143
prehistoric structures in Ireland and northwest Europe at that time but their location
conflicted with the task of the survey.
The larger of the prehistoric structures, known as the ‘The Great Cairn’, had a
basal diameter of 24.4 m. The apex offered a conveniently elevated platform on
which to situate the stone slab described above. The relative locations of the survey
station and added ‘survey cairn’ are illustrated in Fig. 1c. It is documented that Lt.
Col. Thomas Colby, who directed the triangulation survey and had a professed
indifference to antiquity, ordered the destruction of this ancient monument
(Andrews, 2001: 96, 163). The logical deduction is that Colby would have first
destroyed and infilled the burial chamber cavity to stabilise the ground prior to laying the heavy stone slab which marked the survey point. During a subsequent triangulation campaign to geodetically connect the survey networks of Ireland and Great
Britain in 1841, a theodolite located in Scotland was mistakenly trained upon the
extant adjacent ‘Lesser Cairn’ on Slieve Donard. When this error was detected during the calculation phase, that monument was similarly pulled asunder prior to a
re-observation of the angles. These accounts document how two of the island’s passage tombs were destroyed by human agency—a fate that undoubtedly befell others
in the millennia following the Neolithic. The recorded monuments considered in
this chapter, the two hundred and thirty passage tombs and 36 related unclassified
hilltop cairns, are the surviving corpus (Fig. 2a). Many of the latter, although unexcavated or ruined, are considered by archaeologists to be likely passage tombs, inter
alia, because of their landscape siting, proximity to known tombs, and round form
(O’Sullivan & Downey, 2011).
Topographical maps, print and digital, were an essential aid during the data collection phase of the archaeoastronomical investigation of the tombs undertaken by
the author. These are modern products and the legacy of the trigonometrical survey
of the 1820s, enabling ‘the translation of a geography into a graphic image’
(Robinson, 1990: 1). In the prehistoric past, however, ‘maps’ would have been a
memorised intangible and cultural information system of local and distant landscapes, horizons with varying range, built monuments, and skyscape (described
later) imprinted not onto paper but in the mind and memory. This chapter will
explore how those landscapes, liminal horizons and skies may have been imagined
and culturally imbued by the passage tomb builders, primarily constructed in the
Middle Neolithic c. 3600–3000 BC.
Research on Irish passage tombs published elsewhere by the author has analysed
their axial orientation, alignment, intervisibility, and height characteristics
(Prendergast, 2016, 2018, 2020). However, any consideration of symbolism being
embedded in horizon range related to orientation at these sites has remained unpublished until now. Accordingly, the first analysis of this type of spatial data will seek
answers to several research questions. Were Irish passage tombs intentionally situated to have vistas characterised by preference for a particular horizon range—
restricted, intermediate or distant? Might any preferred range category be delimited
by an easily perceived and notable sector of the horizon associated with astronomically interesting and symbolically meaningful orientation? If detected, might such
emerging evidence provide insights related to cosmological symbolism linked to
The North Sky and the Otherworld: Journeys of the Dead in the Neolithic Considered
prehistoric structures in Ireland and northwest Europe at that time but their location
conflicted with the task of the survey.
The larger of the prehistoric structures, known as the ‘The Great Cairn’, had a
basal diameter of 24.4 m. The apex offered a conveniently elevated platform on
which to situate the stone slab described above. The relative locations of the survey
station and added ‘survey cairn’ are illustrated in Fig. 1c. It is documented that Lt.
Col. Thomas Colby, who directed the triangulation survey and had a professed
indifference to antiquity, ordered the destruction of this ancient monument
(Andrews, 2001: 96, 163). The logical deduction is that Colby would have first
destroyed and infilled the burial chamber cavity to stabilise the ground prior to laying the heavy stone slab which marked the survey point. During a subsequent triangulation campaign to geodetically connect the survey networks of Ireland and Great
Britain in 1841, a theodolite located in Scotland was mistakenly trained upon the
extant adjacent ‘Lesser Cairn’ on Slieve Donard. When this error was detected during the calculation phase, that monument was similarly pulled asunder prior to a
re-observation of the angles. These accounts document how two of the island’s passage tombs were destroyed by human agency—a fate that undoubtedly befell others
in the millennia following the Neolithic. The recorded monuments considered in
this chapter, the two hundred and thirty passage tombs and 36 related unclassified
hilltop cairns, are the surviving corpus (Fig. 2a). Many of the latter, although unexcavated or ruined, are considered by archaeologists to be likely passage tombs, inter
alia, because of their landscape siting, proximity to known tombs, and round form
(O’Sullivan & Downey, 2011).
Topographical maps, print and digital, were an essential aid during the data collection phase of the archaeoastronomical investigation of the tombs undertaken by
the author. These are modern products and the legacy of the trigonometrical survey
of the 1820s, enabling ‘the translation of a geography into a graphic image’
(Robinson, 1990: 1). In the prehistoric past, however, ‘maps’ would have been a
memorised intangible and cultural information system of local and distant landscapes, horizons with varying range, built monuments, and skyscape (described
later) imprinted not onto paper but in the mind and memory. This chapter will
explore how those landscapes, liminal horizons and skies may have been imagined
and culturally imbued by the passage tomb builders, primarily constructed in the
Middle Neolithic c. 3600–3000 BC.
Research on Irish passage tombs published elsewhere by the author has analysed
their axial orientation, alignment, intervisibility, and height characteristics
(Prendergast, 2016, 2018, 2020). However, any consideration of symbolism being
embedded in horizon range related to orientation at these sites has remained unpublished until now. Accordingly, the first analysis of this type of spatial data will seek
answers to several research questions. Were Irish passage tombs intentionally situated to have vistas characterised by preference for a particular horizon range—
restricted, intermediate or distant? Might any preferred range category be delimited
by an easily perceived and notable sector of the horizon associated with astronomically interesting and symbolically meaningful orientation? If detected, might such
emerging evidence provide insights related to cosmological symbolism linked to
The North Sky and the Otherworld: Journeys of the Dead in the Neolithic Considered