Gerard,

You are truly a gifted enlightener.

Fascinating. It must have to do with the idea of perhaps warding off the death of the sun, what with its "resurrection" at that very moment when the light streams in and illuminates the sacred center of the universe -- like another fiat lux that recapitulates the original creation in the form of a brand new year. Although I'm guessing that a human sacrifice took place at the point inside where the light struck, just so as to not take any chances.

We moderns don't really have anything that can match this kind of mythopoetic majesty except perhaps David Hasselhoff's slightly menacing phallic Christmas candle, or maybe Yasmine Bleeth's magnificent Hanukkah bush.

Beautiful comments about the most beautiful time of year.

Merry Christmas.

I was in there once years ago(in the summer unfortunately) if there is an ancient monument to man's belief in something outside themselves, this place is one of best. It is not to be missed if you ever go to Ireland.

Although it's beyond me how you get 100 people in there, it felt crowded to me with 7 or 8.

As John the Baptist said, "He must increase, but I must decrease."

Upon further consideration, I'm now imagining a sacrificial victim bound at the far end of the corridor, sitting at the inner chamber, surrounded by the priests. The moment arrives when the shaft of light illuminates the victim, which is precisely when the knife plunges into the beating heart. The sun draws through the beam its necessary nourishment to revive and go on for another year, and almost everybody is happy again, human sacrifice being defined as "unanimity minus one."

'Cept, Gagdad, the ancient Irish most likely did not employ human sacrifice. We are much too human for that kind of frivolity.

And the place is dry inside. Parchingly, dustily dry under the weight of all of those stones. In one of the most mushily wet places on earth, Ireland. They built for permanence did the ancient Irish.

Newgrange is part of a complex that includes Knowth and Dowth in the Boyne valley.

Could it be that the ancients, by constructing the roof box so as to allow the eternal energy of the cosmos entrance, as well as a way to allow offerings to be placed inside, were attempting to assure the immortality of the inhabitants?

Thanks for the real stimuli as always Gerard

I don't know whether the ancient Irish did or did not practice human sacrifice, but I've been suspecting in recent years that human sacrifice and even cannibalism were widespread in ancient times, perhaps even the norm.

Which is probably why monotheism and the Ten Commandments were such revolutionary developments in human culture.

Wow! Beautiful writing. And two thoughts it sparked: first, that the light of the world was born a few days after that longed for sliver of light presaging Him and second (yet again) how right Sophocles was about "Wonders are many, yet none so wondrous as Man" (on earth at least). Our family listened ghoulishly to the audiobook about "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman, describing how modern buildings would crumble, collapse soon the after humans maintaining them leave them. I liked this reminder of yours that some people knew how to build for permanence. Which led naturally to thoughts of the parable about the man who built his house on rock, as opposed to the shifting sands...Thanks for this.

Beautiful.

Have any of you heard about the Georgia Guidestones?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones

Yes, I've heard of them and even read a bit about them. Odd project. I'd thought to write something about them but couldn't decide if they were hubris or hokum or something else entirely.

"the ancient Irish most likely did not employ human sacrifice."

That is not what the Romans said.

If this thing aligns with the solstice now, it did not when it was new. The precession of the equinoxes has moved about 40% since then. There would be a considerable shift. Basically, all ancient observatory stories are junk.

If we know so little about these people, how is it we know they were Irish?

Is it possible the ancients believed they could capture the light and seal it into the tomb? Certainly we can appreciate the the significance of the slim light provided but once a year.

Related: The local Twin Cities PBS affiliate broadcast both episodes of this imported Irish series about 1 week ago.

Episode 1 neo-lithic Ireland
Episode 2 Catholic Ireland

These episodes can be seen in full at the following link.

http://www.rte.ie/tv/secretsofthestones/watch.html

From the web site:
Re-examining, redefining and ultimately rebuilding Ireland's most iconic ancient monuments is the core mission of Secrets of the Stones; decoding Ireland's lost past. In this innovative history strand, each episode will set out to separate myth from truth, find out what really happened and to bring to life Ireland's most visionary and nationally significant sites.

