NEWGRANGE

Necropolis of the Boyne Valley, Newgrange is certainly the most famous, most frequented and most impressive. It is one of the most beautiful corridors in the corridor (or «tomb pass») - a grave consisting of a long corridor and a burial chamber, covered with a tumulus - from all over Western Europe. The date (carbon 14) of Newgrange located its construction around 3,200 BC, thus prior to the construction of the pyramids of Egypt or the erection of Stonehenge…

When you arrive on the site, after a short minibus journey from the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Center, a massive butte comes into the hilly landscape of the Boyne, like a wave of green land. You are facing the mythical tomb of Newgrange.

Surrounded by a circle of 97 monoliths, a long 19-meter corridor leads to the three alcoves of the funeral chamber where, according to the current state of the hypotheses, the ashes of four or five people were buried. The entrance of the corridor is championed by a spectacular monolithic stone, beautifully engraved with spiral motifs, whose meaning remains unexplained today. Inside, several stones, either hidden or visible, are engraved with simple motifs: triangles, lodges, spiral. The roof of the room (6 meters high) is beautifully built to the point that there is no water infiltration through gutters drawn in stone.

The mystery of the winter solstice. In the enclosure's enclosure, a cavity lets you pass a radius of light on December 21, which will illuminate, for that day alone the solstice, the corridor from a small opening at the top of the entrance and the room. This discovery was due to Professor M.J.O 'Kelly who began excavations in Newgrange between 1962 and 1975. But how can we explain such astronomical precision so many millennia ago? A mystery among many others in this intriguing valley around the Boyne…