A breakdown showing the different temples built at Navan Fort, from the late Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Note the figure-of-eight shapes. (Image credit: O'Driscoll, J. et al. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2020. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Posted on 08/11/2020 1:30:33 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The remains of "monumental temples" dating to the Iron Age and medieval buildings may be hidden underground at Navan Fort, an archaeological site in Northern Ireland, a new study finds.
Exactly what's left of these ruins, however, remains to be seen. Archaeologists discovered the buried structures by using remote-sensing techniques that allowed them to map the hidden landscape and detect anomalies, such as architectural features made by humans.
These Iron Age and medieval buildings suggest that Navan Fort was "an incredibly important religious center and a place of paramount sacral and cultural authority in later prehistory," study co-researcher Patrick Gleeson, a senior lecturer of archaeology at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland, told Live Science.
Navan Fort, which sits just outside of Armagh city, was the capital of the ancient province of Ulster (known in Irish as Ulaid) in pre-Christian Ireland, according to medieval texts. It's also the backdrop of various Irish myths and historical texts, which refer to it as "Emain Macha." ...
The archaeologists spotted the structures with a mix of remote-sensing techniques: lidar (light detection and ranging), which uses millions of lasers shot from an overhead aircraft to map the ground; photogrammetry, which uses aerial photos to highlight depth and perspective on ground structures below; magnetic gradiometry, which can trace subtle magnetic changes in the soil; and electrical resistance, which measures electrical patterns in the soil.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
A breakdown showing the different temples built at Navan Fort, from the late Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Note the figure-of-eight shapes. (Image credit: O'Driscoll, J. et al. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2020. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
All in the family: genetic links in prehistoric Ireland
Current Archaeology
Posted by Kathryn Krakowka
August 4, 2020
https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/all-in-the-family-genetic-links-in-prehistoric-ireland.htm
Emain Macha was the home base of the legendary warrior Cúchulainn, who was basically Ireland’s Hercules (or often compared to the Hulk by modern historians due to his “battle frenzy” giving him a sort of physical transformation).
The Irish are a VERY old people. There ARE still a few who speak Gaelic.
So my question. .. How did the buildings get buried?
Possibly a fire, just a wild guess though.
Yuppers. The Cattle Raid of Cooley originated more or less in current form in the Middle Ages. Cuchulainn also went by Finn McCool, a character a.k.a. Fingal. The Giant's Causeway was attributed to him in legend.
John Renbourn & Robin Williamson - Finn And The Old Man's House
Stan Rogers - Giant
It is probably the original Guinness brewery.
Everyone is a very old people. :^) The best shot at finding daily speakers of Irish Gaelic (besides possibly university) is probably still NW Ireland, but they're bilingual. The last of the non-speakers of English are gone now. BTW, last I knew, Clannad is having a farewell tour. Here they are doing, I think, a Scots Gaelic number:
Clannad - Mhaire Bruineall - live 1978
bkmk
Hence the archaeological interest. ;^D
Send in Time Team.
The Time Team is probably *under* the dirt there by now.
Comet strike 562AD?
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