About fifty kilometers north of Dublin, near
a bend in the River Boyne, sits one of the oldest monuments in existence. A vast, earth-covered “passage tomb”,
Newgrange is so ancient that it was already old when both Stonehenge and the Pyramids
were built. At the time its foundation stones were laid,
advanced structures outside Mesopotamia were practically unheard of. In Egypt, in China, in mainland Europe, in
the Americas and in Australia, the first great building projects their people would one day
undertake weren’t even a glimmer in some local leader’s eye. Yet here, on this rainy, foggy island on the
edges of the Atlantic, a bunch of Irish farmers managed to get it together to build one of
the greatest monuments in history. Who were these mysterious ancients, and what
possessed them to transform this random Irish ridge into a center of culture? With no written records remaining, it’s
impossible to say for certain. And yet, there are enough clues littered around
Newgrange itself to give us a tantalizing glimpse of their possible motivations. Today, Geographics is journeying deep into
Ireland’s mystical past… and uncovering the secrets of its ancient masterpiece. The Miracle of Light If you were to ask someone the seriously geeky
question “what’s the world’s greatest ancient site?” there are certain names you might expect to
hear. Stonehenge, for example. Or Petra. But there’s one name that - unless you were
talking to an Irishman - would almost certainly be missing: Newgrange. A giant tomb hidden within an earthen mound,
Newgrange today sits beside the River Boyne, about equidistant between Dublin and the border
of Northern Ireland. From afar, it looks pleasant, but in an understated
way. A manmade hill ringed by gleaming quartz. But make no mistake; Newgrange is far richer,
and far more complex than it at first appears. The first thing you should understand is that
it contains rock, lots of rock. How much? Well, it’s been estimated that some 200,000
tons of the stuff was used in construction, meaning it weighs more than Sydney Opera House. And those rocks aren’t just jagged lumps
any bozo caveman could’ve rolled into place. They’ve been precisely cut - so precisely
that the roof of Newgrange is completely watertight, and has stayed that way for over 5,000 years. Which, in a place as unrelentingly wet as
Ireland is quite an achievement. The rocks have also been engraved. Not all of them, but enough to catch your
attention. Grand, heavy stones with swirls and patterns
etched into their surface with remarkable precision. But it’s not just the level of craftmanship
that makes Newgrange so fascinating. Take its size, for example. Now, Newgrange isn’t big in the sense of
“big for a modern world in which we have the Burj Khalifa.” But it is big in the sense of “it probably
spent thousands of years as the biggest damn thing in Ireland”. The pinnacle stands 11m above the ground. The mound itself measures 80m across. Were you to zip back in time, abduct a random
caveman and drop him in front of Newgrange, he’d probably freak out at the sheer, awesome
size of a mound that would’ve had almost no parallels in Neolithic Europe. Well, after he’d finished freaking out over
being abducted by a time-travelling wizard man, at any rate. And this is still only just scratching the
surface of Newgrange. There are the 97 massive curbstones surrounding
the place, each weighing over a ton. A ring of quartz that makes its sides seem
to glow from far off. There are even two other, similar mounds nearby:
Knowth and Dowth, plus the 37 ancient tombs of Bru na Boinne. But to really get a sense of how impressive
Newgrange is, you need to look inside. There, past the ornate stone doorway, lies
a narrow passage, tunneling deep into the mound. After 19 dark and cramped meters, it opens
out into a stone chamber, with three recesses tucked into the walls, one of which once held
human remains. 6m above your head, giant stone slabs are
held up without mortar, unmoved since the day they were laid five millennia ago. But that’s not the real miracle of Newgrange. No, to see that, you’ll need to come here
in the bleak midwinter, and wait for the solstice. Provided there’s no cloud covering the sky,
you’ll then witness an ancient miracle. As the sun rises on December 21 each year,
its weak rays catch a perfectly placed portal, carved into the stone above Newgrange’s
entrance. Over 17 breathless minutes, the light from
that portal casts a glowing rectangle on the floor, which slowly creeps along the passage
until it suddenly floods into the chamber, filling it with light. In that moment, the world around you dissolves. The membrane between worlds collapses, and
the morning seems filled with magic. It’s a cool trick even for an architect
to pull off today. In the world of Neolithic Europe, it must
have seemed like a miracle. But who could’ve built something so spectacular
so long ago, and what happened to them? Well, we’re glad you asked. Into the Past The first thing you need to know about the
builders of Newgrange is that they’re a mystery. With no records left behind, all we can ever
do is catch glimpses of them. But only being able to catch glimpses of them
isn’t the same as knowing nothing at all. First off, we know they were farmers. The ridges and valleys around Newgrange had
been used extensively for agriculture by the time it was built. We also know they were a wealthy civilization,
at least for the era. After all, you don’t waste valuable farming
time building a monument if you haven’t already got stuff like food surpluses sorted
