The Newgrange tomb is an even more sophisticated “cosmic calendar” than was thought, according to new research.
A Galway-based researcher says he has deciphered the famous spiral carvings on the kerbstone entrance to the 5,500-year-old passage tomb.
Joe Fenwick, an archaeologist at the University of Galway, says that the world-renowned Newgrange carvings depict the annual cycle of the sun.
In an additional finding, Mr Fenwick says he found that Newgrange is not only astronomically aligned for the winter solstice, but also the summer solstice.
The winter solstice falls on December 21, the shortest day of the year, while the longest day of the year, the summer solstice is on June 21.
At sunrise on the winter solstice each year at Newgrange, a beam of light begins to trickle into an opening in the passage tomb called a roof box.
The light makes its way up the length of the 19-metre passage and, as the sun rises, the beam widens so that the whole chamber is lit up.
“It is well known that the passage tomb at the heart of Newgrange is aligned to sunrise at the winter solstice,” said Fenwick.
However, the spiral artwork on the Newgrange entrance stone, as well as “kerbstone 52” at the rear of the mound, mark both the winter solstice – at sunrise – and the summer solstice – at sunset, Mr Fenwick said.
“So Newgrange probably had annual gatherings to mark both the winter and summer solstices,” Mr Fenwick said. “This is a new observation too.”
The artwork on the Newgrange entrance stone, which was carved in situ, Mr Fenwick said, has an arrangement of spirals on either side of a central vertical line.
“Those to the left of the central line spiral clockwise inwards towards the centre, representing the shortening journeys of the sun across the sky from the height of summer to the shortest day at the winter solstice.
“The vertical line marks the alignment of the tomb to the winter solstice.
“The spirals to the right of this line spiral clockwise outwards from the centre and so represent the lengthening of the solar journeys across the sky from the shorter winter days towards the summer solstice.
“In short, the megalithic art is an abstracted representation of the annular solar cycle centred on the winter solstice.”
Dr Mary Cahill, the former keeper of Irish antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland, said that Mr Fenwick’s research was “original and perceptive”.
“There is no doubt the art has meaning and was intentional and directed to deliver specific messages – I think Joe’s interpretation is very plausible,” she said.
Dr Alison Sheridan, a Scotland-based prehistorian specialising in the Neolithic period, was also well-disposed to the idea the carvings depict the solar cycle.
“Joe Fenwick’s elegant interpretation of the spiral designs on the Newgrange entrance stone, which builds on and enhances the work of other respected researchers, seems eminently plausible,” Dr Sheridan said.
“These designs may have evoked the concept of eternity, with the sun following its constant path, spiralling outwards and inwards across the heavens between the solstices.”
“This fits with our understanding of a sophisticated society, in which temporal power may well have been predicated – at least in part – on the ability to control the movement of celestial bodies, and to harness the sun’s power to wake up the spirits of the ancestors around midwinter solstice each year.”
However, Dr Elizabeth Shee Twohig, a retired senior lecturer in archaeology at University College Cork, was more circumspect.
“We know the builders of Newgrange observed the sun closely and were able somehow to track its annual movements,” Dr Shee Twohig said. “This is clear from the way they built it to allow the sun to shine in at mid-winter.
“On the other hand, I don’t know if it is possible to show if the carvings on the entrance stone were influenced in any way by the annual solar cycle. People have been arguing for and against this for a long time.”
There have been various theories put forward over the years to explain the spiral carvings’ meanings at the Newgrange entrance stone.
Some thought they were a kind of map of the Brú na Bóinne landscape, with the larger spirals depicting large tombs, with smaller ones, smaller tombs, while the wavy line at the bottom represented the River Boyne.
Other ideas were that they represented musical or mathematical patterns, a symbolic division between the world of the living and the dead, or spiral events in nature, such as tornadoes or moving water.
“This is the first time that artwork has been interpreted in this way, and it changes how we view Newgrange and the people who built it,” Mr Fenwick said.
In today’s terms, Mr Fenwick said, Newgrange could be thought of as a sophisticated solar observatory, as well as a cathedral for worship and ritual.
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