The Irish Pub down the road from me is a great place not only to kick back with a cold beverage but to talk to folks from Ireland. One of the
discussions recently centered on Newgrange, part of the Bru na Boinne complex in Meath county Ireland.
The Bru na Boinne Complex is composed of Newgrange , Knowth and Dowth in Ireland, built nearly 6000 years ago... Keep in mind, this is pre-Celt,
Pre-Egyptian Pyramids and Pre-Stonehenge.
Below is a nice video of Newgrange with some odd Christian music put to it...
A closeup of the walls...
The entrance to the site and example of the megalithic artwork...
Recent News Article about the complex
Did you know that within 50 miles of Dublin the passage tombs of the Bru na Boinne Complex (built between 3300 and 2900 B.C.) are 500 years older than
the Great Pyramid of Giza and about 1,000 years older than Stonehenge?
Newgrange is a burial mound, 250 feet across and 40 feet high. It covers one acre. Inside the mound a 60 foot long passage leads to a cross-shaped
chamber featuring a corbelled roof (a roof of progressively overlapping stones topped with a capstone) rising to 20 feet. After 5,000 years the roof
has remained intact and waterproof.
Whoa... wait a minute... cross shaped chamber? 6000 years ago? Ok, maybe that is a coincidence. Let's continue...
Newgrange, like many ruins of ancient civilizations, is aligned with a particular equinox. In this case on the winter solstice, or shortest day of the
year, a narrow beam of sunshine shines directly onto the passage into the chamber and illuminates the floor of the chamber, lasting for about 17
minutes. Every year tens of thousands enter a drawing to be one of the 50 or so allowed inside to witness the event.
One of the very interesting parts, is the Sundial petroglyph from Knowth, in the same area. And just so we don't lose context, Knowth is in the same
complex, but here is an arial picture of it... it is a *bit* different than Newgrange...
So here is the Sundial from Knowth...
Now it's hard to see much from this angle, so here is one with an overlay.
Notice the swirl in this one as we see in all the other artwork. Before this image everything seemed curly cued as decoration. But this particular
image puts it as part of a layout. What *does* this spiral represent in this situation or is it merely more decoration which represents something
more abstract?
Now, let's put just a little more detail on this...
As you can see several things pop out. Namely that was was important in this dial is the Winter Solstice. A dotted line is drawn to the Summer
Solstice as a point of reference, but the line pointing to the Winter Solstice is actually on the petroglyph itself.
A great site which ponders the linkage between the Ancient art, sundials, and modern
day crop circle artists.
Rather large article about the sundial from Knowth, other sundials and how they correlate to modern day crop circle artists.
This site posits a link between the petroglyphs in Ireland and those of Native Americans
Knowth.com has some nice images as well. Please check them out.
UPDATE:
Just to throw more into the mix... here is one of the photos of the Avebury crop circle. Notice how it lines up with the sundial picture above.
Although looking at it, either the pic above is off or the overlay in the crop circle pic is off, because their orientation is different.
[edit on 16-7-2009 by HunkaHunka]
jk 
