Winter Solstice 2008 at Newgrange-Dec21st.

[Antaletriangle]

Passage Grave in Co. Meath. Open daily, with ghttp://archaeology.about.com/b/2008/12/13/winter-solstice-2008-at-newgrange.htm
Mark your calendars—next weekend is the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. After that, the days will be getting longer, although this year it certainly doesn't always seem possible that things really could change.

Guided tours in summer, this remarkable tomb has been degraded by “restoration” and by its status as one of Ireland’s top three tourist attractions and the only prehistoric tomb that most visitors to – and natives of - Ireland can be bothered to see.

Under the pressure of coachloads, the casually curious, and the faintly-inquisitive, not to mention the fatuously ver-restored façade, it has lost all its atmosphere. To this extent it is in a far worse state than Stonehenge. Books and photographs “explaining” it can be bought on site – and there are many websites doing much the same.

Around the tomb is a free-standing circle of stones erected after the tomb by late-Neolithic “Beaker-people” from Northern Britain, who also built a smaller circle at Ballynoe in county Down. Twelve out of an original 35 survive. There are also satellite-tombs, some of which have also been excavated.

~ Slightly over 1 km NW of Newgrange is the even more complex, marvellous and even more pillaged tomb of Knowth, also with satellite tombs. It is due to be sold to mass-tourism in the same way as Newgrange - and the less said about allegations of manufacturing and altering archæological evidence the better.



Fortunately for us skeptics, just like last year, the Irish Office of Public Works (OPW) will be webcasting again from the megalithic tomb of Newgrange in Ireland, Sunday morning, December 21, 2008, from 8:30 to 9:30 am GMT. Sunrise is at 8.58 am, but the sun creeping slowly into the passageway into the depths of the 5,200-year-old Newgrange tomb is a sight to be seen.

If you can't get up that early (or late, as the case may be), archaeoastronomer Victor Reijs made an compressed video of last year's OPW webcast. The six minute video combines two images from the passageway inside of the tomb, one of the sunrise from the top of the tomb, and one from the chamber ceiling. Music by Clannad.

Michael at Knowth.com reports that over 300,000 people watched the sunrise via the Internet last year, and we swamped the server, so this year they've increased the capacity.
http://www.newgrange.com/webcast_08.htm
Below 2007 sunrise.Music clannad,magical ring.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KNVIw061vJ4

[Antaletriangle]

Today is the day me mukkas!!
I can't get to any circle!!

[Antaletriangle]

http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=1c3...7-d07bf66cafc9

Ancient cultures all over the world developed various legends, traditions and customs to help them cope with their own particular circumstances.

For eons, the one constant the world over was the observance of the winter and summer solstices. It’s amazing to me that without clocks, computers or TV shows to count the minutes, they knew that in the cold months the days got shorter and shorter until on or about Dec. 21, which was and still is the shortest day of the year.

The word “solstice” means “sun stationary” because the sun rises and sets in the same place for a few days. I doubt that the ancients could calculate it down to the minute (it’s 7:04 A.M. this year) but they would know that this Sunday is the longest night of the year. And they would celebrate.

Some solstice celebrations were jolly and some were fearful, but all involved using fire to entice the sun to return instead of continuing to retreat day after day until it didn’t come up at all and everybody would die. Prematurely.

So every winter Solstice, I invoke my inner Druid, and celebrate by lighting the house with only candles (including dimmed candle bulbs in chandeliers) and fires in the fireplaces, invite family over and serve a really good meal (just in case it’s our last.)

We are so used to having electric lights that it is hard to imagine having only fire to see in the darkness, no matter how often we’ve heard about Abraham Lincoln studying by firelight. You know that old saying, “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness?” Well, in complete darkness, one candle is pretty bright. It’s magical when a room is lit only by candles and a fireplace. People share more intimacies, speak more softly, and time seems to stand still.

The problem with this is that they don’t want to go home. Instead of casting them out into the darkness, I have to finally cast them out into the light ...

Light is life. ( An ivy plant that lives on my desk got shoved in a dark corner and forgotten for a week and is now brown at the ends of the stems where the new growth would have been.) Ancient people knew that their existence depended on the sun. The Winter Solstice reminds me to be grateful for the light.

Happy Winter!

[Antaletriangle]

http://www.m91 On the Winter Solstice, the light of the rising sun enters the roofbox at Newgrange and penetrates the passage, shining onto the floor of the inner chamber. The sunbeam illuminates the chamber of Newgrange for just 17 minutes.

92 It is believed by some researchers that the colour of the sunrise on the morning of Winter Solstice was the original inspiration for the name of the hill over which that sunrise occurs when viewed from Newgrange. The hill is called Red Mountain.

