The 6000 year old megalithic complex of Meath County Ireland

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...



[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/a5ac318bab10cc6a.jpg[/atsimg]

A closeup of the walls...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/bc4b8604de29d3ed.jpg[/atsimg]

The entrance to the site and example of the megalithic artwork...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/367e438667655a88.jpg[/atsimg]

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...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/219e2b322044d1b3.jpg[/atsimg]


So here is the Sundial from Knowth...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/735d79fedfbd225c.jpg[/atsimg]

Now it's hard to see much from this angle, so here is one with an overlay.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/4747a7df006abdb4.gif[/atsimg]

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...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/f15662b9402f95bc.jpg[/atsimg]

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.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/1e0983dec9218ca4.jpg[/atsimg]



[edit on 16-7-2009 by HunkaHunka]

reply to post by HunkaHunka
What a damn good post! I didn't know anything about the place and always enjoy something new. I must read up on it all...

Places similar to this are spread across Northern Europe...passage graves, megaliths, burial mounds etc. Northern Italy and westwards across Scandinavia, Germany, Northern France (Brittany) and into the British Isles. Hundreds of sites and relatively little information about the people that left them behind. They often feature alignments to the winter sunrise and are thought to represent the transition from hunter gatherers to farmers. The organization needed to commission and construct these sites indicates rising populations and the formation of societies with shared mythologies.

Gavrinis Island is over 400 miles South and shares some of the same symbols as Boyne Valley. Crossing over to the east and we see even more similarities. Although largely lost in the distant past, there must have been trade routes spanning 1000s of miles. IIRC in Wiltshire a hand axe was found dating to 5500 ya that was made of Austrian stone. Migration and trade must have been fairly dynamic before we began to settle down and claimed ever larger areas of territory.

I've drank and been drunk in many an Irish bar, but I can't recall having a chat about about Upper Paleolithic archaeology. Top man!

reply to post by Kandinsky


Thanks for the additional insight! Star for you


Evidently many of the trade routes were used for trading salt, among other items. But Salt was like white gold, probably because of it's function in preservation of meats and medicinal uses along with it's obvious value as a spice.

It was kinda funny, I mentioned the megalithic era, and the bartender went on about Newgrange... It sparked my interest and so I thought I'd share the fruits of this intoxicated discussion with the rest of you.



[edit on 16-7-2009 by HunkaHunka]

reply to post by HunkaHunka


Thank you for the post. I do hope to visit Ireland one day and check out that site myself (along with the pyramids).

reply to post by kidflash2008


The pyramids are a must see!!! on your 'bucket list'!!!

I've been to Dublin, but NOW Ihave to go back!! This is really good stuff...Stonehenge was nice, but they keep you far away now...

orion
o'ryan

the spiral is the is a very important ancient symbol for god/the universe/soul.

Very interesting stuff. you have peaked my interest, I will now have to do some searching to find out more.

S&F

Awesome find... S&F
I love it when threads of this nature come up....


I really do not think that this has anything to do with Christianity,
a coincidence indeed.
So, what people lived here is my question.

When we went to Ireland we decided to let our noses be our tour guides. We wandered aimlessly around the countryside and just stumbled onto Newgrange. It was the highlight of our trip. Beautiful and awe inspiring. Makes you humble to realize how long it has stood there.

/Canadian

Great post, hoping to get to Ireland next year to visit family in Caven. So well worth a trip.

As for a connection with Christianity, any connection will be the result of Christianity nicking symbolisms and making them there own you know just like they did with the 25th December

reply to post by Gamma MO


Quite a nice trove to stumble on!

Anyone else with experience? From what I can tell they also have Solstice ceremonies there in what looks to be a much more intimate setting than Stonehenge... has anyone been to one of these?

I'm incredibly interested as to what effect the light plays on the white quartz which lines the face of Newgrange.

Great post! I've always wanted to visit such places but doubt that I will ever have the money to do so...

