Newgrange 2001
Pop quiz: Where can you find and visit tombs that were constructed before the pyramids? Answer: Newgrange.
This was very cool. About an hour north of Dublin by car is Newgrange. This is the location of one of the most important passage graves in Europe and one of the very few you can visit. Built around 3200 BC, it was gradually covered up with decaying plant matter and was "lost" until it was rediscovered in 1699. As a result, it was untouched by invaders who mistook it for a big hill. Big hill indeed ... it is constructed from 250,000 tons of stone, some brought from as far as 100 miles away on barges and log rollers.
It was excavated in during the 1960s and its richly carved stones protected from vandalism. Like Stonehenge, for example, or many Egyptian tombs, Newgrange lines up with the cosmos. On December 21, the shortest day of the year, when the sun rises over the horizon, its light enters the tomb and lights up the burial chamber 50 meters inside. This would make it the world's oldest known solar observatory.
These pictures were taken in July 2001.
Read MoreThis was very cool. About an hour north of Dublin by car is Newgrange. This is the location of one of the most important passage graves in Europe and one of the very few you can visit. Built around 3200 BC, it was gradually covered up with decaying plant matter and was "lost" until it was rediscovered in 1699. As a result, it was untouched by invaders who mistook it for a big hill. Big hill indeed ... it is constructed from 250,000 tons of stone, some brought from as far as 100 miles away on barges and log rollers.
It was excavated in during the 1960s and its richly carved stones protected from vandalism. Like Stonehenge, for example, or many Egyptian tombs, Newgrange lines up with the cosmos. On December 21, the shortest day of the year, when the sun rises over the horizon, its light enters the tomb and lights up the burial chamber 50 meters inside. This would make it the world's oldest known solar observatory.
These pictures were taken in July 2001.
