Deep into Newgrange Passage Tomb in Ireland’s ‘Valley of the Kings’
Stone-age peoples didn’t live in caves, they were Astromathematicians
No amount of research reading can prepare visitors for the sheer scale of this 5,200-year-old Neolithic passage tomb constructed on an elevated ridge in the River Boyne Valley, County Meath, Ireland. There is little wonder it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Newgrange is 80 metres (262 feet) across and its flattened top stands 12 metres (39 feet) high. It is older than Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England, older than the Pyramids at Giza, Egypt, and dwarfs the two later religious monuments which share the same site: the remains of a henge consisting of a double circle of wooden posts 100 metres (328 feet) in diameter, and part of the ring of megaliths, seen in the image, on guard beside it. I simply stood and stared.
The passage tomb cairn is made up of hundreds of thousands of water-washed pebbles taken from the valley floor, layered with soil, about 200,000 tonnes worth in all, allowed to grass. That alone is a monumental, hand-built, construct. Yet, it accounts for only its inner core.
Its outer facing consists of:
- white quartz cobblestones from the Wicklow Mountains 30 miles (50 km) to the south
