Lying in the Boyne Valley west of Drogheda County Meath, Newgrange is Irelands gem, in the history stakes.

The Megalithic Passage Tomb at Newgrange was built around 3200BC. The kidney shaped mound covers an area of over one acre and is surrounded by
97 kerbstones, some of which are decorated with megalithic art.

The 19 metre long inner passage leads to a cruciform chamber with a corbelled roof. It is setimated that a workforce of 300 would have taken 20
years to construct the mound.

The passage and chamber of Newgrange are illuminated by the winter solstice sunrise. A shaft of light shines through the roof box over the
entrance and penetrates the passage to light up the chamber. The dramitic
event lasts 17 minutes at dawn from the 19th to 23rd December.

Newgranges accuracy as a time telling device is remarkable considering it was built 500 years before the Pyramids of Giza and more than 1000 years before Stonehenge. The intent of its builders was undoubtedly to mark the beginning of the new year. In addition, it may have served as a powerful symbol of the victory of life over death.



http://newgrange.com/

Wow, that's pretty fascinating! I can't believe it's SO old! :)

And you the history major :)

Hope ya mention this in school when ya go back-educate ya new world people.

Haha... Well, prehistory isn't my strong suit. I know a little of ancient Greece/Rome, but I mainly know Medieval Europe (England and Spain being my sort of pet countries, but other places interest me as well). I know more about American history than most other things, too, just from living here.

Well Newgrange seems to be a pretty well guarded secret-I rarely hear or read of it outside of this country, it hasnt been commercialized, like so many other historic sites.

I can see you writing a nice paper on it in school sometime next year.

I can see you writing a nice paper on it in school sometime next year.
Hmmm well next semester I'm only taking two classes, because I'm doing an internship at the Postal Museum.... One of them is The World in the 20th Century, but the other one is Physical Anthropology/Archaeology so an opportunity for that might present itself in that class.

Are ya mad :)

Dont let Grandma hear about it-she'll drag ya off round this dump for another

wasted summer.

When exactly does the medieval period begin ?

Is there a fixed date, or century?

Technically the Middle Ages began at the fall of the Western Roman Empire. It's pretty hard to set an exact date for that though, but most of the suggested dates are in the 400s somewhere. If you want to be really general about it you could say that the Medieval period was roughly from 500 to 1500.

This is around the time that Irish monks were writing and bringing Christianity to Europe again.

St Brendan

St Columba

To name 2.

Setting up monastery's in Iona and Lindesfarne. We were a cultured lot when all the other Euros were running around like cave dwellers :)

The book of Kells is a good example of their work, called in to view it one day,

it was amazing, the colour and detail, you felt that were viewing History,

pity ya missed it when you were here.

Yep, I know all about the wonderful Irish monks. In Ireland, and to a lesser extent England, they basically preserved all the ancient knowledge that was pretty much lost to the rest of Europe until Muslim scholars brought it back a few centuries later. It's funny to see how texts were translated... from Greek to true Roman Latin to Arabic to Medieval Latin.... Then much later into the various European languages.

Yeah-the Moors, I believe their architecture in Southern Spain in something else-the alhambra in Granada comes to mind.

I guess the Inquisition put an end to that, one chapter of history closes and another opens, with Columbus :)