out. Beyond this, we can infer, too, that their
civilization had advanced pretty far in certain respects, like stonework and astronomy. Far enough to create a unique portal for celebrating
the solstice. But we also know their civilization was falling
behind in other aspects. Writing, for instance, had already appeared
in Mesopotamia at this point in the form of cuneiform. Hieroglyphics were on the verge of being invented
in Ancient Egypt. Yet the builders of Newgrange would never
master the concept of turning sounds or words into symbols. It would be this, more than, anything that
led to them being forgotten. The last thing we can infer about these prehistoric
farmers is that they may - perhaps surprisingly - have had links to Iberia. Iberia is the bit of Europe that today is
mostly made up of Spain and Portugal, about 900km from Ireland over open sea. While it’s not impossible that some ancient
Iberian dudes might’ve sailed all the way up to this rainy island and decided that a
life of potatoes and Guinness was preferable to one of sunshine and flamenco, it certainly
seems unlikely. And yes, to all you pedants watching, we are
aware that potatoes had not yet arrived in Ireland. It’s what we in Britain like to call a joke,
you massive arse. Anyway, the fact remains that passage tombs
like Newgrange, along with the pins made from antler that were found inside it, are normally
associated with the Iberian peninsula. What were they doing way up in Ireland is
something we can speculate on, but can never answer for certain. However, there is one last, extra detail we
can guess about the builders of Newgrange. They were ambitious. Insanely so. Around 3,300 BC, they began building the tombs
and monuments today associated with Bru na Boinne. They started small, refining their techniques. Restraining themselves as they figured out
their basic goals. Once they’d got the hang of things, though,
they went crazy. Within a century of the first tombs appearing,
work began on Newgrange itself. It’s possible the ancient Irish always knew
they were working towards this. We know an older structure stood on the site
of Newgrange that was demolished to make way for the current one, so it’s possible this
ridge already held some spiritual value. Regardless, by 3,200 BC, work had finally
commenced. To help you understand how crazy long ago
this is, just know that work wouldn’t begin on Stonehenge over in England for another
two centuries. And that would be the prototype version, the
one you may recall from our Stonehenge video that was just 56 standing bluestones. The MK II Stonehenge we see today wouldn’t
be built until roughly 700 years after Newgrange. That means that, to Stonehenge’s builders,
Newgrange would’ve appeared older than Machu Picchu does to us today. To put it another way, you are far closer
in time to both Christopher Columbus, and pantaloons being an acceptable fashion choice
than Stonehenge’s construction was to Newgrange’s. But while Newgrange might have been built
way back in the mists of time, that doesn’t mean it took forever to assemble. When its creators got going, they really got
going. Building a Piece of History Today, it’s thought that the building of
Newgrange involved up to 400 people, and took 30 long years. With people dying younger back then, this
means that it likely took an entire lifetime. But given the amount of work involved, this
totally makes sense. First, the builders had to find the stones. This wasn’t as simple as just locating a
good place for a quarry and then getting to work. The structural slabs at Newgrange all show
signs of weathering on their surfaces. This means that they weren’t quarried, but
rather found. Over in England, one of the theories about
where Stonehenge’s slabs came from suggests they were left behind by retreating glaciers. In Newgrange’s case, that’s almost certainly
what happened. So each of these big stones first needed to
be located, which could’ve taken God knows how long. While that was happening, others would’ve
been spending years figuring out the precise point where the winter solstice sun would
slice through the sky, so they could build their stone portal. That being done, the smaller stones for building
also needed to be found. These stones came from vast distances apart. There are some that were dragged up from the
Wicklow Mountains some 114km to the south. Some that were dragged down from County Down
over 100km to the north. Others came from the Mourne Mountains almost
as far away. The gravel was quarried locally from a vast
pit. If these ancient farmers had been intending
to build a monument that symbolized the whole of Ireland pulling together, they couldn’t
have done a better job. The transportation of the stones was most
likely done via boat, first sailing them along the Irish Sea, then down into the Boyne River. However, that would still have left the builders
with a near kilometer slope they needed to drag all those rocks up. Ropes and timber rollers would’ve been essential,
which would’ve involved yet more work to make. All in all, it was a gigantic project, likely
the biggest the British Isles - possibly the European continent - had yet seen. And here’s the kicker. We still don’t really know why they bothered. Why did these long-dead guys go to all this
effort? Most of the theories tend to focus on the
remarkable solstice effect of the roof-box. Being farmers, it could be that the Neolithic
Irish linked Newgrange with the cycle of death and renewal that surrounded the winter solstice
each year - the return of their crops from a dead land. On the other hand, it could’ve been more
