Winter Solstice: Guided Tour of the National Museum of Ireland- Archaeology

To celebrate the rising sun of the Winter Solstice at Newgrange, join our special online tour of the Museum’s Prehistoric Ireland, Ór - Ireland’s Gold and The Treasury exhibitions to discover how ancient monuments and archaeological objects are linked to celestial events. Learn how passage tombs, such as Newgrange, are aligned to the Winter Solstice, discover artefacts on display in the Museum that have been found in Ireland’s tombs and see artefacts linked to solar symbols including gold lunulae and sun discs dating to the Bronze Age.
This tour was first broadcast on Monday 21st December 2020
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[@NationalMuseumofIreland]

Hi everyone, it's Trisha Ryan here, Museum Educator at the National Museum of Ireland - Archaeology. I will be presenting the tour today. If you have any questions while you are watching, please use the chat feature, or comment here and we will get back to you. I will be available until 5pm on Monday 21st December 2020, but we will continue to monitor questions and comments afterwards as well.
Please sit back, relax, and enjoy the tour!

[@maryvarley1176]

Thank you for a very interesting presentation Happy New Year

[@NationalMuseumofIreland]

Glad you enjoyed it. Please do subscribe to hear about our next event!

[@newknitter6487]

thank you. Very informative. Merry Christmas from Newfoundland.

[@NationalMuseumofIreland]

Great to hear that you enjoyed this tour. Please do subscribe to learn about our next tour.

[@eugenome]

That was very interesting and informative Trisha.
Newgrange pre-dated the Iron Age, so do we have any knowledge of the tools used to produce the carvings on the entrance kerbstones and stones along the passage? Were they simply carved using hard rock such as flint?

[@NationalMuseumofIreland]

Hi Eugene, yes, they were using several different techniques to carve the rock. There are two main techniques that we find, one is incision, dragging a piece of sharp stone most likely flint to carve the rock, and the second is hammering, so using possibly a wooden tool and hammering another piece of sharp stone into the rock.

[@NationalMuseumofIreland]

A question came into the chat during the live event which was seen later: What would the Neolithic marbles be used for?
At the moment, the exact use of the Neolithic marbles is unknown, but as they were found at Newgrange, it is thought they may have formed some sort of ritual function at the tomb

[@lorrainenaughton9770]

Will this be recorded and on this channel after the live airing?

[@NationalMuseumofIreland]

Yes- it’s a pre-recorded video which will be available after the premier- although if you can watch it’s first showing you can put questions to the Education team who will answer your questions in the comments

[@lorrainenaughton9770]

@@NationalMuseumofIreland Hopefully my amazing student's will do just this and ask some question's. Thanks👍