To answer one of the questions that seem to be vexing to you I give you the following.

Swirl =Fibonacci Sequence=Golden Ratio=Sacred Geometry.......

Sacred Geometry- en.wikipedia.org...

Golden Ratio- en.wikipedia.org...

Fibonacci Sequence- en.wikipedia.org...


Furthermore there is a book that I read years a go that theorizes that Neolithic peoples from Ireland were the sea fearing peoples that The Egyptians spoke of that founded the Egyptian society.

This is predicated upon the research of two Freemasons (Knight and Lomas) trying to uncover the origins of the Craft.

They go into many other areas as it pretains to Venus warship and Neolithic peoples in Ireland and Britain and the level of advancement in their civilization beyond and prior to the Egyptian Civilization.


The book is called The Book of Hiram.
www.knight-lomas.com...

Happy hunting.........

Really interesting and somewhere I will have to visit when I next get a cheapie Ryanair!

It is amazing how advanced things were 6000 years back - so much yet to learn or be disclosed.....

I love how I came across this dig which is near to me - all those swirls look so similar....

reply to post by HunkaHunka

I'm incredibly interested as to what effect the light plays on the white quartz which lines the face of Newgrange.

Quartz is known for it's ability to tune frequencies and transfer vibrations. I know for a fact that we are indebted to quartz as far as radio is concerned. It wouldn't have been possible without quartz stones.

Quartz radio
en.wikipedia.org...

i was there last year, (live in dublin)its not on the impressive scale as the pyramids , but interesting none the less...

The arial picture of Knowth puts me in mind of a crop circle.

What are all of those squares,angles and boxes?

Maybe in black and white it would look like some of the pictures we have been seeing on Mars?

Very Interesting

Great post, thanks for bringing some insight to the previously obscure New Grange sites to me! Will defintley have to find the time to do some research on this, ecspecially the the arial shot of the site featuring the multiple mounds and sqaures and what not shown in the image, fascinating stuff!
I prefer to think think of the swirls as you call them as spirals, these same symbols seem to crop up in many cultures all over the world that were previosly thought isolated to one another. The Maori of New Zealand being one such example that uses the spiral symbol in its history/culture

reply to post by HunkaHunka


Well the black supremacist claim Africans were in Ireland and did that. Bull#.

The ufo crowd claims aliens landed and educated the people. Also bull#.

Here we have the simple fact that a group of people on the edge of the known world, if left to their own, will begin to develop.

Bare in mind Ireland is pretty peaceful, isolated, and simple. The perfect place for a civilization to begin.

Thunk about it. All the great civs developed in places isolated, cut off, and with resources readily available.

The only question is what did these people in.

Originally posted by druid1
The arial picture of Knowth puts me in mind of a crop circle.

What are all of those squares,angles and boxes?

Maybe in black and white it would look like some of the pictures we have been seeing on Mars?

Very Interesting

Funny you say that. If you look at the last few links on my original post, you'll find a couple other folks have had that same sensation of crop circle similarity.

It kinda jumped out at me as well.

Here are some examples. This was a Crop Circle at Avebury Looks very similar to the sundial on my original post.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/1e0983dec9218ca4.jpg[/atsimg]


Edit: I've updated my OP with this photo


[edit on 16-7-2009 by HunkaHunka]

Great post, hunkahunka! S&F from me. Very interesting about the cross shaped chamber. Oh, I wish I could remember the title of a book I read about 16 years ago. It was about Norse gods. The reason they were such sad creatures was because they knew their time on Earth would end, and a new man and woman would be born who would disgard them and would become followers of a different god, one who was superior to the Norse gods, and from who would come a saviour of all humankind. Maybe this was just some sort of Christian propaganda, I don't know. I have never found anything else about this idea.
Oh, yeah. Continue to go get a bit intoxicated at the pub. Pass on this drunken knowledge to us more often. jk

[edit on 16-7-2009 by kyred]