Before the tomb could be reconstructed in its modern form, the archaeologists had to remove much of the covering cairn and the roofing stones of the passage in order to create a concrete dome protecting the chamber. Other stones were braced and stabilized in position. The heaviest stone removed, using a crane, weighed more than 9,000 kg (ten tons). Although most were lighter, Professor O’Kelly wondered how the Neolithic-era builders could lift such stones. As an experiment he had some of his men, experienced in the handling of large stones, move a 900 kg (one-ton) stone using only rollers on a ramp. With a length of rope, three men were able to move it a distance of 15 m (49 ft) and 4 m (13 ft) in elevation during twelve hours of labor.43

The excavation of the monument yielded numerous finds from the area outside its kerb, including almost 1,000 flint artifacts and 274 pottery objects. Other finds were of stone, bone, glass, and metal, such as the Roman coins mentioned above. None of these objects, however, could be attributed to the actual builders of the monument.44 But within the tomb there were some items that escaped the attentions of earlier generations of treasure-seekers. A large hammer-shaped pendant was found in the center of the main chamber; nearby were a serpentine marble and some flint flakes. In the west recess a pendant and pieces of bone tools were found mixed with the burnt human bones remains. The east recess was the largest, and was extravagantly decorated on its roof (see diagram in gallery, and move the point of view upward in the virtual-reality environment). Recovered from that recess were a bone chisel, marbles, beads, and a pendant.45

Human remains, some found mixed into the earth on the floor of the tomb where they were discarded by the eighteenth-century visitors, represented at least five different persons, although there may have been many more. Three of the individuals were cremated; the other two were unburnt.

“However many or few were contained in these tombs they must surely have been special in some way. The number of workers and their families who built Newgrange must have been considerable and yet they were not buried in or immediately around it. We have no way of knowing in what way the people who were put inside Newgrange were special; it does not necessarily follow that they were royal or priestly, they may have been special in some quite different way.” 46

Were these individuals, whatever their claim to prehistoric notoriety, all interred at Newgrange at one time? Was the closing slab, now bolted to the side of the entrance, then dragged into place, sealing the tomb from visitors until it was uncovered at the end of the seventeenth century?47 An astonishing discovery made by Professor O’Kelly may have provided the answer and allowed him to become the first person in five millennia to witness a ceremonial event programmed by the tomb’s builders.



The Roof-Box

What was then known as the “false lintel” was first described by William Wilde after his 1847 visit (see photograph, above left). Wilde’s sketch of the inscribed pattern on this stone is in the gallery below. Dr. Wilde noted that it was discovered a “few years ago:”

“…the edge of another very curious, and most exquisitely carved stone, was found projecting from the mound, a short distance above and within the line of the present entrance… This stone, of which we can only perceive the edge, is five feet eight inches long; its sculpture, both in design and execution, far exceeds any of the rude carvings which are figured, apparently at random, upon the stones found within the cave; and as it never could have been intended to be concealed from view, it is most probable that it decorates the entrance into some other chamber, which further examination may yet disclose.”48

When Professor O’Kelly first removed the stone and earth off of the large horizontal slab below this “very curious” stone noted by Dr. Wilde, he was the first to expose the previously-unknown “roof-box” of which Wilde’s “most exquisitely carved stone,” was actually the covering stone.49 The archaeologist found a box-like structure, open at the front of the tomb, with another carved stone at its other end. The width of the roof-box forms a slit, or aperture, into the tomb, which was found shuttered by two blocks of quartz. Scratch marks on the supporting stone indicated that the quartz blocks had been removed and reinserted a number of items; similar marks on the surviving block of quartz served to confirm this.50

After repeatedly hearing a local tradition that told how the sunrise used to light up the triple-spiral stone at the end recess far within the tomb, Professor O’Kelly wondered if the roof-box aperture was intended to admit the light of the rising sun. The Winter Solstice sunrise, due to Newgrange’s southeast orientation, seemed to be the best candidate for this possibility. As an experiment, he positioned himself inside the tomb in the hour before the sun was to rise on the 21st of December in 1967. He repeated the experiment two years later and tape-recorded his observations:

“At exactly 8.54 hours GMT the top edge of the ball of the sun appeared above the local horizon and at 8.58 hours, the first pencil of direct sunlight shone through the roof-box and along the passage to reach across the tomb chamber floor as far as the front edge of the basin stone in the end recess. As the thin line of light widened to a 17 cm-band and swung across the chamber floor, the tomb was dramatically illuminated and various details of the side and end recesses could be clearly seen in the light reflected from the floor. At 9.09 hours, the 17 cm-band of light began to narrow again and at exactly 9.15 hours, the direct beam was cut off from the tomb. For 17 minutes, therefore, at sunrise on the shortest day of the year, direct sunlight can enter Newgrange, not through the doorway, but through the specially contrived slit that lies under the roof-box at the outer end of the passage roof.” 51

