamber from a small opening at the top of the entrance. This discovery was made by Professor M. J. O'Kelly, who carried out excavations at Newgrange between 1962 and 1975. But how to explain such astronomical precision so many millennia ago? One mystery among many in this intriguing valley around the Boyne...