of a spiritual act. We know Newgrange is a passage tomb that,
no matter what else it may have been used for, stored the remains of cremated bodies. It’s been suggested that the sunbeam piercing
the tomb each winter could’ve been intended as a literal pathway, one leading the spirits
of the dead out their tomb, and into whatever afterlife these people believed in. Or maybe Newgrange’s use was more prosaic. As with many Neolithic sites, some have argued
that the solstice alignment was more to do with creating a giant astronomical calendar. But there’s another possibility, too. One that’s not accepted by many archeologists,
but that we should cover nonetheless. What if Newgrange isn’t a prehistoric site
at all? Controversy and Decline It wasn’t until the mid-20th Century that
Newgrange finally underwent extensive restorations to become the site we know today. Prior to that, it was little more than a giant,
muddy mound with an ornate entrance. You can even find old pictures online of cows
grazing on top of it. Because of this, modern Newgrange has some
features that are controversial today. For example, it’s not entirely certain the
brilliant quartz facade was meant to be a wall at all. It could be the quartz was supposed to lie
on the ground in a ring around the monument. But there’s one aspect of the restoration
that is very hotly contested. According to a small, yet vocal group of academics,
the roof-box that allows the amazing solstice spectacle to happen wasn’t originally there. In fact, it was only constructed 50 years
ago. We really need to be clear that this isn’t
a mainstream view. The vast majority believe Newgrange today
is substantially the same as it was thousands of years ago. On the other hand, the anti-roof-box faction
aren’t just cranks. Their most-vocal champion is Michael Gibbons,
an archeologist who used to be co-director of Ireland’s Office of Public Works’ national
sites and monuments record office. In 2016, he co-authored a paper arguing that
the roof-box was created by accident during the 20th Century restoration, rather than
being an ancient feature. But his argument went even deeper. Rather than a Neolithic site, Gibbons contended
that Newgrange should be recognized instead as “a Hiberno-Roman cult site” For those of us not up on our ancient designations,
“Hibernia” was the classical name for Ireland. While Ireland was never conquered by the Romans,
they certainly popped over from Britain for visits, and we know they spent time at Newgrange
because of all the crap they left lying around. What Gibbons and others argue is that, in
our rush to declare Newgrange a Neolithic site, we ignored a ton of evidence that it
reached its present form and got its most use during the Roman era. Since we’re YouTubers rather than trained
archeologists, we’re not going to make a judgement call on this. All we’re going to do is inform you that
this theory exists, that it’s not mainstream, and that you can read more about it yourself
if you wish. And now back to our main narrative. Although Newgrange was finished all the way
back in 3,200 BC, that wasn’t the end of the work. Over the next few hundred years, the Bru na
Boinne site was gradually added to, until it was a vast place of likely deep spiritual
importance. Unfortunately for those who’d built it,
it wouldn’t be theirs for much longer. Around 2,500 BC, the Beaker Folk - still our
favorite historical civilization named after a Muppets character - arrived in the British
Isles. Known for their distinctive pottery “beaker”
cups, they quickly overran both Great Britain and Ireland. Modern genetic testing shows that they almost
completely replaced the native populations in just a few hundred years. But replacing the natives isn’t the same
as totally destroying their culture. Not long after their arrival, around 2,200
BC, the Beaker Folk began incorporating Newgrange into their own rituals. A huge enclosure of wooden posts was built
around the monument, in which the cremated remains of animals were buried. Just a couple of centuries later, the wooden
posts were in turn replaced by a stone circle. Beyond this, though, construction simply stopped. For whatever reason, this Beaker stone circle
was the last addition ever made to Newgrange. Although the site itself would be visited
by both the Iron Age Celts and the Romans, its era of growth was over. Now all that remained was for Newgrange to
be forgotten. Lost Past It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when Newgrange
vanished from Ireland’s consciousness. Some have suggested it was already a relic
by the Iron Age, although evidence seems to show that the Celts visited it. Others have pinpointed the Roman era on the
British Isles as Newgrange’s endpoint. Though, as we’ve seen, Roman relics uncovered
suggest the place still held some importance for them. That leaves just one other major shift in
Irish history when Newgrange could’ve been forgotten: the arrival of Christianity. It was around the 5th Century AD that Christianity
finally reached this remote corner of Europe. By then, Newgrange hadn’t been added to
for over 2,000 years. In our own time, the Colosseum in Rome has
had facelifts more recently than that. So it seems likely that Newgrange was already
little more than a curiosity; a remnant of some long-dead civilization. But Christianity, with its prohibitions against
pagan sites, seems to have pushed it over the edge. Quite how things unfolded, we’re not exactly
sure. All we know is that it was likely around this
