The 12 days of Solstice - Day 8 - megalithic art on kerb stone 52, one of three highly decorated kerbs

This is kerb stone 52 at Newgrange, which lies at the rear of the mound, exactly opposite the main entrance kerb stone. It is one of just three highly decorated kerb stones at Newgrange. The others are kerb 1, the kerb immediately in front of the entrance to the passage, and kerb stone 67, on the northeastern side of the kerb.

As you can imagine, interpretation of the symbols carved into stone at Newgrange and its sister monuments over 5,000 years ago is necessarily subjective, and there is a wide range of theories as to what various emblems and designs on different stones mean. My own view is that there's no great harm engaging in speculation - however, one has to be careful about ensuring that the archaeological evidence is not disputed by your theory. For instance, one gentleman I encountered some years ago insisted that symbols on a passage stone at Cairn T, Loughcrew, were figures including the biblical partriarch Jeremiah, sailing on a boat to Ireland. This same individual insisted that Newgrange is an Iron Age construction, and all the archaeologists are wrong about its date!

My own theory (and because it's just a theory, I could be wholly wrong about it) is that it might contain symbols representing Orion and Sirius. At the time Newgrange was built, around 3150BC, the declination of Sirius was -23º 2' 43.1". This means that its rising position would make it visible from the chamber of Newgrange, out through the roofbox. A prostrate observer on the floor of the chamber could have seen this "dog star" (or whatever it might have been called back then) night after night at certain times of the year. However, due to the effects of precession of the equinoxes, a slow wobble of the earth's axis, Sirius's declination was increasing, and over the next couple of centuries it would have drifted northwards, so that it was no longer visible from the chamber.

Some of the engravings on kerb 52 could be interpreted as representations of Orion's belt and Sirius:

On the right-hand side of the stone, there are three sets of three circular holes, known in archaeological terminology as "cup marks". Each of these sets of holes is contained within a double oval-shaped cartouche. There are a number of other cup marks on the stone, the most noticeable of which is one contained inside the vertical stripe in the centre of the stone. Is this Sirius, sitting on the axis of the site, which runs through the entrance kerbstone, K1, up the passage, and out the other side of the kerb in the centre of K52?(1)

Maybe it is, maybe it's not. This is the nature of speculation. But at the very least this theory fits the astronomical evidence and does not dispute the archaeological evidence - always a good starting point!

The presence of the vertical line or stripe on this stone led archaeologists to speculate that there might be another passage behind it. Prof. Michael O'Kelly excavated an area of the mound behind this stone in search of just such a passage, but no evidence of one was found.

References:
(1) Murphy, Anthony and Moore, Richard (2008) [2006], Island of the Setting Sun: In Search of Ireland's Ancient Astronomers, Liffey Press, p.178.

Celebrating winter solstice season with a new series of images of Newgrange called 'The 12 Days of Solstice'

The first image from my new series called 'The 12 days of Solstice' shows the corbelled ceiling of the chamber
of Newgrange. This photo was taken with a wide-angle lens while lying on the floor of the chamber. The ceiling
was not disturbed during excavations and is undisturbed. The passage is at bottom, with the recesses partly
visible on left, top and right.

Today begins a 12-day countdown to the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, which is celebrated every year at the 5,200-year-old Newgrange monument in the Boyne Valley. This year, as a special celebration of the solstice season, I am unveiling a set of images - one per day until solstice - based upon the idea of the song '12 Days of Christmas'.

Because the date of Christmas was undoubtedly chosen to coincide with the ancient pre-Christian celebration of the shortest days, I thought it would be a nice idea to do something based loosely around the twelve days of Christmas. However, instead of beginning on the special day, the series of images will be finishing on that day - the Winter Solstice - with the 12th image.

The series of images I have chosen is made almost exclusively of pictures that have never been seen before - with the exception of one. They show various images of Newgrange - interior and exterior - which I hope will evoke a mood of reverence for the ancestors, and perhaps an inclination towards reflection and contemplation about the deeper meanings of Newgrange, and how these might  permeate into our own lives.

For me personally, Newgrange is an extremely sacred and potent place. The idea - propagated in the abundant folklore and mythology of the sacred monument - that it is a liminal place, or point of access to other realms, is something that brings a deeper meaning to what it should represent for us, as individuals, and collectively as a society.