Kevin

I'm not impressed at all. It turns out the ancients moved approx. 200K Tons of LIMESTONE - as almost everyone knows LIMESTONE is a notoriously light building material. Slackers.

If this thing aligns with the solstice now, it did not when it was new. The precession of the equinoxes has moved about 40% since then. There would be a considerable shift. Basically, all ancient observatory stories are junk.

The precession of the Earth's axis means that it wobbles and describes a circle around the ecliptic pole, which is perpendicular to the plane of the Earth's orbit and stays more or less fixed. This axial precession causes the background stars to change over time, but has no effect on the Earth's orbit around the Sun or the changing seasons.

Modern astronomers take the solar alignments of these ancient structures seriously. If you were correct and these relationships weren't valid when the structures were built, then you would have to explain how and why Neolithic builders built their structures so that only now, thousands of years later, we would see these precise alignments. That would be an even more impressive feat than making the alignments work at the time the structures were built!

The book "Uriel's Machine" / The Ancient Origins of Modern Science
( Chris Knight and Robert Lomas ) has 50 or so pages on Newgrange and even more fascinating accounts of similar structures with what the authors claim were baptismal or birthing spaces for certain infants, conceived and delivered in harmony with the cycle of Venus, which in certain heliacal positions and at certain latitudes will, as the sun is described doing in this article, illuminate the chambers of the stone structure with its supernal light.

James, dna has shown that the people of modern Ireland are not 'celts' (people from central Europe) but overwhelmingly the descendants of neolithic farmers and hunter gatherers,most of whom came up the western seaboard from Iberia. So, essentially, the people who built the stone monuments are direct ancetors.
re: human sacrifice. I believe it did ocur though I've studied more of the British monuments of the period. By the Iron age,it certainly was happening in Ireland--look up bog bodies.the legend of Crom Cruaich,which takes place at a stone circle, may well hold a folk memory of sacrifice:milk,grain and children given to a stone pillar.
re: the alignment.Yes, the earth's axis has shifted but not as much as that. It's the same at Stonehenge; the sun does not and never has risen over the Heelstone; it originally shone between TWO stones.

I think that rereading this piece is a fine way to mark the solstice. Thank you, Gerard.

"And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years" Gen. 1:14
Some do not recognize the true Light even when they are surrounded by it. Another very good effort Mr. Vanderleun. As always, thank you for the inspiration.

If we know so little about these people, how is it we know they were Irish?

dna has shown that the people of modern Ireland are not 'celts' (people from central Europe)

Sounds right to me. Celts were later arrivals, probably at the boundary of the Bronze and Iron Ages. Stonehenge would likely have been built by similar people, and had nothing to do with (Celtic) Druids. You both have probably heard of "Cheddar Man," who even predated Newgrange and Stonehenge. His DNA has been found in some British locals.

Sure, Mr. Williams. And the Sun (and the Moon, but that's not quite as important) was created on the fourth day, after the creation of light (where did that come from?) and after even the creation of plants. According to Genesis, that is.

And Bible literalists still exist? A true testament to human gullibility and stupidity.

Happy Solstice!

What a small man you are, Mr. Christian. What non-existent graces you display. Is this some sort of pagan tradition, to belittle the poetry of another's inspiration and smugly assume it to be a triumphant aspersion cast?

Joan;

Methinks FC must be desperately miserable, the sort of individual whose acquaintance one would go out of one's way to avoid.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year to all.

It is both ironic and all too fitting that the allegory of Genesis is more grounded than the theory of three centuries of True Believers and the second raters who unwittingly worship their stink.

The great Frenchman-
Whenever among the opinions of a democratic nation you come across some of those evil theories which promote the belief that everything perishes with the body, you may consider men with such views as natural enemies of the people. If their system could be of some use to man, it would be in giving him a modest opinion of himself. But they do not demonstrate such a truth and when they think they have done enough to prove that they are brutish, they seem as proud as if they had demonstrated that they were gods.

