Knowth

To get to the buses that take you to the passage tombs, you have to leave the heritage centre and go along a path that takes you over the Boyne and some boggy bits to the bus stop. This is pretty different to how things used to be (before Newgrange was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site), but it keeps the tourists from traipsing all over the farmland and so forth. I was at least hoping to get down to the Boyne (named after Boann, of course), but it was not to be, so I stuck to making my offerings at the monuments. The view of the river is stunning, though, especially when the sun comes out:

The weather was pretty moody when we got to the centre, and we got rained on a lot at Knowth, to start with, but the sun came out eventually. Like Newgrange, Knowth has been reconstructed, though of the two I think they've done a better job of Knowth; it retains the ancient feel a little better, I think.

Unlike Newgrange, Knowth is a complex of passage tombs that are situated close to one another. There's a large mound, pretty much in the middle of it all, and this one has the decorated megaliths around it. Then there are seventeen smaller mounds situated seemingly randomly about the place, some close to the largest mound, while others are slightly further away. There's also a soutterain from the Christian period, and a small reconstructed "wood circle" near the main mound (that wasn't explained by the guide, unfortunately).

So the main mound has been reconstructed, as I said, and today it looks like this:

Each of these stones is decorated with carvings - all kinds of circles, spirals, squiggles, and lines. Some of them are in better condition than others (bear in mind they're about five thousand years old), and in the winter the site's closed and the stones are wrapped up to protect them from the elements. There wasn't originally that shelf that overhangs the large stones at the base, that was put in during the reconstruction to offer some additional protection, so you just have to imagine that the earthen part of the mound slopes down to meet the stones like it does on other tombs of this type.

The main mound is a lot bigger than the others, and eventually a settlement was built on top of it, which lasted from around the Bronze Age into the early Christian period. There's also a souterrain from the early Christian period, which you can usually go inside (but we were advised not to because of the heavy rain that had been pouring down on and off all day). It's the wee lump just by the stairs there, nestling in beside the largest mound and a series of smaller ones to the right:

Up on the top of the main mound there's the remains of a ditch that was dug into it, but that's about all you can see. The view would've been spectacular on a clear sunny day, and it would've been a good defensive site. There wouldn't be much that you couldn't see coming...

You can go into a small chamber inside the main tomb, but these days you can't go any further, to where the actual chambers are. The passage that goes deep into the mound is artfully lit, though, so I took a quick picture:

There's another passage as well, but that came out fuzzy...

The most spectacular part of Knowth, for me, is the megalithic art that surrounds the main tomb. Some of the smaller tombs have stones around the base as well, but these aren't decorated, for the most part. Nobody can really say what these symbols mean, but I'd say there's a good chance that some of them represent the surrounding landscape. This one:

Gives the impression of the some of the mounds or sites - perhaps Knowth, Newgrange, and Dowth (which are all pretty close together)? With the squiggly line at the bottom being the river?

Here's another one with the same kind of symbols:

A lot of them are just circles, though. Some are kind of like spots, others are more like concentric circles or spirals, either spaced out or squished together like this one:

You see echoes of this on the stones at Newgrange, too. Some of them give the feel that they're probably articulating some sort of astronomical information. One of the most interesting and complicated designs at Knowth might even be a calendar (I've heard it speculated, anyway):

This is a picture I took from the heritage centre, seeing as it came out better than the actual stone in situ. Knowth is thought to have an alignment to the equinoxes, with the sun illuminating the main chamber, although this is a little controversial - some archaeologists don't agree, because the alignment was only "discovered" after reconstruction, so the idea basically relies on assuming the reconstruction is accurate. I don't see why not, though - Newgrange's solstice alignment is still quibbled about in some quarters, but there's a tendency from the naysayers to assume the people who built the monuments were "primitive" or not advanced enough to figure out complex astronomical things. I think recent discoveries like the earliest known calendar in Europe, found in Scotland, along with alignments in other monuments, show this isn't the case.

Another controversy about the reconstruction is the presence of the white quartz. It's something that's often found at sites like this, and the brightness of the quartz means that we can assume it was used for a reason - to make the sites stand out. The bright white stones would practically glow on a bright sunny day, but the stones might also have something to do with beliefs about the dead (their use in these kinds of contexts persists long after the Neolithic and Bronze Age, too).

If you've ever seen a picture of Newgrange you'll know the reconstructed walls at the front are almost entirely white quartz, except for the limestone at the entrance (which is modern). Here at Knowth, though, the quartz is laid on the ground as it was found during excavation:

So effectively, if the white quartz was used to make the site stand out, the quartz at Knowth would be most marked from above, suggesting that perhaps it had something to do with celestial/astronomical purposes; people wouldn't really appreciate the full effect from the ground. At Newgrange, it would have stood out to people in particular, but not so much from above.

