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The Modern Antiquarian Forum » Newgrange » Newgrange: quartz and granite wall |
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Rhiannon 5290 posts |
Jun 24, 2016, 20:46
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It doesn't sound stupid at all. It's certainly very spectacular. And I totally agree, if it turns people on to Ireland's prehistory generally then this is a very good thing. I guess it's a bit like stonehenge, it stands for something much bigger than itself, what it just looks like. And also, there's me saying 'ooh didn't it look romantic' but that is only a preference of my own for how it looked at a certain moment in time. The builders of it would probably be appalled at the state of it like that, all falling down and bushes growing all over it. Maybe they'd be chuffed to see that someone thousands of years later wanted to do it up and make it look noble and smart and impressive. As that's probably? what they had in mind when they made it. I should probably go and see the thing eh :)
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GLADMAN 950 posts |
Jun 25, 2016, 15:13
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gjdgjd wrote: The learned Prof must have had one too many jars of the black stuff the night he came up with the concept of neolithic megalithic pebble-dash. As he watched his building contractors pouring their concrete around the steel reinforcement there must have been a little voice in his head going "Noooooo!" - but if there was, he chose to ignore it.... I agree that Newgrange is not a fitting flag ship for the great chambered monuments of Ireland and accusations of Disneyfication are not without significant justification. Frankly, it looks false, as if it was built yesterday... which, in a manner of speaking, I suppose it was. In my opinion it should have been consolidated to minimise the rate of further decay until a consensus agreement could have been attained as to probable form. However real life isn't like this. It would appear a dazzling prehistoric beacon was required, maybe for political reasons, following O'Kelly's reconstruction to represent to the world just what the Republic had to offer. And it has to be said that Newgrange does the job assigned to it as Ireland's primary national prehistoric monument.. bring in the punters and their cash, raise awareness of the world class nature of Ireland's ancient heritage. So it is the statements of 'restoration' that I have issue with. It is not 'restored'... rather reinterpreted to fit a new agenda and I think this should be made clear to visitors. What's done is done.... taking it apart again would serve no purpose because (I think I'm right in saying) there is still no consensus of opinion.
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gjdgjd 4 posts |
Jun 26, 2016, 08:21
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Agree fully with the first part of your last para ("..resoration..agenda..") but not the second. There are few things that can't be undone (as any Leave voter will tell you - and - no; I wasn't one of them). In respect of consensus I think there is a consensus that it never looked like it does now (hence, as you say, this is not a restoration) and I doubt there will ever be a consensus of what it did look like - but it would be fun to have a discussion/views as to what it did look like - I think there are some people on this forum with good instincts on these things. Maybe there would be some interest in generating a local consensus? I have had my two pennies worth on the matter (quartz half-lozenge set in mound surface; water-rolled granite border/perimeter) so I will keep quiet for now but if we are going to do it I am conscious that this is "the internet" and I have already been called extreme (moi?) so to avoid this degenerating into abuse we need some rules:- I would suggest three rules and one advisory for any contribution as to the original design. Rule 1 - No divine intervention Rule 2 - No alien intervention Rule 3 - Requires only neolithic technology/knowledge The advisory would be that any proposal should offer a reason for the relative abundance and as-found distribution of the granite and quartz. I do not think this can be a rule because, really, we do not know that the relative abundance/distribution found in the 20th century is the same as the relative abundance/distribution in the neolithic era - it would not be the first time that some particular stone had been preferentially robbed (or redistributed) by later peoples. Look forward to other's two pennies worth.
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moss 2897 posts |
Jun 26, 2016, 09:33
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Well I wondered about Wayland's Smithy, which was restored in the 1960s, see the 'before' photo @ http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/146363/waylands_smithy.html and how it looks today, James Dyer said "There seems to have been a rather more formalised 'restoration' in which the flanks of the barrow were sharply revetted to form walls. " It looks good today, a truly 'romantic' interpretation of a long barrow but it has been visually altered by later hands, but then as it had two phases in its construction should we complain or allow history to add other layers of interpretation?
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postman 848 posts |
Jun 26, 2016, 16:40
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I still think Unesco withdrawing its world heritage status until there is a commitment to do something about it is still a very extreme measure isn't it? and I still don't want it taken apart again, it doesn't happen often but I agree with Gladman, it should be said it might not have looked like this, but not torn apart again. leave it in peace, even if you could prove how it looked. Perhaps that's an extreme view of my own, maybe it is, but I cant help how I feel. Perhaps the white stones were a wall blocking off views of the entrance and carved stones, I still want it left alone.