Newgrange functions as a mandala of sorts. It represents a prehistoric society's vista into an all-encompassing cosmology. It represents, symbolically, the earth, but an earth that is connected intimately with the wider cosmos. That connection is dramatically played out on the shortest mornings of the year, when a blade of golden light illuminates the dark cave in an awesome display that provides, for the modern observer, a moment of profound rapture. But it represents, more than anything, an image of hope - hope on two levels. The first is the hope that we can see the light after darkness, in a physical sense and also a psychological and spiritual sense. The other is that there is something beyond this life, something out there, through the "magic window", along the pathway of light, in another realm of existence.

There is much about Newgrange that is mysterious. But, when you've been there often enough, there is much that is hidden in plain sight. The antiquarians who visited the Boyne Valley monuments were, in some cases, undoubtedly looking for treasure - artefacts - things that would perhaps give them wealth and fame. However, the real treasure of Newgrange is far greater than any trinket of gold or venerated object of stone.

The real treasure of Newgrange is that it can serve as a mandala for us. It connects us with ancestors, those to whom we owe our very existence, and whose struggles through the dark periods of life were not in vain. It allows us a symbolic representation of something that is beyond the humdrum of ordinary life - opening a portal for us, perhaps, allowing ingression into sacred and divine realms. Newgrange - because it has endured and is still accessible to this day - offers an opportunity to experience a rapture and an awe, a pure exhilaration at the miracles of our existence, and indeed a space in which to contemplate the deepest of life's mysteries, those which were undoubtedly pondered by the ancestors of the Neolithic.

Where have we come from?
Who are we? 
Why are we here?
What happens to us when we die?

I hope you enjoy this series of images. I am very blessed to have been able to access Newgrange on many levels over the past two decades. I am, in particular, extremely grateful for the permission from the OPW that I have had to photograph its interior on many occasions over the years. I am especially thankful for having been able to witness the solstice illumination of the chamber, back in 2010. It is a very special place. I hope these photographs give you some sense of just how special it is.

Anthony Murphy, December 10th 2016.
(The first day of solstice!)

Only the guardian of Fourknocks knows its true name

Inside the ancient stone chamber of Fourknocks, a seemingly small yet very impressive monument of the late Neolithic, there are a number of intricately carved stones, some pristinely preserved.

The lintel stone above the western recess at Fourknocks.

The modern visitor is able to see, at close quarters, the careful work of Neolithic artists, people who lived and died in a remote age, when only the most basic technologies were afforded use by human hands. At Fourknocks, the lozenge (diamond) and the zigzag predominate. The angular manifestation of the glyphs is curious. There is one stone, above the passage, bearing concentric circles, and another - the original entrance lintel - bearing a rough spiral, among other curious designs. Most of the other decorated stones are devoid of curvature, containing the distinct angles of diagonal and serrated patterns.

The stones of Fourknocks demand from us an answer, an answer to an unanswerable riddle - why is the spiral, so predominant at Brug na Bóinne, almost absent from this wondrous little passage-tomb, and why do the angles predominate? We can only answer the question with a question:

Who can know?

I have a theory. But that's all it is - a theory. Unfortunately, we cannot travel back in time to speak with the artists of the New Stone Age, whoever they were - farmers, astronomers, poets, priests or magicians. So we have to make do with our own speculations, and our own vivid imaginations. My theory is that the absence of the spiral is directly connected with the absence of the sun. No sun can shine into Fourknocks. Its passageway points to a place in the far north, some 15 degrees (approximately) east of north. No sun can enter into its cold interior. Fourknocks, whatever its other purposes might have been, was definitely not a solar observatory; not in its own right at least. (There are other mounds in the district, and who knows what secretly oriented chambers they might contain?)

The spiral is a convenient and potent symbol representing solar movement. Over the course of the year, the sun appears to wind a series of contracting and expanding spirals in the sky. At Newgrange, the great entrance stone, facing the sunrises on winter solstice, is adorned impressively with huge spirals, one of which appears to end in a line that seems to point in towards the entrance to the cave, perhaps beckoning the sun to "enter in here".

The "guardian" stone of Fourknocks, said to represent a human face.