93 It has been suggested by Robert Lomas and Christopher Knight that Venus would have been visible inside the chamber of Newgrange at certain times during its eight-year cycle.

94 It is an astronomical fact that at certain times during its 19-year cycle, the Moon shares the same declination, and therefore the same rising azimuth, as the midwinter sunrise. Therefore, there are times during the Moon's cycle when it too would be visible inside Newgrange.

95 Newgrange and Dowth are situated such that at moonrise at the time of minor standstill north, the Moon comes up over Dowth viewed from Newgrange. At minor standstill south, the Moon sets over Newgrange viewed from Dowth. Martin Brennan suggests a similar minor standstill orientation for Newgrange and Knowth.

96 A survey of the roofbox, passage and chamber of Newgrange by Dr. Jon Patrick in 1972 found that the Winter Solstice orientation of the site was an original feature, and that they were sophisticated constructions, intended to maximize the accuracy and length of the beam entering the chamber.

97 A further study by Tim O'Brien showed that at the time of construction the sun-beam was so accurately framed by the roof-box aperture that Newgrange could be used to determine the exact day of solstice.

98 While sunrise on Winter Solstice takes place over a hill across the Boyne river called "Red Mountain", sunset takes place over a hill in the distance called Realtoge, which means "star" or "young star" and which has a large ringfort on its summit.



Is Newgrange the "womb of the Moon"?

99 Newgrange is known as a brugh (or brú), which is often translated as meaning a "mansion". However, there is an old Irish word - Brú - which means "womb". Could Brú na Bóinne mean "womb of the bright cow" or "womb of the Moon"? Many researchers have pointed out the layout of the entrance, passage and chamber of Newgrange has a resemblance to the female reproductive organs.

100 Frank Prendergast's research demonstrated how the shadow of GC1, the megalith adjacent to the entrance, would have crossed the lower part of the three spirals on the west side of K1 at the winter solstice; that the shadow of GC-1 would have crossed through the centre of the three spirals at the period when the south declination of the sun was half its annual maximum; that the shadow of stone GC-2 similarly crosses the same three spirals at the equinox.
ythicalireland.com/ancientsites/newgrange-facts/astronomy.php

[Antaletriangle]

I always thought that this trad. game was played on x mas eve,early hours but it's a new year jobbie.
Kirkwall,Orkney.
Winter you can take part or watch the ba which takes part in kirkwall its self, the game takes place every Christmas and new years day. The game is played in the streets of kirkwall between what they call the uppies and the doonies. This game has been played since 1850, they have two games one for the men and one for the boys. And you can find up to two hundred people taking part in this mass game of street football, can never really get how this game is played or how they win, they have to put wooden bars over all the shops and houses door and windows so that if people bang into them then they don't break anything, this game seems to spend a lot of time of the roofs of houses and other buildings and always has an ambulance on side just in case so if you do come to watch this game play it safe and stay back out of there way.

[Antaletriangle]

Anyway my good folksies,i'm goinna get me ed dine now fer a couple of hours as i don't inhabit Ireland or any of the Orcadian/Orkney lands-bless you all and i wish i could be part of the craic.I shall soon enjoy your company.X.

[ENdJOY]

that is a nice tradition you have...I have one similar, I invite a special friend or two, and light a fire outside (weather permitting), and read a special poem... it was way too cold for that this year (5') so I did as you suggested and lit candles and the fireplace...I am now waiting for the sun


here is the poem, it is now on you tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGTILQ7yYV4

or you might want to C&P it from here: scroll down to "A Fire for You"
http://www.wingmakers.com/poetrychamber24.html

[Avid]

Here's another one from last year - incredibly accurate ancient building.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uPNII19Qn4Y
Sunset at Maeshowe, Orkney on a near winter solstice day (winter solstice is in Dec. 22nd, 2007). The still pictures were taken (with permission) from the webcam of Charles Tait: http://www.maeshowe.co.uk/.
Animated.

[celticwarrior]

I watched the Newgrange feed this morning. Unfortunately it was cloudy, and they showed last year's webcast instead! Never mind, there's always next year for the lucky lottery winners who get one of the 22 places inside Newgrange.
Regards,
Len

[ucan]

we are currently in that sacred place where the sun is at it's lowest - the days start getting longer when the sun is born again on the 24th/25th - the calendar is not exact, but the stars are! I truly believe that in the year ahead we will see many changes, both positive and negative, but without that balance nothing can find harmony - we are interconnected. as light washes through us and we cleanse the way, our truest victories will be made manifest - our hopes and desires will be accelerated and given that "little push" that was never physically possible before - the energy is here and now, these are just my feelings...

[Antaletriangle]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081220.html
Astronomy picture of the day.