so today, now that I am calm enough to think about what I actually did today, I went to Newgrange. basically it is the site of a 5000 year old neolithic tomb. it was one of the first astronomical observatories in the world and was a tomb as well. stone age men built this round mound 500 years before the pyramids and the doorway lines up perfectly with the winter solstice.
our bus tour was guided by this wonderful woman who owns the tour company and she basically was a human irish history machine. plus, I had just spent my last three class periods learning irish history, so it was cool to know and recognize all the names and events she was mentioning.
we started at the Hill of Tara, the old center of Irish government. and the fabled land of King Arthur and the likes. I know! coolness eh? it is also just a grassy area with mounds all over it. there used to be buildings on the mounds.
then we headed up to the site called Newgrange. there are two other tomb/temple/observatories called Knowth and Dowth (rhymes with south) and Knowth is being excavated, Dowth hasn't been touched, and Newgrange has been excavated. they only let in 100,000 visitors a year to help conserve the mound. our tour guaranteed us entrance into the tomb, so that was cool. we get there and to go in it, you have to hold any bags you have down by your knees, and you duck and walk in and the passageway narrows at some points and you have to squeeze in sideways and it is a lot of fun. above the entrance to the mound is a 'roofhole' basically a hole above the door and that is where the sun on the solstice shines in a illuminates the tomb inside. by the time you have walked down the passage and into the tomb, that roof hole is level with your feet!! you walk uphill into the tomb and don't even know it! crazy cool!
our tourguide pointed out that the tomb had been left untouched since it was built until around 1700 when the owner of the land realized it was a building. then it was unsupervised until the 1880s when it was handed over to the government. they have no idea how much evidence was taken away by visitors in that time, but there is graffiti in there from the Victorians. those vagabonds!! (sadly, it was kinda cool to be in the tomb and see someone from 1824 had carved their name and the date in the rock) seems we love vandalizing at any timeperiod. especially the victorians. no respect I tell ya
so then when we were all in the tomb they shut off the lights and it was pitch black inside. then our guide did a demonstration of what the sun on the solstice would look like and turned on some light on the floor to simulate it. it was sooooo cool! there is a large quartz alter in the back that the sun would have hit 5,000 years ago and it would have lit the tomb up!
did I mention it is a tomb because they found cremated remains inside? they did.
the mound on the outside is a good 30 yards in diameter, but the inside is only 6 meters high by 6 meters diameter. it is much smaller than it looks.
it was a nice short day trip and it was really cool to visit one of the oldest buildings in history!
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good thing you didn't lose that disc, we would have made you stay there and retake all of those pics! You must remember; us homebodies are taking our vacation through you this year! Seeing someones name dated 1824--this gives me pause--is this vandalisim, or is it history? It is history now to us that some real person from that long ago was there, and it is kinda cool to see, innit? New rule of thumb, anytime I am vandalizing anything, I will date it, and therefore be making history instead of breaking the law. Can't wait to see how this will hold up in court--do you think they will send me to gaol?
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