However... The quartz was also found on the floor at Newgrange (it was in a pretty bad state of collapse before reconstruction), but O'Kelly did some experiments to determine whether or not the quartz had always been on the floor, or had collapsed from the wall. He "back-engineered" a stone wall and collapsed it, and decided that the pattern of deposition - the way the stones fell - was consistent with how they had been found during excavation. The archaeologist at Knowth disagreed, and felt that the stones had always been on the floor. Of course, that doesn't mean it has to be either/or; each site could have used the stones differently, but it's an issue that's worth bearing in mind when considering how we see and interpret the sites today.

On the last post I included a picture of a "phallic" stone, which had two "horseshoe" shapes carved near the base. We see these shapes again at Knowth:

The stone is badly worn at the top, but you can just make out the two "horseshoes," side-by-side, on the main body of the remainder of it, with a straight line above them. Either this stone or another stone (that's basically the same layout), has another two "horseshoes" above this line, placed upside down this time, reflecting the two "horseshoes" below the line. What these shapes mean, nobody knows, but their recurrent usage is presumably significant.

One final picture, and then the blether is done for this post (promise!). Mr Seren was convinced that the carving on this stone is tantamount to a prehistoric goatse:

If you've no idea what goatse is, you probably don't want to know. Save yourself and don't Google it...

Up next: Newgrange.

Here we go... Newgrange Heritage Centre

When you arrive at the heritage centre - which is pretty far from the monuments - you have the choice of just going around the centre itself, or paying extra to go and see Knowth and/or Newgrange. We chose to do the whole lot, seeing as we'd come so far and all, and were given stickers so we could get on the buses that would take us up to the sites. Knowth was the first bus for us, but we had some time before we needed to get to the stop so we took in the heritage centre first.

If you decide not to take in the sites themselves then the heritage centre gives you a pretty good idea of the background and what the most important bits look like (and there are some things aimed at kids as you go round, so they won't be too bored). There's a reconstruction of a late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age house:

Which I think shows just how much work was done outside. There's not much space to stand up comfortably in the house, especially with the smoke from the fire, so really this is a place to sleep and eat. This kind of house would have been situated in a small settlement, like this (with Newgrange in the distance, there):

The Neolithic is the period when people began to work the land, and moved away from a hunter-gatherer sort of existence. They domesticated grains to grow crops, and domesticated animals to keep herds of meat and milk more handy. This allowed a more more settled existence - they didn't have to keep moving around so much, to follow herds of wild animals for meat, or gather wild fruits as they became available, and so on. This new way of life also meant that new kinds of tools were needed, to help grind the corn, or store it, for example, so this is the kind of background and context that we can consider the huge passage tombs that began to be built in this period. It took serious organisation, effort, and there was inevitably a reason for these passage tombs and the way people were interred inside them, on a religious, symbolic and spiritual level. 

There are examples of what people might have worn at the heritage centre:

Although the direct evidence for this clothing is sparse, so take it with a grain of salt, perhaps. This example is based on the kind of tools, like scrapers, that are often found at Neolithic or Bronze Age sites, which tell us that leather was a common material that was used. There are also lots of decorative items, like bone pins and things like that, which would have been used as fasteners for clothes, or as decorative hair pieces. 

Here's some pottery, with an example of a friction tool lurking at the back, to help start a fire. It's a rod of wood looped through a piece of sinew that's attached to a "bow," which could be used to spin the rod quickly and cause enough friction to light the kindling pretty quickly and without too much effort:

Some of the pottery here is pretty similar to pottery you find in England from the same period - I couldn't say for sure about Wales or Scotland, off the top of my head, but when I worked for a rescue archaeology unit down in England I saw a lot of this kind of pottery, and there's certainly evidence of contact between England and Ireland at this point in time (like beads and jewellery from the Wessex area, which is a pretty important area at this time period). Just to the left in this picture there's a saddle quern - a large stone with a slight depression in the middle where the grain would be placed, then ground down by rubbing a stone back and forth over it to make a rough flour. It's hard work, and this kind of quern was eventually replaced by the larger "wheel" types, which can grind a bit more grain, and do it quicker.

There are a number of artefacts from the passage tombs on display as well, like this decorated "basin":

The decoration is pretty typical of the period, and a stone like this is often found inside the passage tomb's chamber, set into a recess off to one side. Because most of the tombs have been disturbed by the time archaeologists get to them, it's difficult to know exactly what they were used for, but the general idea is that they held the cremated remains of the people interred into the chamber. Not just the remains of one person, but several mixed together, usually, and sometimes there's evidence of animal bones too. These might have been burned with the individual as they were cremated, or else they might be evidence of ritual feasting at the site. 

