Brú na Bóinne

Brú na Bóinne is an archaeological landscape located north of Dublin that has three neolithic monuments (and for all the Indiana Jones fans out there, “Neo meaning new, and lithic meaning stone”). The monuments area named Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth. My cousin Ben is a stone sculptor and was really interested in checking this place out. I am an archaeologist, but to be honest, I like Alaskan Archaeology, I don’t have a lot of knowledge about European neolithic archaeology. It is a UNESCO Heritage site though, built before the Pyramids and Stonehenge. Of the three monuments, we were able to visit Newgrange and Knowth. It was really interesting to walk around and see the similarities and differences. Knowth was comprised on one large mound with numerous smaller mounds. It had two chambers that had openings on opposite sides of the mound, and almost met in the middle. Newgrange is a large singular mound that has a single entrance tunnel that is dug to be perfectly aligned so that the tunnel and chamber light up at dawn of the winter solstice.