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Newgrange is unhesitatingly regarded by the prehistorian as the great national monument of Ireland; in the words of the late Sean O'Riordain, 'one of the most important ancient places in Europe'. Its special importance has been widely realized since the early description by Edward Lhwyd in 1699, and each generation finds in it something new and interesting.
Firmly grounded in the structure and engravings of Newgrange, this book offers several revolutionary insights into both its science and its religious faith. Forty carved motifs are explained as emblems of site features which the builders provided to ensure an afterlife for the dead, including the nine carved rungs in the passage, the "leak" that delivered water to the chamber bowl and slab, the two round sockets in the rim of the bowl, the stone marbles found in the chamber, and the starry outviews originally possible through the chamber vault. The author argues that some of Michael O'Kelly's discoveries suggest Newgrange may have been retooled when precession displaced the targets of those ...
Exploring Ancient Skies brings together the methods of archaeology and the insights of modern astronomy to explore the science of astronomy as it was practiced in various cultures prior to the invention of the telescope. The book reviews an enormous and growing body of literature on the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, the Far East, and the New World (particularly Mesoamerica), putting the ancient astronomical materials into their archaeological and cultural contexts. The authors begin with an overview of the field and proceed to essential aspects of naked-eye astronomy, followed by an examination of specific cultures. The book concludes by taking into account the purposes of ancient a...
Aileen Fox, a pioneer of archaeology at Exeter University, was one of the first women to hold a senior post at a British university and was a committed supporter of local archaeology throughout a career that spanned six decades. This highly personal and engaging memoir records her life and work in great detail, from her birth in affluent Kensington in 1907, through a career alongside Mortimer Wheeler and other luminaries with prehistoric excavations in south Wales and southern England to her productive decade in New Zealand.
In this first volume of the Royal Irish Academy's multi-volume A New History of Ireland a wide range of national and international scholars, in every field of study, have produced studies of the archaeology, art, culture, geography, geology, history, language, law, literature, music, and related topics that include surveys of all previous scholarship combined with the latest research findings, to offer readers the first truly comprehensive and authoritative account of Irish history from the dawn of time down to the coming of the Normans in 1169. Included in the volume is a comprehensive bibliography of all the themes discussed in the narrative, together with copious illustrations and maps, and a thorough index.
This book discusses the lines of standing stones that until now have been the neglected wonders of prehistoric Europe, rows that were foci of rituals in Britain, Ireland and Brittany for over two thousand years. Places such as Carnac in Brittany and Callanish in the Hebrides are visited by many visitors each year, but before now there has been no book that seriously explains the history, significance and background to these impressive sites. Aubrey Burl shows that the settings vary from pairs of isolated stones in the far south-west of Ireland to networks of long lines in Scotland, Dartmoor and Brittany, and describes the types in a sequence of architectural chapters that stress the increasing social and commercial connections between regions hundred of miles apart. He uses information from a wide variety of sources - excavation reports, megalithic art, astronomical analyses and legends - to provide explanations of why the rows were erected, when, and what they may have been used for.
Increasingly, archaeological sites worldwide are being commodified for a growing tourism trade. At best, expansion of programs can aid in the protection and historic preservation of sites and strengthen community identities. However, unchecked commercial development may undermine the economic and cultural integrity of these same sites, replacing local interests with corporate ones. In this volume, original case studies from well-known sites in Cambodia, Israel, England, Mexico, and the United States addresses the complex interaction between archaeology and nationalistic, political, and commercial policies.
Accompanying CD-ROM contains some of the figures and all of the plates. Full listing on p. ix-xi.
This research was conducted towards an MA in Byzantine Archaeology and Text (2004) at the Institute of Byzantine Studies in Queen’s University Belfast. It is published with the aim of presenting this evidence to a wider audience, and to inform future research by others in this field of study. The archaeological and historical evidence presented and analysed is surprisingly diverse and relatively plentiful, and, arguably, also compelling. Is there any evidence for contacts between the Eastern Roman or Byzantine empire and Ireland, and, if so, what form does that evidence take? This book does much to inform that debate.