Newgrange: the largest and oldest sundial in the world
Alongside the River Boyne in Ireland, where the waters make a wide bend, a prehistoric cemetery houses more than 25 passage graves. It opens towards the south-east, in perfect alignment with the point where the sun rises on the winter solstice.
Known as the 'Bend of the Boyne', Newgrange necropolis gives the impression of having been built on the hill so that the three finest burials – Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth – could dominate the fertile valley below.
The passage tomb of Newgrange is the most interesting Irish prehistoric site: it is in fact decorated with rock reliefs of outstanding workmanship. However, a question arises: was Newgrange just a tomb or did it have some other function?
The tomb, plundered and in ruins, was rediscovered in 1699, and the Welsh antiquary Edward Lhuyd (1660-1708) was one of the first to enter. He wrote:
"At first we were forced to advance on all fours, but as we continued the pillars on both sides became higher and higher, and upon entering the underground room we discovered that it was about twenty feet high. In the hall, to the right and left, there were two cells or chambers, and a third extended in the direction of the entrance."
The corridor through which Lhuyd passed is more than 18 meters long and ends in three small rooms containing three massive stone basins. The stones that make up the high modillion roof are perfectly balanced and firm even in the absence of mortar. In 5000 years only two of them have broken.
Such perfection in design and execution demonstrates how the builders of Newgrange, who lived around 3250 BC, possessed extraordinary expertise.
The inner sanctuary of the passage tomb is illuminated by the sun's rays only in the days close to the winter solstice. Every morning, for about twenty minutes, in the few days before and after the shortest day of the day, a thin ray penetrates the roof space above the entrance and touches the stone basin located at the end of the corridor.
Inside the mound there is a cross-shaped chamber, ending in three niches with large stone basins. The modillion roof, of brilliant construction concept, rises to 6 meters and culminates in a point that overlooks the niches. Many internal stones display the same variety of symbolic carvings as external ones.
The Newgrange passage tomb was originally covered by a huge oval mound 14 meters high (now reduced to 9) with a diameter of 76 metres. Extending over more than half a hectare, the artificial hill was made up of approximately 200,000 pebbles removed from the bed of the nearby river and coated with shiny white quartz.
Along the outer perimeter of the mound, 97 boundary stones lie laid on their sides. Around the tomb stands a circle of standing stones; 12 of the 35 original boulders are still visible.
The meaning of the engravings
The attentive visitor's eye is attracted to Newgrange by a profusion of beautiful carvings in the rock. The entrance is guarded by a spiraled stone, and more than a dozen standing boulders are decorated in the corridor. Many roof slabs and corbels also have sculptures, sometimes on the hidden upper side.
Inside, in the lower part of one of the uprights, we discover the most beautiful engraving, a triple spiral. On the outside, many of the boundary stones are ornate, sometimes on the inside surfaces hidden from view.
In addition to spirals, other very common motifs recurring in Newgrange are lozenges, zigzag lines and circles. But strangely they do not coincide with the symbols most used in other Irish passage tombs.
What then is their meaning?
The spirals perhaps represent the labyrinthine journey of the soul towards the realm of the dead. The opening made in the roof space above the entrance allows sunlight to pass through only in the morning of the days close to the winter solstice.
The first antique dealers did not care too much about these decorations. Thomas Molyneux, an 18th century physics professor who taught at Trinity College Dublin, called them 'engravings of a barbarous type', and many after him believed them to be mere ornaments. More recently, serious efforts have been made to uncover the meaning behind decorative effects.
A leading researcher in the field is Martin Brennan, whose book The Boyne Valley Vision is an analysis of the more than 700 carved stones on the site. At the conclusion of his study, the author states that the majority of the drawings record astronomical and cosmological observations and that Newgrange was, among other things, the largest and oldest sundial in the world.
"For the people of the Boyne Valley", writes Brennan, "the study of the movements of the sun was very important. They were the most expert sundial readers of the Neolithic."
The thirst for knowledge was not the only motivation of the men who built the structures of Newgrange and Stonehenge, where astronomical observations were also carried out.
Perhaps they also aimed to learn new things about the universe and make direct and meaningful connections between it and their lives. Newgrange is not just a sundial or an observatory, but appears to be a symbol of the life force itself.
In its original form, the mound that covered the corridor tomb was oval, and a long corridor penetrated this life-bearing egg, ending in a cave-like chamber, which perhaps symbolized the maternal womb. Inside stands a tall pillar in the shape of a phallus, and it is possible that the two chalk balls found at Newgrange were male sexual symbols.
The sun's rays in the winter solstice
Newgrange was built to benefit from the ultimate life-giving element, the sun. Above the entrance, which was originally sealed by a stone slab, there is a small cavity whose roof bears engravings of double spirals and lozenges. The room was equipped with stone doors that could be opened and closed.
The structure is oriented so that at dawn on the winter solstice the sun, rising, illuminates the tomb through this space - the door was specially opened on that day. The ray of sunlight penetrates along the corridor, until it reaches the center of the room.
Michael O'Kelly, professor of archeology at Cork University, recently excavated Newgrange and on 21 December 1969, at dawn, he stood in the tomb ready to witness what was to come.
“At exactly 9.54 am British summer time,” he wrote, “the upper edge of the solar sphere appeared on the local horizon, and at 9.58am the first direct ray of sunlight shone through the roof space and down the corridor to reaching the front edge of the stone basin of the last room, touching the floor of the tomb chamber.
As the thin line of light widened to become a 17 cm wide band that swept the floor of the chamber, the tomb was hit by a violent stream of light and the light reflected from the floor clearly highlighted various details of the side chambers and terminal and the modillion roof. At 10.04 the band began to narrow again and at 10.15 sharp the direct beam left the tomb."
The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year, the moment when the life force begins to breathe life into the sleeping earth again. Perhaps, of all the carvings, it is the triple spiral of the chamber that represents what the builders of Newgrange strove to achieve with what is improperly called the 'tomb': it is possible that the entering spiral symbolized the journey undertaken by the deceased and the outgoing illustrated its rebirth.
It may be that, at Newgrange, the symbolic fertilization of the cosmic egg capable of ensuring the continuation of the eternal cycle of death and rebirth took place. The priests probably deposited the cremated remains of some ancestors in the stone basins of the rooms, where they could be touched by sunlight in mid-winter, thus obtaining a symbolic confirmation of the continuation of the lineage.
Newgrange is only one element of the Bend of the Boyne complex, even if artistically it is the most complete. Perhaps the main tombs together constitute scientific records that are only now, 5000 years later, beginning to be deciphered.
The finds demonstrate once again that prehistoric man was neither simple nor barbaric, but in possession of knowledge and abilities that far exceed our imagination.
