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Knowth Megalithic Passage Tomb

The Great Mound at Knowth
The Great Mound was built over 5000 years ago, probably after the construction of
Newgrange and before the construction
of Dowth. The Great Mound at Knowth is similar in size to Newgrange and is surrounded by 18 smaller satellite mounds.
The Great Mound has two passages with entrances on opposite sides, the western passage is 34 metres long and the
eastern passage is 40 metre long, ending with a cruciform chamber.
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Images of Knowth with the option to display larger images.
In this aerial view of Knowth the enclosure on top of the mound is a Medieval Grange, the waterway to the rear is the River
Boyne.
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Knowth and the other megalithic sites of the Boyne Valley were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO
in 1993. There is no direct access to the Knowth site,
access is by guided tour from the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre located close to the village of Donore
on the south bank of the river Boyne.
Guided Tours of Knowth are from April to October, for exact dates and more
information see Visitor Centre.
George Eogan and his team of Archaeologists began excavating the Great Mound
and the smaller surrounding mounds at Knowth in 1962,
five years later they discovered the first passage and chamber. Subsequent excavation revealed
a second passage and chamber and
a collection of decorated stones that comprises a quarter of Western European Neolithic art.
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Secrets from the Grave -
Irish Times article where George Eogan talks about uncovering 18 satellite tombs around the great mound at Knowth.
They also found evidence of pottery, houses and flint artefacts from a pre-passage-tomb stage of early Neolithic
settlement around 4000 BC.
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Knowth
from The Sacred Island by Martin Byrne.
Engraved Knowth Kerbstone K15, possibly a sundial or lunar
calendar. Drawing by Martin Brennan superimposed using Photoshop by Martin Byrne.
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Lunar Maps at Knowth - the carvings on orthostat 47 at
the end of the chamber in the eastern passage
have been identified by Philip J. Stooke as lunar maps. The
right-hand section appears to be a map of the lunar maria. The remaining
two sections of the carving are simpler but crudely similar to the first,
sharing the overall arc shape of the maria surrounding the lunar central
highlands as well as an isolated spot representing Mare Crisium.
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Knowth
from Mythical Ireland by Anthony Murphy.
Calendar stone - a kerbstone at Knowth which shows that the people who
constructed the great mound were well aware of what we call the 'Metonic
Cycle' of the moon.
Lunar Stone - a
5000-year-old stone device used to calculate the
lengths of the lunar tropical month, synodic month, and the length of the year.
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Kerbstones
There are 124 surviving Kerbstones at the base of the
main mound at Knowth. The kerb is roughly circular and measures 80 metres (east-west) by 95 metres
(north-south). The Kerbstones are generally oblong in shape and average 2.5 metres in length.
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Equinox sunrise/sunset alignment?
Summary of surveys undertaken by Frank Prendergast and Tom Ray to determine and interpret
the alignments of the western and eastern passage tombs at Knowth. The findings indicate
that contrary to earlier suggestions, the eastern passage and the western passage are not aligned
towards sunrise and sunset respectively at the equinoxes.
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Knowth - A Virtual Tour by Bryn Coldrick.
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Knowth by Jeffrey May from the magazine
Current Archaeology.
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Knowth
from an Archaeoastronomy point of view by Paul Griffin. Archaeoastronomy is the
study and interpretation of solar, lunar and stellar alignments found at
Megalithic Sites and other ancient sites such as the Pyramids
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Knowth from Geniet by Victor Reijs,
includes cross sections of the Great Mound and good technical data.
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Irish
Historical Mysteries by Sean Murphy. "It has now become clear that Knowth is an even more
fascinating monument than Newgrange, containing as it does not one but two chambers, and holding on
its site the remarkable total of one-quarter of the known megalithic art of Europe."
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