Newgrange Passage and Chamber

At the heart of the great mound at Newgrange lies a stone-built passage and cruciform chamber, among the finest achievements of European Neolithic architecture. The inner route runs deep into the cairn, opening into three recesses beneath a corbelled vault that has sheltered the interior for five millennia. Radiocarbon dating places construction around 3200 BC.

After labourers exposed the entrance in 1699, the Welsh antiquarian Edward Lhwyd was among the first scholars to enter the tomb. He recorded stone basins set within the side compartments and argued that the mound was an ancient Irish burial place. Further interior photographs are on the Newgrange interior page.

Passage and chamber plan

Excavation by Professor Michael J. O'Kelly between 1962 and 1975 showed that the passage and chamber together extend about 24 metres into the mound, reaching roughly one third of its diameter. Large greywacke slabs, some standing more than two metres high, were roofed with lintels without mortar. Many are carved with spirals, lozenges and concentric forms, among the richest passage tomb art in Ireland. O'Kelly published his findings in Newgrange: Archaeology, Art and Legend.

Corbelled vault and basin stones

At the inner end the passage opens into a cruciform plan with a high central space and three side recesses, each originally furnished with a large basin stone. The corbelled ceiling rises in stepped courses to a closing slab nearly six metres above the floor. Excavation recovered cremated bone, beads, pendants and worked bone from the recesses, leaving little doubt that the chamber served a funerary purpose. The significance of the carved symbols is still discussed, with some writers linking the patterns to the solar year, though no consensus has been reached.

Photographs from Mythical Ireland

Roof-box and winter solstice

A stone-lined roof-box above the doorway allows a narrow band of midwinter sunlight to travel along the passage into the rear recess. Local accounts long held that the rising sun touched the inner carvings at the shortest day of the year. O'Kelly put that tradition to the test before dawn on 21 December 1967 and saw the beam reach the chamber floor. On clear mornings around the winter solstice, the illumination lasts for roughly seventeen minutes before the light is shut off from within.

Photographs by Jorge Tutor

The tri-spiral

The carved three-spiral on orthostat C10 in the north recess is perhaps the best known single motif in Irish megalithic art. Archaeologists call it the three-spiral stone rather than a Celtic triple spiral, since it was cut around 2500 years before the Celts reached Ireland. The carving measures roughly 30 by 28 cm, far smaller than the spirals on Kerbstone K1, yet it lies directly in the path of the solstice beam.

The entrance kerbstone and the decorated stones within may have been intended to mark a passage from the open landscape into a sheltered ceremonial space. Later Irish tradition remembered Brú na Bóinne as a royal otherworld dwelling, and O'Kelly speculated that such stories might preserve a distant memory of the people who built the Boyne tombs.

Entrance stone

Kerbstone K1 at the mouth of the mound is widely regarded as one of the finest combinations of megalithic art and architecture in Europe. Its spirals face outward toward visitors approaching the passage, while the decorated interior remains hidden until the chamber is entered on a guided tour from the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre.

More photographs from inside the mound. For visitor access and opening times, see Heritage Ireland.