There is no such theatrical meandering spiral at Fourknocks. Here, we see zigzag lines and diamonds, almost exclusively. Almost. There is one stone that stands out above all others. It is one of the chamber orthostats, positioned just to the right of the passageway as one looks out from the chamber. It is said, by some, to be a crude representation of the human face. Not having access to the artist, or the instruction manual from which he or she was working when they carved it, I can neither agree nor disagree with this contention. There are more angles, and diamonds, and curves. If it's a face, it's a strange one. And yet I find myself drawn to the idea that it is a type of "guardian" stone, if such a concept even existed when these structures were built 5,000 years ago. There is a stone in the western passage of Knowth that has been said, by some, to represent some type of guardian. It has an almost owl-like presence - the owl being the Cailleach of the night, its call often attributed to the Bean Sídhe, the woman who cries out before death. As a place of burial, Fourknocks might have needed just such a presence - a woman of the sídhe to watch over as the souls of the deceased crossed over from this world to the next.

Fourknocks is indeed a sad place. When it was excavated in the 1950s by P.J. Hartnett, the remains of at least 21 children were found, along with burnt and unburnt remains of adults. By the time its period of use was coming to an end, the entrance passage had been filled almost to the top with material, with three separate layers or deposits of human remains. The passage was deliberately blocked up. It was intended that Fourknocks be sealed off. And so it was . . . until the 1950s.

It is a sad fact that all of the burials/deposits were removed during the excavation. There is a sense that the monument has lost an aspect of its sacredness, that the final resting place of so many people would later be stripped out so that nothing of the burials remains.

In being sealed up, Fourknocks shares a history similar to that of Newgrange (which points towards it, incidentally). Archaeologists maintain that Newgrange was sealed for the best part of 4,000 years, until Charles Campbell and his labourers rediscovered the passage entrance in 1699. Fourknocks lay concealed in the landscape for a long time. Because it likely did not have a stone vaulted roof and thus it didn't have a large cairn covering it, it was lost to time. The name Fourknocks is said to be derived from the Irish na fuarchnoic, meaning "the cold hills". But I don't buy it. It doesn't "feel" like an authentic name for a complex of ancient monuments. And this I think its real name has been lost to time. Local historian Brendan Matthews once proposed to me the possibility that Fourknocks was derived from the "four cnocs", meaning the four cnocs or artificial mounds. That seems more plausible to me than the cold hills.

The proximity of Fourknocks to Clonalvy tempts me into looking for a link there. Clonalvy is from Cluain Ailbhe, the meadow of Ailbhe, whoever she might have been. It might also be connected with the Delvin River (Ailbine). I am curious about the mention of a possiblity that Clonalvy was the location of a monument called Lia Ailbhe, a huge standing stone described as the "chief monument of Brega", until it fell in 999 and was broken into four millstones by Máelaschlainn, the high king. That seems like an avenue worthy of research . . . for there is something that has been nagging away at me for years that is telling me to find out the real ancient name of Fourknocks.

Perhaps only the guardian of Fourknocks knows its real name?


(I will deal with some aspects of the angular art and connections to the cosmos in another post).

Knowth kerbstone 83 - natural and man-made holes

This is kerbstone 83 at Knowth – or, if you prefer Martin Brennan's numbering system (which I don't), kerbstone NW9. Professor George Eogan, who excavated Knowth, refers to the style of art on this stone as the "lavish style". He does not offer any further insights into what the carvings might mean. Who can blame him? Brennan suggests the mixture of natural holes and cupmarks "seem to provide a starry background" to lunar imagery. This is indeed a peculiar stone. It's got a series of natural holes and linear markings (maybe a geologist can tell us what they might be called) and engravings that are mostly crescents, with some concentric circles centred around what might be a natural solution hole. There's also a spiral and a wavy line. A very long linear marking across the middle of the stone appears to connect a series of crescents on the far left with a "wavy line" as Brennan calls it, on the right. Curiously, a series of five natural holes (at least they look natural and not man-made) between the spiral and the wavy line appear to be enclosed within a cartouche. One wonders why. The stone is unique in having such a conglomeration of natural features and man-made designs.

Kerbstone 67 at Newgrange

This is kerbstone number 67 at Newgrange. It is one of only three highly-decorated stones - there are 99 kerbs in total. This is in stark contrast to Knowth, where there are many very ornately decorated slabs in a kerb of 127 stones. Most of the kerbs at Newgrange are composed of a stone called greywacke (also called green grit) and were sourced, according to archaeologists and geologists, at Clogherhead on the Co. Louth coast, some 20km journey by river and sea.

PS: The triple spiral partly visible on the very bottom right of the stone is a copyright watermark added to the image by me!

