Maeshowe is a Neolithic chambered cairn and passage grave situated on Mainland Orkney, Scotland. It was probably built around 2800 BC. In the archaeology of Scotland, it gives its name to the Maeshowe type of chambered cairn, which is limited to Orkney.
A passage grave or passage tomb consists of one or more burial chambers covered in earth or with stone, and having a narrow access passage made of large stones. These structures usually date from the Neolithic Age, and are found largely in Western Europe. When covered in earth, a passage grave is a type of burial mound which are found in various forms all over the world. When a passage grave is covered in stone, it is a type of cairn.
A solstice is an event that occurs when the Sun appears to reach its most northerly or southerly excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere. Two solstices occur annually, around June 21 and December 21. In many countries, the seasons of the year are determined by reference to the solstices and the equinoxes.
Newgrange is a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland, located 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) west of Drogheda on the north side of the River Boyne. It is an exceptionally grand passage tomb built during the Neolithic period, around 3200 BC, making it older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids.
The court cairn or court tomb is a megalithic type of chambered cairn or gallery grave. During the period, 3900–3500 BCE, more than 390 court cairns were constructed in Ireland and over 100 in southwest Scotland. The neolithic monuments are identified by an uncovered courtyard connected to one or more roofed and partitioned burial chambers. Many monuments were built in multiple phases in both Ireland and Scotland and later re-used in the Early Bronze Age.
Bryn Celli DduWelsh pronunciation: [brʌn keːɬi ðɨː] is a prehistoric site on the Welsh island of Anglesey located near Llanddaniel Fab. Its name means 'the mound in the dark grove'. It was archaeologically excavated between 1928 and 1929. Visitors can get inside the mound through a stone passage to the burial chamber, and it is the centrepiece of a major Neolithic Scheduled Monument in the care of Cadw. The presence of a mysterious pillar within the burial chamber, the reproduction of the 'Pattern Stone', carved with sinuous serpentine designs, and the fact that the site was once a henge with a stone circle, and may have been used to plot the date of the summer solstice have all attracted much interest.
Dowth is a Neolithic passage tomb located in the Boyne Valley, County Meath, Ireland. It is one of the three principal tombs of the Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Site – a landscape of prehistoric monuments including the large passage-tombs of Dowth, Newgrange and Knowth. Unlike Newgrange and Knowth, Dowth has not been independently dated, but its features align it with the other passage tombs which date from between approximately 3200 and 2900 BC. However, Harbison (1970) dates the tomb at 2500 – 2000 BC. It is less developed as a tourist attraction than its neighbours, partly because the chamber is much lower, and partly because the decoration is less visible. It was partly excavated, in 1847 by the Royal Irish Academy who dynamited the roof causing the still visible crater, though it was pillaged by Vikings and earlier looters long before that.. Archaeological and geophysical field surveys of the entire site, including later monuments, were carried out episodically from 2012-2015. In July 2018, another passage tomb in the grounds of nearby Dowth Hall was excavated, revealing significant examples of Neolithic rock art similar to those at Dowth and the other Brú na Bóinne sites.
Carrowmore is a large group of megalithic monuments on the Cúil Iorra Peninsula to the west of Sligo, Ireland. They were built in the 4th millennium BCE, during the Neolithic era. There are thirty surviving tombs, making Carrowmore one of the largest clusters of megalithic tombs in Ireland. It is considered one of the 'big four' along with Carrowkeel, Loughcrew and Brú na Bóinne. Carrowmore is the heart of an ancient ritual landscape which is dominated by the mountain of Knocknarea to the west. It is a protected National Monument.
Listoghil is the large central monument in the Carrowmore group of prehistoric tombs in County Sligo in Ireland. It was numbered as Carrowmore 51 by George Petrie in 1837 and this designation is still used. Although the district of Cuil Irra is steeped in legend, Listoghil has never been satisfactorily connected with the ancient legends in the way that say Newgrange has. It is the only cairn in Carrowmore. Antiquarians in the 19th century made references to another cairn nearby at Leacharail, but the site of this has never been located.
Brú na Bóinne or Boyne valley tombs, is an area in County Meath, Ireland, located in a bend of the River Boyne. It contains one of the world's most important prehistoric landscapes dating from the Neolithic period, including the large Megalithic passage graves of Knowth, Newgrange and Dowth as well as some 90 additional monuments. The archaeological culture associated with these sites is called the "Boyne culture".
Corn Hill, also called Cairn Hill or Carn Clonhugh, is a hill in County Longford, Republic of Ireland. It lies north of Longford, between Drumlish and Ballinalee, in the parish of Killoe. At 278 metres above sea level, it is the highest hill in the county and has a television mast on the top which rises 123 metres above the peak of the hill.
The winter solstice, also called the hiemal solstice or hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere. For that hemisphere, the winter solstice is the day with the shortest period of daylight and longest night of the year, when the Sun is at its lowest daily maximum elevation in the sky. Either pole experiences continuous darkness or twilight around its winter solstice. The opposite event is the summer solstice. Depending on the hemisphere's winter solstice, at the Tropic of Cancer or Capricorn, the Sun reaches 90° below the observer's horizon at solar midnight, to the nadir.
Professor Michael Joseph "Brian" O'Kelly was an Irish archaeologist who led the excavation and restoration of Newgrange, a major Neolithic passage tomb in the Boyne Valley, County Meath, Ireland, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
British megalith architecture is the study of those ancient cultures that built megalithic sites on the British Isles, including the research and documentation of these sites. The classification sometimes used of these cultures based on geological criteria is problematic.
Archaeo-optics, or archaeological optics, is the study of the experience and ritual use of light by ancient peoples. Archaeological optics is a branch of sensory archaeology, which explores human perceptions of the physical environment in the remote past, and is a sibling of archaeoastronomy, which deals with ancient observations of celestial bodies, and archaeological acoustics, which deals with applications of sound.
Claire O'Kelly was an Irish archaeologist, notable as the first person to write up an accessible account of Irish archaeological sites. She was key to the realisation of the importance of the solstice connection of the Newgrange structure, and the first person to create a full collection of drawings of the decorated stones of Newgrange.
Knockroe Passage Tomb is a prehistoric site, of the Neolithic period, in the townland of Knockroe in County Kilkenny, Ireland, about 10 km north of Carrick-on-Suir. It is known locally as "The Caiseal".
Passage tombs are a category of Megalithic monument from the Neolithic period. They are found in most regions of Ireland but are more prevalent in the Northern half of the island. The usage period of Irish passage tombs date from c. 3750 B.C. to about 2500 B.C. About twenty clusters are recorded in Ireland, but the best known examples are found along a curved trajectory from the west coast to the east, including the centres of Carrowmore and Carrowkeel in County Sligo, and Loughcrew and the Boyne Valley in County Meath.
O'Kelly, M. J., 1983, Newgrange: Archaeology, Art and Legend, Thames & Hudson
