150
a prime example of how passage tombs cluster on hilltops. Applied more broadly,
hill and mountain summits used as locations for tombs provide decidedly enhanced
views of the distant horizon and skyline. This is the intangible zone where most
celestial bodies appear to rise and set, the interface between the natural and supernatural worlds.
Writing on the symbolism of the horizon, Krupp (1997: 2) draws on ethnographic
evidence related to the Pueblo Indians of Chaco Canyon in northwest New Mexico.
In that culture, circular form signified their horizon, the rim of their world where the
earth made contact with the sky. According to Krupp, the world’s key cardinal directions are also found there, contain power, provide a template for terrestrial order and
are widely incorporated into everything from sand paintings to ceramics and architecture. The architect Ian Ritchie also observes ‘The skyline can be seen as the traditional domain of power, whether secular or religious’, adding ‘Skylines can
themselves be monuments and monumental’, and how we may read ‘the economic,
political and religious geography, and history’ from the skyline (Ritchie,
2004: 10–11).
Moving next towards a quantitative analysis, the horizon at any location is easily
profiled using estimated measures of range and orientation determined by a stationary observer viewing the surrounding space. Methodologically, this is termed ‘visibility analysis’ i.e. the determination of those portions of the landscape that can be
seen, the quantitative categorisation of its content, and the qualitative assessment of
the findings (Fellerman, 1986: 48). Visibility analysis is a sub-component of the
broader process termed ‘scenic analysis’, a visual language with the potential to
reveal perceptions, in this case of the horizon, possibly encoded in its character.
These ideas are examined in the following section.
3 Scenic Analysis of the Horizon at Irish Passage Tombs
An historical description of the Irish landscape by the botanist Robert Lloyd Praeger
(1937: 3) alludes to the unusual character of the island’s topography being the result
of ‘ancient crumplings of the Earth’s crust’ resulting in the formation of mountain
ranges in the coastal regions and a broad lowland plain in the centre. He also noted
how this had profoundly influenced early human settlement patterns, ‘tending to
push pre-existing cultures not into an inaccessible centre, as in most islands, but into
the mountain-fringe’. This is borne out in the observed distribution of c. 1800
Neolithic tombs (all classes) which largely avoid the interior lowland plain. The
small number that do are exclusively passage tombs, occupying hilltops as, for
example, at Loughcrew, Co. Meath. Figure 2c illustrates the complex of 18 passage
tombs and 13 unclassified cairns dramatically clustered on the summits of the
Loughcrew Hills c. 150 m above the surrounding lowland. There, views of the horizon are profound, varying in range according to the direction faced by the observer.
Variation in all horizon ranges is easily classified into distance zones for the
purpose of quantitative and qualitative analysis. In the 1970s, the Forest Service of
F. Prendergast
a prime example of how passage tombs cluster on hilltops. Applied more broadly,
hill and mountain summits used as locations for tombs provide decidedly enhanced
views of the distant horizon and skyline. This is the intangible zone where most
celestial bodies appear to rise and set, the interface between the natural and supernatural worlds.
Writing on the symbolism of the horizon, Krupp (1997: 2) draws on ethnographic
evidence related to the Pueblo Indians of Chaco Canyon in northwest New Mexico.
In that culture, circular form signified their horizon, the rim of their world where the
earth made contact with the sky. According to Krupp, the world’s key cardinal directions are also found there, contain power, provide a template for terrestrial order and
are widely incorporated into everything from sand paintings to ceramics and architecture. The architect Ian Ritchie also observes ‘The skyline can be seen as the traditional domain of power, whether secular or religious’, adding ‘Skylines can
themselves be monuments and monumental’, and how we may read ‘the economic,
political and religious geography, and history’ from the skyline (Ritchie,
2004: 10–11).
Moving next towards a quantitative analysis, the horizon at any location is easily
profiled using estimated measures of range and orientation determined by a stationary observer viewing the surrounding space. Methodologically, this is termed ‘visibility analysis’ i.e. the determination of those portions of the landscape that can be
seen, the quantitative categorisation of its content, and the qualitative assessment of
the findings (Fellerman, 1986: 48). Visibility analysis is a sub-component of the
broader process termed ‘scenic analysis’, a visual language with the potential to
reveal perceptions, in this case of the horizon, possibly encoded in its character.
These ideas are examined in the following section.
3 Scenic Analysis of the Horizon at Irish Passage Tombs
An historical description of the Irish landscape by the botanist Robert Lloyd Praeger
(1937: 3) alludes to the unusual character of the island’s topography being the result
of ‘ancient crumplings of the Earth’s crust’ resulting in the formation of mountain
ranges in the coastal regions and a broad lowland plain in the centre. He also noted
how this had profoundly influenced early human settlement patterns, ‘tending to
push pre-existing cultures not into an inaccessible centre, as in most islands, but into
the mountain-fringe’. This is borne out in the observed distribution of c. 1800
Neolithic tombs (all classes) which largely avoid the interior lowland plain. The
small number that do are exclusively passage tombs, occupying hilltops as, for
example, at Loughcrew, Co. Meath. Figure 2c illustrates the complex of 18 passage
tombs and 13 unclassified cairns dramatically clustered on the summits of the
Loughcrew Hills c. 150 m above the surrounding lowland. There, views of the horizon are profound, varying in range according to the direction faced by the observer.
Variation in all horizon ranges is easily classified into distance zones for the
purpose of quantitative and qualitative analysis. In the 1970s, the Forest Service of
F. Prendergast