Around the basin there are some artefacts on display, one of which is a decorated flint mace-head:

The decoration looks like a face - you can see the eyes, the suggestions of hair, a beard, and stylised "ears." Working flint like this - smoothing it, and putting a hole through it so the handle can be slid through it and fixed in place - is a laborious process, and it might have involved the use of a drill that was highly advanced technology for this time period. The flint would have to be worked carefully so as not to crack or break it, and whoever made it would have been extremely skilled. 

The mace head was found in the chamber of the main passage tomb at Knowth, and given the amount of disturbance in the tomb - people breaking in to look for goodies over the centuries and millennia - it's a wonder it managed to stay undiscovered until archaeologists got there.

Finally, there's an object on display that's simply described as "phallic," and I'm not sure if this one's from Knowth or Newgrange (examples have been found at both, and elsewhere, though):

One thing to note about this is the "horseshoe" symbols carved at the bottom - these can be seen on a lot of the decorated stone slabs at Knowth, which we'll be looking at next... 

Brace yourself...

Pictures are coming (with plenty of waffle, too).

Last Sunday we dropped the dogs off with the in-laws in preparation for a short(ish) family holiday over to Ireland, and then on Monday morning at 4am we got up and got in the car half an hour later to make our way to the ferry port. Two hours later we arrived there, an hour later we were off on our way, and then after another two hours we arrived in Belfast. Then followed a glorious five days of trekking around an enthralling series of lumps and small walls, as Mr Seren refers archaeological sites.

Our original plan was to spend a few days around Dublin, then head over to Galway, up to Donegal, before heading home again, but we had to reduce our plans to spend a full week there down to five days, due to work constraints. So eventually Galway and Donegal were abandoned, and we ended up basing ourselves in Dublin for the whole time (which was much easier, really - especially when kids are involved).

On Monday we stopped off at the heritage centre at Newgrange and took a tour round the Knowth complex and then Newgrange itself. After being up so early in the day, that was about all we could manage - we'd planned on doing the Hill of Tara as well, but Newgrange took up the whole afternoon - so we put that off for another day. Tuesday was the Dublin museum, taking in all the archaeology, then Wednesday was Kildare. We took in the cathedral, the fire temple and round tower, and had lunch in the town centre, then spent the afternoon at Brigid's well before heading home via Glendalough (which was beautiful). Thursday was a days for the kids, at a waterpark, and Friday we headed home via the Hill of Tara and a leisurely drive through Navan, Kells, a few other towns, and a semi-accidental trip up the Falls Road in Belfast on our way to the docks.

One thing I learned on our travels is that Irish drivers are fucking terrifying. No, seriously. Terrifying.

Anyway, over the next few posts (probably more than a few, to be fair...) I'll be waffling on about all the sites I saw, once I've sorted through all the photos and uploaded them (and picked up the dogs from the in-laws). And slept a little...

New videos!

Back in March, my colleagues and I at Gaol Naofa worked on producing some videos for our new Youtube channel. Those first two that we did focused on St Patrick's Day, and our intention from the start was to continue on with videos for other festivals in the Gaelic year - ones that are ancient in origin like the quarters days, as well as the more modern ones like Hogmanay and Là na Caillich.

Yesterday, on Tynwald Day - the Isle of Man's national holiday (which is usually on July 5th, but it moves to the following Monday when it falls at the weekend), and we released a bunch of new videos to go with the two St Patrick's videos we've already done. These are (and forgive me for regurgitating the list I already gave on the Gaol Naofa website...):

Lá Fhéile Bríde:

Detailing the lore and traditions associated with the festival that marks the first flourish of Spring.

Là na Caillich:

The Day of the Cailleach in Scotland, which falls on March 25th and marks the beginning of the Cailleach’s rest period, until she reawakens in winter.

Bealtaine:

Focusing on the traditions and customs of the festival of Summer.

Midsummer: Áine and Grian:

Introducing the Midsummer traditions in Ireland, and the issue of solar deities in Gaelic tradition.

Midsummer: Manannán mac Lir:

Taking a look at the Midsummer tradition of “paying the rent to Manannán mac Lir, which originates on the Isle of Man.

What we want to do with these videos is give a short introduction to each of the festivals, and hopefully articulate a sense of some of things that we can't always do with words alone. We're working on some other videos for another bunch of the festivals, which will hopefully be ready for release soon, and then we'll work on finishing the rest of the festival year as and when we can. And I'm sure we'll find plenty of things to talk about after that! 

Before I finish, I'd like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who helped me and Kathryn while we were putting these videos together - helping us source pictures or giving us permission to use their own, helping us find music we could use, offering feedback, and generally being wonderful and supportive. Mòran taing!

Feed the beach

Somehow the solstice managed to sneak up on me almost unawares, so plans ended up being a little impromptu, to say the least. I had a vague idea that I'd go to the beach and do...stuff. Like I usually do. But beyond that my brain hadn't really got much further.