time that Newgrange was totally abandoned. And then, as time passed and the years rolled
on, it was eventually forgotten about altogether. Still, some trace of cultural memory did survive,
even if it was only in the form of knowing about a mound that was full of stones. Over the following centuries, the odd builder
would come by and dig some of that stone out every now and then, though thankfully never
enough to compromise the site. Eventually, the monument wound up inside the
lands of Mellifont Abbey. It’s here that the name Newgrange comes
from, “grange” being a word for farm. As for the “new” part… well, it’s
kind of like how New York or New England still retain the word in their names, despite being
centuries old. At some point, the area was part of the abbey’s
new grange, or farm, and the name stuck. Even after the abbey closed in 1539, the mound
continued to be known as Newgrange. That its true nature was ever rediscovered
is thanks almost entirely to one notorious battle. In 1688, a complex series of events saw the
Catholic king of Britain, James II, deposed and replaced by a Dutch Protestant known as
William of Orange. Although William’s takeover of England and
Wales was so bloodless it became known as the Glorious Revolution, in Ireland it was
a different matter. There, local Catholics rallied to the former
king’s cause. The result was William invading Ireland. His troops and James’s finally met on July
1, 1690. Their epic smackdown would become known as
the Battle of the Boyne. Today, the Battle remains a cultural flashpoint,
especially in Northern Ireland. But for our purposes, it’s what came next
that’s important. In the aftermath of the Protestant victory,
William doled out land to all his supporters. Among them was Charles Campbell, who was gifted
the land Newgrange stood on. Nine years later, Campbell was in need of
stone for his estate, and told his laborers to go find some. It was this improbable chain of events that
would lead to the rediscovery of Newgrange. Past Regained In 1699, the Welsh antiquary Edward Lhwyd
(pronounced “Lloyd”) just happened to be visiting Ireland. A friend of Sir Isaac Newton, Lhwyd was a
keen scholar with a remarkable eye for detail. He was also hugely passionate about anything
ancient. So when word reached him that some laborers
on the estate of one Charles Campbell had accidentally discovered a secret cave while
digging up rocks, he rushed to investigate. That “cave”, of course, was none other
than the entrance to Newgrange. And Lhwyd was able to get there in time to
see most of the excavations and make detailed notes. It was from the four letters he wrote that
we get our earliest scholarly description of Newgrange. Nowadays, Lhwyd’s letters are useful as
a reference point when doing work on Newgrange and tracing its architectural history. But, in the late 17th and early 18th centuries,
they were also extremely useful for building interest. It was thanks to Lhwyd’s work that Sir Thomas
Molyneux came to Campbell’s estate to visit Newgrange. When Molyneux published his own book in 1726,
it in turn enticed even more scholars to Ireland. Over the next century and a half, roughly
200 antiquarians visited Newgrange. Some were serious scholars there to learn,
while others were basically crackpots there to stoke their own wacko theories. And some of these theories were seriously
wacko. Since most of these history-loving dudes came
from non-Irish backgrounds, most of them were convinced the ancient Irish could never have
built such a structure. Instead, they twisted themselves in knots
“proving” that its real builders were the Vikings, or even the Egyptians - presumably
while taking a short break from building the Pyramids. Still, this flood of interest did have one
positive effect. By 1882, Newgrange was well-known enough that
it was included in the British Ancient Monuments Protection Act. Since Ireland was part of the United Kingdom
back then, that meant conservation efforts finally began. Even so, it would take many, many decades
for Newgrange to be properly excavated. It wasn’t until 1962 that archeologist Michael
J. O’Kelly started restoration work at the site. In the end, it took 11 years for O’Kelly
to return it to its original glory. The Newgrange you see in modern photos? It didn’t look like that until 1973. Today, Newgrange is on UNESCO’s World Heritage
list, and regarded as one of the greatest, best-preserved Neolithic sites in Europe. And yet, for some strange reason, it still
remains relatively unknown. Take visitor numbers. In the last couple of years, Newgrange has
recorded up to 200,000 visitors annually. Stonehenge, on the other hand, has recorded
between 850,000 and nearly 1.5 million. Then there’s wider awareness. While Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, the Pyramids,
Petra, and a whole slew of other prehistoric sites are instantly recognizable, knowledge
of Newgrange remains mostly confined to people who either have a connection to Ireland, or
are massive history nerds like us. And this is a real shame. As we’ve seen today, Newgrange is a masterpiece
of ancient architecture; a monument that - at the time it was built - was unrivaled perhaps
anywhere on Earth. In short, it deserves to be more widely known. It’s significance to our shared history
more frequently celebrated. Because it was here, in this wet corner of
this one rainy island, that a bunch of long-forgotten farmers decided to do something that had never
been done before. To build a monument that would last for centuries. With today’s video, we hope we’ve shown
that - against the odds - they succeeded.
