YOU MISSED THE SOLSTICE AT NEWGRANGE!

Small wonder you missed the experience at the 2500 year old passage grave called Newgrange (Ireland) -- as next week between December 19 and 23 -- if the weather cooperates -- 20 lucky people a day will crowd into the ancient Irish monument's main chamber. There, they'll bathe in 17 minutes of light of the rising sun that lights up the passage of the monument on the shortest days of the year. This year about 28,000 people applied to take part in the ritual at the Newgrange monument, located in the Irish countryside in County Meath.
Each year as many as 200,000 people come to visit Newgrange, making it the most visited archaeological site in Ireland. I've managed to visit Newgrange twice but never at Solstice time. Access to the monument is controlled by the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Center. The solstice is the most sought-after time to visit the monument. So in 2000 the visitor center switched to a lottery system for tickets, deeming luck-of-the-draw fairer than a ten-year-long wait list. Schoolchildren pick the winners in late September or early October. For five days around the winter solstice, those 20 lottery winners a day are granted access to the chamber at sunrise. And on the day of the actual winter solstice--usually December 21--several hundred people also gather outside Newgrange to watch the sunrise.

The monument incorporates knowledge that could only have been gained through precise astronomical observations. "The people who built it knew about the winter solstice -- knew when it occurred, knew where the sun would rise -- and built a monument that took advantage of that event and incorporated it symbolically into the monument," says astronomer Edwin Krupp of the Griffith Park (Los Angeles) Observatory. The 62-foot-long passage faces the winter solstice sunrise. A little window above the door allows light from the rising solstice sun to reach the depths of the burial chamber from about 8:58 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. local time.

Newgrange is the most elaborate of several passage tombs in the rich agricultural lands along
the Boyne River about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Dublin. The number of area monuments "suggests this wasn't a small rural community of a few farmers and herders," Krupp says. "We're seeing something there certainly bordering on chiefdomship, if not actually a
chiefdomship." According to Krupp, the full story behind the purpose of Newgrange and its kin is still shrouded in mystery. "It is very deliberately designed and constructed to capture the light of the rising sun at the winter solstice, to allow that beam of light to fall on the innermost chambers of it--a place where the remains of the honored dead were incorporated," Krupp said. Scratch marks in the window above the door indicate that rocks were repeatedly removed and put in place to open and close the window, suggesting a regular gathering at the monument for a winter solstice ritual.

"The winter solstice is a crucial moment, in that it marks the time the sun has reached the depths of winter--its darkest moment, its death, and its rebirth," Krupp added.


Source: National Geographic News (7 December 2006)
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