Joan of Argghh - The Bible, treated as literature and/or poetry with due reference to the culture by which it was created, is indeed a great piece of literature. As a guide to the truth about Nature it is utter nonsense from beginning to end.

Witness also the two completely incompatible genealogies for Joseph (both patrilineal) in the Bible. Why is either of them there at all, given that Jesus was not the son of Joseph in the first place? And why is the family tree of Jesus via Mary (which might be relevant) not mentioned at all?

Witness the arrant nonsense about the Noachic Flood. Impossibilities abound there.

As a guide to the truth about Nature

Fletch, I like you, but what is the "truth about Nature"? The Bible is not a science text book in the sense that it explains molecular biology or chemistry or physics. It tells you why you exist. You can figure out the rest.

There are plenty of young earth creationists and people who believe in a creation in six literal 24-hour days. In fact there are probably as many of them as there are atheists. Most of us think both the atheists and the YECs miss the point.

Jesus, though, is a different deal. The "begats" differ because Matthew and Luke are illustrating two different aspects of who Jesus is. Matthew is showing Him as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the King who sits on David's throne. Luke is giving us the Last Adam, the Second Man that his friend Paul spoke of in First Corinthians 15. Notice how one goes from the Abrahamic Covenant forward while the other works backward all the way to Adam. Jesus is the King of the Jews; He is the Savior of us all.

Merry Christmas.

It was at Newgrange that I learned how claustrophobic I am. Maybe I could have done it alone but with the group--no way. The tour guide had a delightful sense of humor.

Been here but not at the solstice. The white limestone that lines the front comes from the Wicklow mountains over 50 miles to the south as are some of the curbstones that weigh upwards of 12 tonnes.

Following the trail of the neolithic people across Ireland is something. From the cairn of Maeve at Sligo thru the Burren to Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth.

mushroom - point completely missed. Why is the genealogy of Joseph (either version!) in the New Testament at all? It's completely irrelevant - after all, the father of Jesus was not Joseph. Didn't Matthew and Luke believe that?

Also, one might reasonably ask why the genealogy of Mary (who was human, of course) is nowhere recorded. The answer is almost certainly because the authors of the Gospels didn't think Mary's pedigree was important - they were writing about 1950 years ago, in an extremely patriarchal society.

In this instance, I don't believe there is a point to miss. Mary and Joseph are both of the lineage of David. It's as if you traced your genealogy and found that a few generations back your mother and father (adoptive or otherwise) were descended from the same aristocrat -- or in my case, the same drunken Scot bootlegger.

I have heard some suggest that the Luke lineage is Mary's, but in any case, they shared relatives since the line was somewhat constricted during the Babylonian captivity.

Matthew is clearly skipping around to get his "fourteen generations", highlighting key names to give a coherent and easily memorized version that affirmed Christ as heir to the throne and the fulfillment of much prophecy.

Also, I think the patriarchal thing might be overstated a little. As far back as Moses, the daughters of Zelophehad were granted full inheritances so long as they did not marry outside their clan. Plus Jewish ancestry could be traced through the maternal side so that a person like Timothy was considered Jewish despite his father being a Greek.

Daithi, 200,000 tons of anything is still 200,000 tons.

This guys lines go down like buttered pancake syrup.

I work with tons of limestone everyday. At 156 lbs per cubic foot it is anything but light.

I appreciate the quality of your writing, Gerard. This piece is very easy to digest, and I think part of the reason for that is that your writing is respectful about the subject.

I love the back story for all of these sites, don't you? They never fail to give me pause and make me smile because what that kind of construction indicates to me is that there have always been people who give a damn and are willing to stick their necks out to give real, measurable form to what's in their minds or their minds eye for that matter (perhaps one and the same). It is this quality that makes me love my fellow human beings, and in particular when people go full tilt into a construction project. I'm not talking about some slap-dash housing project or office building that the communists are infamous for blighting landscapes with, but monuments and structures that people look at and say Wow! You know what I mean?

