Known as Bru Na Boinne, the tombs at Newgrange and the neighboring ones at Knowth and Dowth were built, not only as mere burial places but also as places of worship or initiation. Newgrange may even have been a palace of Gods. But whatever the original purpose, the fact remains that these sites are among the greatest surviving megalithic structures in Europe.
By far the biggest and most impressive is the passage tomb at Newgrange. The mound here consists of stone and turf held together with clay. In fact one of the many mysteries of Newgrange is the fact that not one single drop of mortar was used to hold the 200,000 tons of stone together. At the base of the mound are 97 enormous boulder stones, many containing beautiful carvings of swirls, spirals, zigzags and other symbols. Unfortunately, it is impossible for us to determine what these symbols mean but we can, at least, appreciate the difficulty of carving them into stone with only crude stone and bone tools.
Inside the mound, we pass through a narrow passage about 62 feet long, into a chamber. Here there are three recesses, each containing a large stone basin, where we can presume the ancient people buried the remains of their cremated dead. However, when the tumulus was first discovered in 1699, the remains of only three bodies were found. We could conclude from this that the remains were perhaps left for a time here at Newgrange's finest tomb and later transferred to other tombs. Alternatively, this passage grave may have been reserved for the elite of their society; the High Kings of Tara.
The chamber is topped with a most impressive corbelled roof. It is cleverly cut into channeling groves that have not allowed a single drop of water to enter the chamber in 5,000 years.
In total it is estimated that 1,600 granite boulders were used in the construction of Newgrange. These were taken from the Wicklow and Mourne Mountains ; all many miles from the Boyne area. How they transported these massive stones remains a mystery but it is believed that it would take eighty men four days to haul one stone just a few kilometers. We can understand, therefore, why the construction of Newgrange lasted for over 70 years.
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