So, one place I really wanted to visit in Ireland while we were here is a place called Newgrange Monument. The name does not do it justice. It is actually a 5200 year old passage tomb in an area of Ireland with several large passage tombs called Brù na Boínne. We visited here once in the past and I have always had a special place in my heart for this place. Why you might ask? Well I will tell you.
A passage tomb is a giant mound of earth covering a giant mound of smaller irregular stones covering a passage that leads from the outside of the mound into the center where there is a chamber. In the case of New Grange, the mound is 85 meters wide, 15 meters high and there are two passages into the mound. One is a cruciform shaped passage and the inner chamber is a cross shaped chamber with a ceiling that is about 15 feet high. I don't know what it is about this place that gets me, but for some reason I feel the spirit when I am here. Some other details about the tomb that I knew before this trip. It was built in 3200 bc by neolithic people. The main passage into the tomb has a light shaft above the passage and at the time of the winter solstice, the sun shines over the horizon for 5 days each year it enters the light shaft above the passage and lights up the chamber. Something about this is very touching to me. It turns out that this time I also learned that the light shaft actually is 2 meters below the level of the chamber and it is placed such that when the sun shines from 9:15-9:45 for the 5 days around the winters solstice it comes up the passage and into the center of the tomb chamber.
As I have been here before, and I had seen it before I could pay more attention to it and learn a few more interesting details about it. For 5200 years the interior chamber of New Grange has been watertight. Knowth and Dowth two other giant passage tombs in the area are not watertight, but New Grange is. It is held together only by the weight of the stones it is made of. Surrounding the outer boundary of the mound are 97 kerb stones each weighing up to 6000 lbs each and they are decorated on one or both sides by the most examples of megalithic art in the world. They were brought from a place 20km away from where they are placed currently in a circle around the base of the tomb.
The mound was also decorated by white quartz stones the size of a fist all around the anterior aspect of the mound. These are from about 80km from the mound. There are other stones that make up the tomb that are from 50km away.
We also learned that in the center of New Grange the remains of 5 people were found either as ashes or as intact bones. Two of them were a man and a woman and they were in the right side of the cruciform chamber. It turns out that the right side of the passage and the chamber are more decorated than the left and the bodies of special people were in the area of the chamber on the right. The chamber stones are also decorated with megalithic art. The art shows swirls, a tri-swirl, serpents and chevrons. The tomb is believed to have been entered by a select few people. It was also thought to be a place where you could commune with your ancestors. It was a place between the world of the living and the world beyond. Now, as members of the church some of this makes me think of another place: a place that is made of the most precious materials any society or people can come up with, a place where white is a color we use to represent light and purity, a place where we can commune with those who have gone on before us and with our God, a place of light and a place where we learn about the cross, and serpents and symbols of eternity. I think I know why I love New Grange Monument, it brings to my mind things done 5200 years ago that are reminiscent of the temple I work in in 2023.
I have always wondered why and how New Grange could have a cruciform passage? I did not even know one of the symbols on the giant kerb stones was called "the serpent". But I have always thought the swirling pattern and the trinity swirling pattern were very eternal looking. The number 3 for the trinity has always been special and only in New Grange is the Tri-swirl pattern found.
This all makes me think about the fact that if you don't think the things in the Garden of Eden happened, if you don't think the endowment is real and is of ancient origin, then look at one of the oldest structures on the earth, the New Grange Monument and all the symbolism they found there and you might like me feel some of the things there are prehistoric types of the things we do in the temple and show that what we do now has been done and known for over 5200 years.
So, you can call it coincidence but I think the people that built the New Grange monument 5200 years ago knew about the garden of eden story and the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve. I think they knew their God would send a savior for them and he would be killed on a cross. I think that the savior would be a bridge between this world and the next world and that God would give men a place where they could commune with Him and their ancestors. I also think that those ancient people knew they should build the monument out of the most precious things of their time - white quartz, giant stones decorated with special symbols and that light should be part of the structure.
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