SCI Sunlight floods inner chamber of Newgrange tomb

Melodi

Melodi

Disaster Cat
The tomb this morning was lit naturally by SUNLIGHT! YEAH! In theory, this should happen every year for about three days at the Winter Solstice, and considering New Grange was built 5,000 years ago that's pretty impressive! But most years in Ireland they have to cheat and use a hidden floodlight because the weather doesn't cooperate. Since this is a tomb, it likely that this once-a-year "window of light" was designed to either entertain the ancestors or more likely provide a path for the year's newly dead to leave the tomb for the after-life (or something like that).

In 2010 I think, there was even a raging snowstorm, so the natural light was very limited, though usually, it is just clouds and rain - this gives me hope we may be able to see the conjunction tomorrow night, instead of cloud cover.

If you want to watch the tomb light up (hopefully naturally again) you have two more days, the ancient people that built it obviously wanted a three-day window for their loved ones to get out and visit, get to heaven, or whatever it was they did when the light hit their sleeping chambers.

Happy Winter Solstice, I hope this is a GOOD sign, the world sure needs one right now! - Melodi
www.rte.ie

Sunlight floods inner chamber of Newgrange tomb

Sunlight flooded the inner chamber of the Neolithic Passage Tomb at Newgrange this morning, on the first day of three that the Office of Public Works is live-streaming the event.
www.rte.ie www.rte.ie

Sunlight floods inner chamber of Newgrange tomb
Updated / Sunday, 20 Dec 2020 11:01

Sunlight flooded the inner chamber of the Neolithic Passage Tomb at Newgrange this morning

Sunlight flooded the inner chamber of the Neolithic Passage Tomb at Newgrange this morning
By Padraic Geoghegan

Sunlight flooded the inner chamber of the Neolithic Passage Tomb at Newgrange this morning, on the first day of three that the Office of Public Works is live-streaming the event.

The OPW's annual Winter Solstice gathering at Newgrange tomorrow has been cancelled this year, due to ongoing Covid-19 restrictions.

Last year, 30,000 people applied in a lottery to be allowed to be in the chamber for the event.

Instead, the Solstice Sunrise event will be live-streamed from within the chamber today, tomorrow and Tuesday.

Newgrange was built 500 years before the Pyramids in Egypt and more than 1,000 years before Stonehenge.

When conditions are right on the solstice, a narrow beam of light penetrates the roof-box above the entrance to the passage at Newgrange and reaches the floor of the chamber, gradually illuminating the entire chamber.

The event lasts for 17 minutes.

You can view tomorrow and Tuesday's solstice event here.
 
goosebeans

goosebeans

Veteran Member
Thanks for posting. Since they expected the sun to flood the chamber every year at this time, I wonder if the weather/sky was much less dismal and cloudy, back when the tomb was built.
 
Melodi

Melodi

Disaster Cat
goosebeans said:
Thanks for posting. Since they expected the sun to flood the chamber every year at this time, I wonder if the weather/sky was much less dismal and cloudy, back when the tomb was built.
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That is possible, or it may be that the important thing was that the ancestors had access "to the light" during those times, hopefully with a sunbeam to light their way but even if there wasn't one spiritually the effect was the same.

The problem is that no matter what any tries to tell you, in reality,we know NOTHING about religion during this period.

There are some good educated guesses, obviously, these people knew their astronomy and like most of Northern Europe at the same time buried their dead in group burial chambers (often taking the flesh off the bones and stacking them).

A tidbit I just learned was that there was a folk memory of the light coming through the passage well into the 1960s, the original excavator in 1962 thought this was just local "confusion" with Stone Henge. But by golly around 1968,he found the opening and after they excavated the chamber - the sun shone through that first Winter Solstice morning, just like it had for 5,000 years until the chamber was too full of debris to work any longer.

So the local people remembered the effect, but they no longer had a clue as to why it happened, just that it did happen.
 
Kris Gandillon

Kris Gandillon

The Other Curmudgeon
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And another witness to the fact that the Earth has not tilted or otherwise changed positions, sped up or slowed down by any material amount, at least over the last 5,000 years, or things like this event would no longer occur right on schedule.
 
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