Bru na Boinne, 2016: Knowth

We also visited Knowth in 2009, but did not post much. So here is a fraction of the megalithic art there, nearly all of it on the kerbs.

Knowth and two its satellites

Again, it's the very large curb stones that present the "art"

Here are just a few...there are a couple score, I guess, Knowth by far the major
concentration of megalithic art so far discovered

The environs

More rocks

The "sun dial" stone

Now inside the great tomb, looking at a side view

Comparison of Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth

Knowth has the longest of all known megalithic corridors; interestingly, to me,
it is oriented toward the equinoxes, not the solstices, so that the sunrise of the
vernal equinox comes in one entrance, and the sunset of the autumnal equinox
comes in the other; so why the equinoxes? you ask...well, I guess, they didn't
have the Farmer's Almanac back then, and, especially if you were a novice
farmer, which everyone was, it would be good to know when to sow, when to
reap; I guess

Newgrange not far away

More rocks

More satellites

Special among the special places

Bru na Boinne, 2016: Newgrange

The bend in the River Boinne, County Meath, encloses one of the half dozen greatest of megalithic centers in the world, with Newgrange, Knowth, Dowth, and scores of satellite structures. More than half of the megalithic art so far known resides within this bend. We visited in 2009, and I posted a brief account, http://roadeveron.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/bru-na-boinne.html, which I can not improve upon, except by quantity of pix.

Newgrange at a distance, driving by; the white facing is quartz, from the
Wicklow Mountains, 50 miles away; must have been valued for something...
perhaps its luminescence...Newgrange is all about the sun...

Bru na Boinne, then bend of the river Boyne (chartered helicopter view)

The River Boyne

In the museum, home sweet home, Ireland in the neolithic, 5,000-6,000 years ago

4-seater

Neolithic toy

How to move megaliths...at Newgrange, they were probably floated down the river
on rafts, from a site miles away; then schlepped up the hill on log rollers; imagine
the work involved in just felling the trees and shaping the logs, using only stone tools...

"Symbols" found in megalithic "art"; no Rosetta Stone found as yet

After the bus ride, the front exterior of Newgrange, with the quartz and the giant
curb stones; also after the tour (no fotos) of the passage way and cruciform chamber,
and demonstration of how the roof box directs sunlight, at sunrise on winter solstice,
down the passage way to the chamber and the ashes of the dead; so imagine how
you would calculate that 6,000 years ago...

Vicki beside one of the decorated curbstones at Newgrange; rather more of them
occur at Knowth, next hill over

The entry stone (said to be the most photographed megalith in the world), the
entrance, and the roof box

We hope to be spending winter solstice 2016 in Ireland; but we'll
be home for Xmas

Proleek Dolmen

The Proleek Dolmen is one of Ireland's best known and largest. Interestingly, it is located on what is now a fashionable golf course and resort, but the signage is good, and determined megalith hunters can find it with little difficulty.

Little remains of the great house that once anchored this
demesne...

Nice grounds though

And rose garden

The signage was indeed good

But you still had to run a golf ball gauntlet

Finally, the allee couverte that accompanies the dolmen

Fellow megalith hunters

And, just a hundred yards away, the Proleek Dolmen

Right there near the 5th green

Thus

Non-country club environs

I have seen this sort of thing on golf courses in Brittany, but
always assumed they were just contemporary follies...

Castle Ward

Bernard Ward (later 1st Viscount of Bangor) and his wife Lady Anne had irreconcilable differences, and later parted over them. Before parting, however, they memorialized their differences in Castle Ward (built 1762-1770): he of the Palladian, classical bent, she, Gothick. And so you have here a great house in a beautiful Irish setting, the front half of which, inside and out, is classical, and the backside, inside and out, is Gothick. [I understand "Gothick" to be like neo-Gothic]. Anyhow, a schizophrenic house is something we could not pass up. Alas, the tour was so good, especially in its emphasis on social history, we almost forgot why we came to Castle Ward. And then there was the Game of Thrones thing. But I digress.

His

Hers

Ceiling of her boudoir

Tea service: you drank out of the saucer; if the tea were too hot, you would have a
servant blow on it

Drawing room (hers)

Interesting furniture

Ceiling decor; obviously I found her side of the house far more
interesting than his

His side bedroom

Piss pots; one of the many fascinating things we learned was that in Georgian
times it was considered the height of rudeness to leave the dining room before
everyone was finished; if Nature called, and you couldn't stand it any longer,
you excused yourself to the corner of the room and discreetly (!) used one of
these...

Georgian exercise equipment, helps with horse riding skills

Every visitor to Castle Ward was weighed coming and going;
several explanations of this: showed how well you were fed...
cut down on loss of silver, etc.

Your rang, sir? Episode #19,472

Housekeeper's rooms (Mrs. Hughes)

Nice if not overwhelming garden

Monkey Puzzle

Among the structures down the hill...

I lost interest in Game of Thrones when they killed off Boromir