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gjdgjd 4 posts |
Jun 28, 2016, 10:45
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I take the point but I think it is a matter of degree. For me Wayland's Smithy would be at the acceptable end of the scale of "interpretive/(mistaken) restoration". Previously the unacceptable end point for me was Knossos but Newgrange goes way beyond that. You can see the sort of issues raised by the Newgrange restoration in the first post (12pointer) in this thread. People have faith in experts doing things right - and when they have got it so badly wrong corrections need to be made. Probably I would settle for leaving it alone as a warning to others to be careful - provided that somewhere in the visitor centre was a decent CGI showing one (or more) of the more plausible alternatives. All I got on my tour was "...not everyone agrees with this interpretation...". I'd be interested in who does agree with it and I'd be interested to hear views on alternatives.
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CianMcLiam 1067 posts |
Jul 17, 2016, 11:44
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There was no agenda behind building the quartz wall, in fact the brief from the Board of Works and the Tourist Board was to create a shapely hemispherical mound of stones. The problem was instead of a solid mound of stones, behind the kerbstones they found layers and layers of compressed turf. When the turf was freshly laid it had to have been much thicker, therefore the mound behind the kerbstones had to be a lot higher originally than at other passage tombs. The quartz was found on the ground at the very bottom of the piles of stone that had slid from above. There was no quartz found under kerbstones that had fallen over so it is unlikely to have been laid on the ground, it was on the face of the mound as at other passage tombs like Cairn T at Loughcrew. O'Kelly built a section of the wall back up and had it pushed over and then inspected the result and it closely matched his impression for how the wall should have looked. There's lots of examples of near vertical stone walling in Neolithic monuments, Barnenez, Petit Mont, Gavrinis, La Hogue Bie. Newgrange would not have been the first of its kind, apart from the facing being of quartz rather than granite blocks.
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tiompan 5758 posts |
Jul 17, 2016, 17:29
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The entrance to Newgrange does have dry stone walling similar to other monuments , but it is not of quartz and nor original either , iirc . Quartz tends to fracture conchoidally rather than along structural planes making it useless for walling and thus necessitating a steel reinforced concrete wall to support the present façade of relatively small quartz stones (interspersed with granite , and gabbro cobbles ), not slabs , as we would expect for walling . When large amounts of quartz are found associated monuments it is often as a covering , rather than a wall ,and never a vertical wall . “We found that the quart/granite layer was thickest and most extensive in the area outside the tomb entrance and at each side of it that it decreased gradually in amount and extent until it virtually disappeared atK21 in the west and K 81 in the east “ i.e. a clear emphasis on the entrance just as is found at other monuments with no suggestion of a wall , but that is not how it is represented in the modern façade which is a homogenous feature for a much greater extent . The ground under the quartz at Newgrange had been cleared of vegetation “” a subsoil surface from which the turf and humus had been cut off “ O ‘Kelly p68 , suggesting that it might have been in preparation for the quartz as opposed to the quartz collapsing on to vegetation . As for where we stand now Gabriel Cooney’s “The wall is likely to stand for far longer in the present than it did in the past , if it ever did “ strikes a couple of pieces of quartz together .
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CianMcLiam 1067 posts |
Jul 17, 2016, 18:57
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The 1880's revetment wall was around 2m high in places, holding back the exposed cairn after the trench was dug around the kerbstones, this was built of smaller and more rounded stone than the quartz facing: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7li9frtqbdhhcg1/IMG_0136.JPG?dl=0 Compared to this wall, the quartz looks more suitable, the fact that it was set in concrete was due to the repairs that had to be made to the 1880's revetment ie. health and safety. O'Kelly said they built such a dry wall facing so I'm sure if it couldn't have stood he would have discounted the idea in favour of it being laid out in front of the cairn. Ann Lynch's new paper on Newgrange details early Bronze Age finds below the quartz layer, so if the quartz was laid out in front of the tomb this was done in the Bronze Age, or it only fell to the surface during the Bronze Age. It also makes little sense to lay the quartz down in deep layers close to the kerb, that hides the bulk of the specially transported stone beneath the surface layer, the quartz was surely brought there to be seen. Ann Lynch says any accumulated turf layer either was removed in the Bronze Age or it has decayed away. So if the quartz was laid out in front, this was done in the Bronze Age which makes it even more puzzling why quartz was found at large decorated passage tombs at Loughcrew, Knockroe, Baltinglass etc. Can we really claim that Bronze Age people decided to decorate old, out of use passage tombs with quartz, then cover it up very shortly afterwards? It doesn't make sense to me.
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CianMcLiam 1067 posts |
Jul 17, 2016, 19:24
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Here's a close up of the quartz pieces that make up the wall: http://www.mythicalireland.com/ancientsites/newgrange/photos/images/quartz-up-close.jpg
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