The ninety-seven Kerbstones at Newgrange

There are ninety-seven large kerbstones encircling the base of the massive mound at Newgrange. The kerbstones are of a kind of rock called greywacke and they are thought to have been quarried and then dragged or possibly even transported by boat to the Boyne Valley from Clogher Head some twenty kilometers to the northeast, up the coast from the mouth of the Boyne.

Bovinda, a hide-covered ship built by the Boyne Currach Heritage Group.

Quarrying and hauling the kerbstones to the site was surely a monumental task. Along with the kerbstones, another 350 slabs were used to construct the passage and corbelled chamber. The stones were probably dragged on wooden rollers or on a rough sled, and would have required large, well-organised work gangs, equipped with ropes and a good dupply of logs. Others suggest that the stones could have been floated down the coast and up the Boyne with relative ease, but the undertaking would have involved colossal organization and skill. Once docked on the Boyne the stones would have been moved several hundred meters over land, up hill all the way, in specially constructed sleds or cradles.

The Cailleach's Apron

It is interesting to note that at Carrowmore and Loughcrew, where the stones used to construct the monuments and kerbstonesare glacial erratics, there is a folk memory of the stones being carried to the site in the white apron of the great Witch or Cailleach named Garavogue. The stones at Newgrange were quarried, not carried by the glaciers - the white apron of the Cailleach. While this story is not mentioned in relation to the folklore of Newgrange, Mrs. Ann Hickey, who was caretaker and guide at Newgrange for sixty years, mentioned a mysterious woman with a blue apron, who often appeared at Newgrange. Mrs. Hickey, in an RTE interview in 1962 when she was 90 years old recounted how she had often approcahed this mysterious woman to converse with her, but the lady in the blue apron would vanish.

The Newgrange kerbstones are arranged from end to end in a huge ring that encircles the base of the cairn. The massive chain of kerbstones defines the boundry of the monument and helped to contain and stabelize the cairn of stones. The kerbstones also define both the physical and symbolic boundary between the living and the dead. Once you pass across the ring of kerbstones at the Entrance Stone, and as you move through the passage you are undertaking a symbolic ritual journey to the Underworld or Land of the Dead represented by the chamber.

It is highly likely that Newgrange is built on the site of one or more earlier monuments. During excavations at the back of the cairn, Michael O'Kelly found evidence of an earlier turf mound which is probably the remains of an older monument subsumed by the enlarged Newgrange. The line of kerbstones at the back of the monument cuts through a portion of the turf mound. O'Kelly also discovered two lines of boulders on the old ground level on each side of the passage, which may well be the remains of earlier kerbs or inner circles which make earlier enlargements or extensions of the cairn. Such inner circles are quite common at earlier sites with examples known at Carrowmore in County Sligo and at Knowth closeby. Probably the best example is at Townleyhall.

Most of the kerbstones at Newgrange are massive, the largest, Kerbstone 91 being 4.4 meters in length, while Kerbstones 92 and 93 are almost as long. The Newgrange kerbstones are generally of better quality than the kerbstones at Knowth and Dowth. It has been estimated that combined weight of the the ring of 97 kerbstones at Newgrange would exceed 600 tons. Many of the Newgrange kerbstones had fallen outwards when the great cairn of stones collapsed in pre-history. During the excavations a number of kerbstones were found lying face down on the old ground surface, which indicates that the monument collapsed not too long after it was constructed. An effort was made by the neolithic builders to keep the tops of the kerbstones level; some were placed in shallow pits, which were cut through the turf, supported by boulders and propped in place by packing-stones. Other kerbstones were propped up on layers of supporting stones.