According to archaeologist Carleton Jones, we cannot be certain that the priests of the Neolithic culture that created Newgrange would have been inside the tomb to witness the phenomenon. However it seems likely that a select few may have been, while the majority of the community would have shared the experience vicariously from the outside. They would have watched as the officiates climbed up to the roof-box to remove the quartz blocking the aperture.52

It is impossible to know which, if any, members of the Neolithic community were allowed inside Newgrange to observe the sunrise of the Winter Solstice. Today, however, we always know by late September who the fortunate few will be, as a lottery draw determines who gets the privilege of viewing the phenomenon from inside the tomb. The event has come to symbolize a national appreciation for this monument of the distant past, with such significance that the video of the solstice is broadcast live and streamed on the Internet (see archive above, right) and major political figures are eager to be present for the sunrise at the tomb. What began 5,000 years ago as a spiritual celebration has now become a community ritual of a different sort. In 2011 there were 31,531 entries for the Newgrange drawing, but only 10 winning couples are allowed to enter the tomb each day during a five-day period when the sunrise effect is visible. Click here for information on entering the Newgrange Solstice Lottery, which takes place in late September. Photographs of the solstice sunrises may be seen here.

The White Quartz Facade

Quartz played another role in the construction—and the reconstruction—of the monument, one that was perhaps more significant, and ultimately more controversial, as well. As Professor O’Kelly excavated the area around the perimeter of the tomb he was careful to note the stratigraphy—where different materials occurred at different depths. He found at the front of the tomb a layer almost entirely composed of angular pieces of white quartz.53 Since these white quartz pieces were not found underneath any of the fallen kerbstones, the archaeologist concluded that the quartz fell off the front of the monument, perhaps in a single rapid event, after the collapse of the kebstones and the release of the weight of the mound behind them.54

It was this discovery that caused Professor O’Kelly to revise the planned reconstruction of the monument with a sloping face. Instead he devised a plan to embed the collected white quartz stones in the concrete of a vertical wall at the front of the tomb, centered about the entrance (seen in the first two virtual-reality views). His decision, and the visual effect that was its outcome, was controversial at the time and continues to evoke passionate discussion among those who are concerned about the monument and the accurate portrayal of prehistory. Called a “Disney-fication” by some,55 French archaeologist P. -R. Griot described it as “sort of cream cheese cake with dried currents distributed about…56

Others, such an the excavator of nearby Knowth, George Eogan, maintain that the vertical wall of quartz could not have been constructed without concrete, a technique unavailable to the tomb’s original architects. When Professor Eogan discovered a similar quartz layer at Knowth, he allowed the pieces to remain as found, a layer of white carpeting on the ground.57 Many archaeologists, however, such as Carleton Jones, feel that Professor O’Kelly’s stratigraphy study “makes a compelling case for the acceptance of this reconstruction…58

“Quartz is certainly a visually striking stone—it sparkles, it is luminous…It is not surprising, therefore, that prehistoric people attached a special significance to it…[the white quartz at Newgrange] would have glowed in the light of the morning sun and so we might suggest that there was some connection between quartz and the sun. On the other hand, the whiteness of quartz resembles most closely the whiteness of that other great heavenly body—the moon…Some researchers have suggested that because quartz comes from the ground but catches the light from the sky, it may have been regarded by prehistoric people as important because it mediated between the realms of earth and sky. Others have suggested the luminous quality of quartz might have symbolized the life force or perhaps even the human ‘soul.'” 59

While it is difficult to comprehend the meaning of the Winter Solstice to the Neolithic mind, it may be even more problematic to interpret the intricate carvings, the prehistoric artwork that decorates some 110 of the monument’s uncovered exterior and interior slabs.

Perhaps the most celebrated of these stone carvings is the triple-spiral that decorates the right-hand side slab of the rear (north) recess of the inner chamber. This may be seen in a close-up view within the virtual-reality environment; view it in full-screen mode to note all the detail of the engraved stone. This iconic “triskele,” illuminated only once a year by the sun of the Neolithic Winter Solstice, may have symbolized for the builders a connection between different realms of existence, a vortex enabled by the sunlight.60 The Newgrange art consists of a variety of curvilinear and rectilinear motifs,61 which are found on both the visible and the hidden surfaces of the stones.

The Newgrange entrance stone, also featuring a triple spiral, is considered to be “one of the most impressive combinations of art and architecture.”62 It may be viewed in an interactive graphic, top left. The art on this stone was created in situ, while the Neolithic artisans decorated the other stones before they were put into place. According to Dr. Jones, the Neolithic community may have seen this massive stone as a threshold separating the world outside from the spiritual space inside the tomb, with the designs communicating to those on the outside what they would find within, and the straight line that unwinds from the spirals near the top of the stone indicating the entrance to the other world inside the tomb.