Maybe I'm too easily impressed or amused or something. I'm delighted by the whole train of thought my mind goes on when I picture a team of ancient people standing around talking about what it is they want to do, why they want to do it and why it has to be a certain way so that it captures the essence of the why. And then their plans took on a life of their own, extending over decades, miles, lifetimes.

Fast forward thousands of years to boardrooms where teams of guys put together the plans for bridges, skyscrapers, cities and suburbs all over the modern world, and its the same remarkable story, just with maybe better materials and tools, done in less time. And think of how magnificent some of our monuments and structures are!

We are resilient, rough and ready, and have managed to come through the absolute worst shit nature has thrown our way, yet here we are! And we're still capable of being awed and of producing some really impressive monuments. We're still intrigued by our star and our place in the universe. So what if we, too, are rendered extinct? We were here, and I, for one, think its been a phenomenal trip all things considered.

The King is dead.
Long live the King!
The sun dies and is reborn.

Perhaps you missed the small, almost insignificant, line in your linked article: "Professor O'Kelly remembered a local tradition which said that' the sun always shone into the tomb at Midsummer."

The monument's roofbox was buried for well over one thousand, and probably for three thousand years. Yet the 'local yokels' remembered the solar alignment through all that time. After all, they are the descendants of the builders.

Good with a shovel us oirish.

Our ancient ancestors were much more in touch with nature's rhythms than we modern humans. The movement of the sun, stars, and moon were all studied for portents and meaning. Living an existence so close to the land where survival depended on knowing how the seasons affected all things directed their attention to what it all meant. It appears that the repeated cycles seemed to them a gift from a Creator. A Creator they first believed sprang from the Earth itself - like their crops and the plants that game animals ate to survive. As their tombs became more numerous and sophisticated, it appears their beliefs shifted from the Earth to the Heavens

We can only wonder at how these early societies managed to plan and execute such intricate, labor-intensive, and long term structures. It appears that the people all believed in the same vision and were willing to labor long and hard to make them come true. It also indicates that these ancients were well off enough materially that they could spare the time to build these tombs. Apparently their were no dissenters from the projects. Unless, of course, it is the dissenters' bones that are no found in the tombs.

If only rocks could speak.

Ancient customs speak of powers beyond the ken of normal people. That the customs are carried forward through generations lends to the truth of them.
My uncle Louie Lozko, whom we all called "Letsgo Lozko", he raised bantam chickens. He spoke of old traditions from Europe and one story stands out:
The chicken coops must be aligned with the sun, the door facing North and the pens aligned East and West. It is said that if the chickens all face South on the Spring and Autumnal Equinoxes the year will be filled with much sorrow and turmoil. He observed his flock for a number of years and observed no unusual behavior at those times.
"Dey all skvawk every day, hop around in coop, peck and fall down, alla same. Dey not even notice ven coop fell over mit vindstorm. Skvawk and peck, skvawk and peck."

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To Gerard, thank you again for the way your words illuminate the wonders of this world, just as the sunbeam pierces the darkness of the tomb at Newgrange.

Herb

"Our ancient ancestors were much more in touch with nature's rhythms than we modern humans." Yes, and notions about stakes driven through hearts are, with few exceptions given to psychopathic peoples, fancy.

There's a better explanation for megaliths, of which there are scores around the world sharing alignments, building methods, and apparent technologies: They remark the Earth's place in the heavens following a catastrophe.

The logical view is that ancient man witnessed a vast trauma and precisely notated a new sky in the most permanent medium he could, masses of stone.

The most compelling theory on this comes from the Thunderbolts Project. Find it on YouTube and see the documentary series.

Ancients did things for good reason. Given our slaughterhouse of a world, it's a stretch to make them gratuitous primitives any more than we know we can be.

Funny to see the pagan tolls showing up today, trying to tweak the Believers. They can go ahead and worship rocks, distant stars and dirt, although those things will never do anything for me, as they were made by Him.

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