Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Newgrange Skyscape In Stellarium, Frank Prendergast

Articles

Newgrange Skyscape in Stellarium is a new customised landscape planetarium model giving the user the unique ability to interrogate the dynamic sky above the Boyne Valley on any date of interest during the hours of daylight or darkness. Archaeological, astronomical and topographical points of interest are labelled in the model and visible even during the hours of darkness. These are summarily described in a short gazetteer appended at the end of the instruction document to encourage further exploration of the wonderful heritage found in the Boyne Valley and beyond.

Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=aGPsVGBXkY4

Watch on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/493351576

The Dark Sky Character Of Archaeological Landscapes: Cultural Meaning And Conservation Strategies, Frank Prendergast

Book/Book Chapter

This paper presents the first ever study of light pollution at selected Irish prehistoric archaeological landscapes. The concepts of cosmology and landscape are first briefly described and followed by a summary of early human settlement of the island. Building on this, the extant corpus of early prehistoric megalithic burial tombs is illustrated to show their contrasting distribution patterns and typology. Analysis of tomb locations using nearest-neighbour statistical methods reveals evidence of intentional clustering. Further geo-statistical analysis identifies the geographical locations and the density ranking of these nucleated clusters - a feature especially evident in the passage tomb tradition on this …

Facing The Sun, Frank Prendergast, Muiris O'Sullivan, Ken Williams, Gabriel Cooney

Articles

December 2017 marked 50 years since archaeologist Michael J. O’Kelly first observed the solar illumination of the burial chamber in the Neolithic passage tomb at Newgrange during the period of the winter solstice. O’Kelly subsequently recorded direct sunlight entering Newgrange through the ‘especially contrived slit which lies under the roof-box at the outer end of the passage roof’ on 21 December 1969. The discovery of this historic phenomenon, dating back over 5,000 years, captured the public interest and imagination at that time and ever since. In this major article published in the Winter 2017 edition of Archaeology Ireland (date of …

Alignment Of The Western And Eastern Passage Tombs At Knowth Tomb 1, Frank Prendergast, Tom Ray

Book/Book Chapter

This report presents a summary account of two surveys undertaken by the authors to determine and interpret the alignments of the western and eastern passage tombs at Knowth, Co. Meath. The findings indicate that contrary to earlier suggestions, the eastern passage and the western passage (inner and outer) are not aligned towards sunrise and sunset respectively at the period of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.

Shadow Casting Phenomena At Newgrange, Frank Prendergast

Articles

A digital model of the Newgrange passage tomb and surrounding ring of monoliths known as the Great Circle is used to investigate sunrise shadow casting phenomena at the monument. Diurnal variation in shadow directions and lengths are analysed for their potential use in the Bronze Age to indicate the passage of seasonal time. Computer-aided simulations are developed from a photogrammetric survey to accurately show how three of the largest monoliths, located closest to the tomb entrance and archaeologically coded GC1, GC-1 and GC-2, cast their shadows onto the vertical face of the entrance kerbstone, coded K1. The phenomena occur at …