So it happened that the solstice was at the weekend this year, and seeing as Mr Seren was working, any plans would have to include the kids. I usually like to go to the beach around sunset, if I can, but that would be too late for the kids. In the end, after I explained to them that what "solstice" means, we decided that an early evening picnic would be just the thing. We prepared a wee feast (and offerings) to take with us, and set off with the dogs for a long walk.

This year I've pretty much given up on gardening - not for lack of enthusiasm, but because I know it's just too much for me to able to handle. Although I'm doing a lot better these days, my back is still a delicate and temperamental beastie, and overdoing things doesn't go well for me. A lot of the containers I've been using are pretty much done for now, and replacing them will involve too much heavy work, so I haven't planted any veg this year. Instead, I'm just concentrating on the fruits that are happily chugging along left to their own devices, but a side effect of my general gardening neglect is realising that what I had thought was a weed that was trying to propagate itself all over my flower beds is actually a type of rush. Which is very timely, considering.

The first Midsummer after moving here I took a long walk through the village, down to the beach where I made my offerings. That time I found a rock covered in tiny fossils:

I took it home with me, interpreting it a sign of some sort of gift of acknowledgement (as I noted in a long and rambly post here), and it lives on my shrine now.

And like I said in that post, it's not a fossily beach. Since finding that fossil, I've not found another one at all, in spite of keeping a lookout for them whenever I go. Except yesterday, while we were having our picnic, Rosie found an even bigger rock that's covered in the exact same fossils - right where we were sitting:

I suggested to Rosie that she should ask the beach if it would be OK to take it home; we mustn't take things without asking. So Rosie asked, and cocked an ear briefly, and then said yes, the beach said we could take it home. But we had to give something back in return. We had to feed the beach as a thank you.

Luckily I'd come prepared, with some things as an offering to Manannán to "pay the rent," along with some offerings to the spirits of the beach. We built a wee cairn right by where we'd had our picnic, like we usually do, and picked up some of the litter that had been left by previous parties:

And after the dogs had had a good run around and a swim, and Tom had given Rosie some lessons in skimming stones:

We headed up to the rocks where I usually make my offerings. First we made our offerings to "feed the beach," and both Rosie and Tom insisted that they should do it themselves, so I gave them some of the food I'd brought and left them to it while I prepared the offerings for Manannán:

It's the first time that Tom's asked to take an active role in anything related to our celebrations - I'll invite them to watch and join in with the words if they want to, and sometimes he does, but Rosie's always been much more interested in taking an active role than her brother has so far. So this was the first time he's really done anything by himself. He asked about all the different kinds of ways he could say thank you (in Gaelic - they've been learning a bit. Slowly), and I gave him a few ideas of what to say and he put them together into his own prayer.

When the kids were done, I climbed down into a wee cove to pay the rents while the kids watched the dogs and made sure Eddie didn't decide to take a dive down to join me. Tom started singing a random song as he wandered about on the rocks, and Rosie clambered down to be with me while I prayed and made my offerings. Once I was done, I climbed back up on to the rocks and made a libation (I don't like to pour drinks into the sea, in case it upsets the sealife), and the kids followed suit with some of the juice they'd brought with them. Tom wanted to know if Manannán has a trident like Poseidon does, and was very disappointed to hear that he doesn't. He suggested that we should make him one, while Rosie suggested that we could make a small boat and put messages in it that we could send to Manannán out at sea.

Just as we were chatting, the sea suddenly began to make a roar - the waves picked up and the acoustics in the cove must have amplified the sound, and the sudden noise was startling. The waves rose and lapped at the offerings I'd laid down, and they started to drift away. The kids gasped and got really excited and Tom decided it was awesome. We all agreed that our offerings had been well-received.

Rosie's resolve to make a boat for Manannán was cemented, and as we made our way home it was all she could talk about. By the time we got home we were all pretty tired from the long walk and the excitement, and we all just collapsed for an hour or so before the kids had to go and get ready for bed. I even had a short nap.

All in all, it's one of those times when I'm reminded that even the most impromptu kinds of observances can make for pretty powerful experiences, and being able to share it with the kids puts a whole new perspective on things; thinking about what it all means to them. Thinking about how it will shape their outlook as they grow older, and the kinds of things they'll look back on as being meaningful moments. In a way, it makes it all the more meaningful to me, as well; it adds layers.

But for now, the days are growing shorter and the summer holidays are looming. Six glorious weeks of no homework, as far as the kids are concerned. We'll hopefully manage a family holiday away at some point, and the kids are going away with their cousins and Nana for a while, too. One thing's for sure is that there'll definitely be a few trips to the beach again, if the kids have anything to say about it.