Megalithic Art on the Kerbstones at Newgrange

In Claire O'Kelly's corpus of decorated stones at Newgrange, she lists a total of 75 decorated stones on 84 surfaces - some of the art is found on both the front and back of the stones. This number she breaks down into 10 stones of the passage roof are decorated, 16 passage stones bear art, 18 of the chamber stones are decorated, and the largest number, 31 decorated stones are found in the kerb. Of the 97 kerbstones, many bear fragments or portions of megalithic art, while three excellent stones, the Entrance Stone, Kerbstone 52 and Kerbstone 67 are completely covered with complex panels of engravings. Three of the kerbstones are lavishly decorated on their inner, hidden surfaces.

All the art on the Newgrange kerbstones has been recorded in Michael O'Kelly's book on Newgrange. The art was illustrated by his wife Claire, who traced all visible designs on to sheets of clear plastic and reduced them to scale for reproduction in her husband's book. The drawings were taken to the Neterville Institute close to Dowth which was the base of operations of the O'Kelly family during each season of operations. At Netterville, Claire transferred her plastic tracings to paper. They were then photographed at a scale of one fourth of their actual size, and these photographs were rendered into pen and ink drawings which were further reduced for inclusion in the Newgrange book. It is interesting to note that Martin Brennan also lived in the Netterville Institute, and wrote his two books, The Boyne Valley Vision and The Stars and the Stones in that building.

Hidden Art at Newgrange

During the excavation of Newgrange it was discovered that a number of kerbstones, as well as other structural stones are also engraved on their inner faces, and that this art would not have been visible once the cairn was completed. Obviously they were engraved before the cairn was raised or filled, and so the ring of kerbstones must have been in position for some time before the cairn was finished. The kerb thus represents a massive expansion of what may have been a much smaller monument. The hidden art is mainly found on the back surfaces of Kerbstones 6, 13 and 18. These designs tend to be quite random and abstract in appearance, but Martin Brennan believed they served as indicators of astronomical alignments.

The hidden art seems to me to contain a series of marks or etchings whci may well represent observations of sunrises, moon rises or other astronomical indicators over a prolonged period of time. The carvings on the back of Kerbstone 13 appear to show a series of eleven or so probable sunrises or moonrises in a line across the middle of the stone, while the right-hand side of the panel could be interpreted as a rising position, with nine circular motifs inscribed in a curving line. Two clusters of cupmarks may well represent constellations. The carvings on the back of Kerbstone 18 seem to be more abstract and may well represent a portion of the night sky.

Positioning of Key Stones

The main stones bearing engravings, the lavishly decorated Entrance Stone, Kerbstone 52 and Kerbstone 67 are all positioned in relation to the winter solstice alignment at Newgrange. The Entrance Stone faces the winter solstice sunrise, and a line drawn from the vertical groove on Kerbstone 1 passes up the passageway, through the triple spiral in the chamber, and through the corresponding vertical groove on Kerbstone 52. Kerbstone 67, the only other fully engraved stone, is positioned due north of the triple spiral in the chamber, and would have been of key importance in laying out the monument. The large double sparal carved on kerbstone 67 seems to reflect a line of symmetry running through the monument.

The positioning of the two engraved kerbs with their central grooves and complex panels of megalithic engraving, among the finest examples from the neolithic, illustrate the importance of Newgrange and the winter solstice to the neolithic builders. The site continued to be venerated during the Bronze age, when the huge stone circle is believed to have been constructed around the already ancient passage-grave. While it is not clear, it appears that the importance of the solstice at Newgrange continued into the Bronze age.

Martin Brennan noted in his 1984 book, The Stars and the Stones, that shadows cast by the standing stones interact with engravings on the kerbstones. For example, the shadow cast by Stone Number 1 in the Great Circle touches the carvings on the Entrance Stone at dawn on the winter solstice. Brennan also documented that shadows projected by GC-8 on the east side of the monument touch a set of hollows carved on Kerbstone 82 at sunrise on the May and August cross-quarter days. Brennan also noticed that at sunrise and sunset on the equinoxes, the shadows cast by the standing stones outside the entrances at Knowth east and Knowth west are projected onto the entrance stones of both passages at Knowth.