Brugh (Brú) na Bóinne—the Bend of the Boyne or the Boyne Valley—is a complex of ancient archaeological sites and monuments that is about three miles long and two miles wide. While it is best known for the Neolithic site of Newgrange, there are also two other important Neolithic sites in the valley: Knowth and Dowth.
Knowth:
During the period which archaeologists have labeled the Earliest Neolithic State (4000 to 3500 BCE), a small group of farmers arrived at Knowth. They cleared a small area of woodlands and established a mixed farming economy. These earliest farmers lived in a rectangular wooden house that was 26 feet by 20 feet.
Five centuries later, the population at Knowth had increased and by about 3500 BCE the people were living in a small nucleated settlement. This settlement is surrounded by a palisade which is about 100 meters (378 feet) in diameter. At this time there is not only an increase in population, but also intensification in agriculture to provide food for this population. This marks the beginning of what archaeologists call the Developed Early Neolithic Stage (3500 to 3000 BCE).
The Passage Tomb Builders Stage (3000 to 2400 BCE) marks a great deal of construction at Knowth. One of the notable features of the passage tombs in the Boyne Valley is the construction of a large, dominating mound at each of the four sites in the valley.
During this time, there is a great deal of external influence at this time from Atlantic Europe (primarily Brittany and Iberia) and from Britain. For example, there are some distinctly Iberian objects found on the Irish sites, such as decorated stone basins and certain types of bone pins.
At Knowth, up to twenty tombs are constructed. There is a central circular mound which is closely hedged by a cluster of smaller passage tombs. The central mound at Knowth measures 316 feet by 266 feet and is surrounded by 127 curbstones. The large mound contains two tombs which were placed back-to-back in the mound. One of the tombs opens in the east and the other in the west.
The western tomb is 80 feet in length and ends in a bottle-shaped chamber. The chamber is separated from the passage by a sillstone. It also contains a basin stone.
The eastern tomb is the larger of the two and tends to be more elaborate. The eastern tomb is 133 feet long and ends in a cruciform-shaped chamber with a 20 foot high corbelled ceiling. The chamber contains three recesses and basin stones into which the cremated remains of the dead were placed. The right hand recess is larger and more elaborately decorated.
Shown above is the east passage at Knowth.
The dead in the passage tombs in Brú na Bóine were cremated. The east tomb at Knowth contains evidence of the cremains of at least 100 individuals. Along with the cremains were ceremonial offerings, including a ceremonial macehead and a decorated pin made from bone or antler that came from Iberia. Knowth apparently served as an important center for a larger region.
The satellite passage tombs generally have an undifferentiated or a cruciform plan. For the most part, the passages in the satellite tombs face the central tomb. These smaller tombs also contain the remains of cremated individuals as well as some grave offerings.
The satellite tombs, with two exceptions, appear to have been built before the central tomb. This means that when they were built, their passages faced the empty space where the main mound would eventually be built. One intriguing clue about what may have been in this empty space comes from the passage to the western tomb. In several instances, the engraved orthostats (stones standing upright that support a stone ceiling) appear to have been placed upside down, perhaps evidence that they were salvaged from an earlier stone structure. It is also possible that they were salvaged from an earlier passage grave that was torn down to construct the present main mound.
Knowth has the greatest concentration of megalithic rock art in Ireland. There is a wide variety of images: spirals, crescent shapes, serpentiform, lozenges. The curbstones which encircle the central tomb include more than 300 decorated stones.
Shown above is an example of one of the decorated curbstones.
At Knowth there are the remains of four rectangular houses. One of these houses is directly beneath the passage of the western tomb. While it appears that the house was demolished to make way for the tomb, archaeologists are not sure if it was a special ceremonial building or simply an ordinary domestic building. The smaller, circular structures found at the site—there are nine which have been found—are more easily interpreted as domestic dwellings.
During the Grooved Ware Stage (2400 to 2200 BCE), a ritual wooden structure was built at Knowth. While there is continued settlement in the Boyne Valley during the Beaker Folk Stage (2200 to 1900 BCE), there appears to have been little activity in the area during the following Bronze Age and Iron Age.
Dowth:
Dowth, which lies to the northeast of Newgrange, is the least well known of the three passage mounds in Brú na Bóinne. The passage tomb mound at Dowth is 285 feet in diameter and 50 feet high. The mound contains two tombs which open on the western side of the mound. There are 56 curbstones, of which 15 were decorated with pecked and engraved motifs.
The northern tomb has a cruciform shape and it contains stone basins similar to those found at Knowth and Newgrange. The upright stones, or orthostats, of both the passage and the chambers are decorated with spirals, chevrons, lozenges, and rayed circles.
The southern tomb is circular. At dawn on the winter solstice, the sun’s rays shine directly into the southern chamber. As the sun rises, the light moves along the left side of the passage, then into the circular chamber where it shines on three stones. The central stone is convex and reflects the light into a recess, thus lighting up the decorated stones there.