Heaven's mirror - as above, so below at Knowth

The interpretation of megalithic art is a highly subjective area. I have a tendency to go along with some, but not all, of Martin Brennan's interpretations, and am particularly impressed with his interpretation of what he calls the Calendar Stone. This does not mean I am an absolute convert to the notion that all of the Neolithic symbolism carved on stones in the Boyne Valley is cosmic or astronomical in nature. I like to observe and to admire the art, and in some cases to interpret it in the context of astronomy. But what works for the interpretation of one stone does not necessarily transfer to other stones. There's so much art - particularly at Knowth, where one is constantly impressed by the sheer amount of petroglyphs that one wonders how many different people were responsible, and over what span of time. I've been going there for years, and I still stand in awe at this massive megalithic art gallery, grafted carefully and lovingly all those millennia ago.

The above kerbstone is kerb number 86 (according to Professor George Eogan's numbering convention, which we'll use for convenience). It is located on the western side of the kerb, a short distance north of the dramatic and cryptic entrance to the western passage.

So what do I see?

Do I see the C? The opposed Cs, as George called them?

Well, kind of. But I don't think like an archaeologist. So I dislike the simplicity and arbitrary nature of labels like "opposed Cs". I don't think the people who carved them thought of it that way at all.

So what do I see? Do I see what I want to see? Perhaps.

As an astronomer, I might see crescents; crescent moons. And I believe the moon is everywhere in megalithic art. But no, in this stone I see more than that. Here follows my (very subjective) interpretation - and remember that the tour guides at Newgrange tell you that you can all have your own theory, and that everyone's theory is as valid as anyone else's. So here is my just-as-equal-as-yours theory about kerbstone 86 at Knowth:

I might see the arc of heaven. I might see the Milky Way, in all its glory, stretched in a spectacular arch across the ceiling of night, in the beautiful ancient Boyne Valley under the darkest of skies, unpolluted by the choking fumes of modern industry and transport, and unhindered by the artificial light with which we so alienate ourselves from the cosmos today. And I might see this milky road of the stars, this bright way of the heavens, reflected on earth by the Boyne river, which loops magnificently around the great monuments of Brú na Bóinne. Did the ancients think this way? Did they think cosmically? Did the monuments somehow proclaim their tiny place of presence and permanence in a vast cosmos?

In olden times, the Irish for the Milky Way was Bealach/Bóthar na Bó Finne - the Way/Road of the White Cow. The Boyne river is from Bóinn - Bó Finne - the river of the White Cow. The names of the river on earth and the 'river' in the sky had a similar derivation.

Do these carvings on kerbstone 86 at Knowth represent the idea of Heaven's Mirror - As Above, So Below? Is the sky reflected on the ground? Is the line in the middle representative of the demarcation, the liminal boundary between heaven and earth? All of the symbols are enclosed in a sort-of great cartouche, perhaps an indication of the cosmos as an entity with limits - something that ends where the stars are fixed, where the souls go after we gently place their remains in the stone chambers, perhaps?

Or is this stone's symbolism representative of opposed worlds (or even mingling worlds) rather than opposed Cs? The sídhe (mounds) were considered access points through which the Tuatha Dé Danann could pass between worlds - between this world and the otherworld:

And as to Angus Og, son of the Dagda, sometimes he would come from Brugh na Boinn and let himself be seen upon the earth,

Underworld, overworld. This world, the otherworld. Earth, heaven. Ground, sky. Conscious realm, subconscious realm. Reality, fantasy. Fact, theory. Objective, subjective. Tourist, tour guide. Tomb, womb. Decoration, language.

Say what you C. You are unlikely to be proven wrong. But have a go at interpreting it. Because if you don't, someone else will. Someone else will C what you don't C ...

A few pictures of the completed High Man art installation

The completed 'High Man' artwork, shown on Summer Solstice.
Photo: www.facebook.com/copterviewireland

The finished High Man project, sitting on a winter solstice
alignment with Newgrange in the background and Mound A
in the foreground. Photo: www.facebook.com/copterviewireland

Artists Richard Moore and Derek McCluskey, along with Anthony Murphy
and his five kids are all shown standing in the "sun" in this image to give a
sense of scale. Photo: www.facebook.com/copterviewireland

Walking through the giant man . . . another view of the artwork.
Photo: www.facebook.com/copterviewireland