HEADINGS:- / Carrowkeel Cairn Complex / Cairns G and H / Azimuth 313° and its Significance / Tracking the Moon and Sun / Capella to the Rescue / Fire / Descent of the Gods / Other Considerations / Cairns B,E and K / Cassiopeia and Cygnus / Miosgan Meadhbha (Queen Maeve's Cairn) Knocknarea / Cairn E as a Court Cairn / A Complete Surprise / A Ground Plan in Mind? / Dating the Site / Intra-Cairn Alignments / Preliminary Findings / Conclusions
It is conceivable to try to date the site by astronomical means, although its not as easy as its looks. I've come up with two possible periods. The first is approximately from 3340BC-3390BC. At 3340BC Capella, mentioned before, slides into the sunset azimuth 312° for every year thereafter. However Rigel (mag 0.30) slides into the Moon's Southern extreme declination degree at the SE face of Cairn E from 3700BC. At that date its lower in altitude than 3340BC, but at the date of 3340BC, it still would have been seen from cairn E allowing for a maximum altitude of 3° 39'. By precession of the equinoxes the stars move in their relative background positions. Usually this averages out at about 72 years/degree motion, with some stars travelling faster than others (Sirius, in Canis Major).This giant cyclical motion takes 25,800 years to complete. It also means that such a wobble will alter the tilt of the earth's axis between two declination ranges approximately 21° 39' and 24° 36'. This causes the Orion constellation to slide up in the night sky at Carrowkeel's latitude when you move forward in time and visa versa.
Now if we consider another dating period, we arrive at Orion's belt sitting low on the Southern horizon at an altitude of less than 3° 40' and traversing across the Moon's Southerly declination point. This happens in 5216BC. Such a far off date will mean no insertion for Capella on the Summer Solstice sunset point and Cairn B targets nothing in the night sky. However cairn B could be a late addition to the site. Even without Capella the builders could still have used Regulus(mag 1.30) in Leo, or shadow aligned their cairns. Another advantage to a 3340BC date concerns the vegetation at the area.
Large tracts of land were forested in the vicinity. In order to get a clear sight line for observations, a Karst limestone elevation platform is perfect for your needs. Extremely few trees would grow on that terrain, not being able to retain water because of the honeycomb like fissures in the rock structure. This would have been a period of no bog deposits which now exist at the complex and appear to swallow low elevated cairns. If we go back to 5216BC do we get the same conditions for siting the complex? Not according to the Arrow Community Centre guide to the Carrowkeel Complex.(Note8) In this richly detailed analysis, trees did grow on the limestone prior to 5000BC because humus soil got a hold there. That would have obstructed a viewing platform but the builders may have cut the trees down.Repeated regrowth of cut forests appears to be a feature of early neolithic life. It could also mean that the need to build such cemetaries was not yet fully formed in the minds of the Neolithic peoples of that era.
Ultimately the dating maybe left to others to ascertain correctly. But I've outlined how the site behaves astronomically. The conditions were there to avail of ritualistic tracking of the Sun, Moon and stars, of that much is certain. In conclusion I hope to have opened up a new dimension on the area and urge, as do others before me, that Irish Archaeology step in to preserve what is left of the site and in the process, find out still more secrets to be revealed. A great starting point obviously would be the opening of the SE face of Cairn E or the uncovering of cairn L from its 'peat blanket'. This could be accomplished with minimum funding and labour. Miosgan Meadhbha and Keshcorran await their respective opening 'ceremonies' so that the full importance of the area comes to light.
Finally we can now look at line sightings between the cairns that make up the complex.
| Cairns | Azimuth(Counter Azimuth) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Keshcorran - H - O | 272°(92°) | Vernal Equinox Apr 22, 3340BC /Autumnal Equinox Oct 15, 3340BC |
| D - K | 280°(100°) | Jupiter setting Feb 18 - Mar 18, 3337BC /Saturn setting Nov 6 - Nov 19, 3345BC |
| E - F and G - K | 344°(164°) | Deneb in Cygnus |
| N - M - L | 322°(142°) | Exact Northernmost major Standstill of Moon |
| B - E | 258°(78°) | Aldebaran setting (0.9 Mag) in Taurus |
| 0 - L | 256°(76°) | Betelgeuse setting (0.5 Mag) in Orion |
Cairns B and E align to 258° azimuth and O and L to 256° respectively. In other words the 4 cairns almost align together, only separated by 2 °. Both stars Aldebaran and Betelgeuse are separated by 3.5°!! There are however many other correspondences to those two points including the setting Sun and Moon as well as Jupiter,Venus and Mars.
Does it appear that the site is that complicated? Well maybe just because the alignments exist, does that mean they were known or utilised? I'm still unsure if the builders had any knowledge of constellation patterns that far back in time.(Recently I came across a possible theory by an Professor Gurshtein, that may indicate that people back in Meso and Neolithic times knew about constellations: see my article on Knowth for further information). Grounding the Orion constellation does not mean that they knew its outline. They may simply have latched onto the 3 stars in the belt because of it uniformity and 'grounded' any stars radially from that point out.
However when we look at Cassiopeia , how could they possibly pinpoint these first magnitude stars from thousands of others unless they knew their respective outlines. Oddly enough the ground plan ofCairn K mirrors the Crux Southern Cross constellation pattern even down to the offset transverse recessed axis, Coincidence?
Another amazing aspect pops up regarding a seemingly inbuilt redundancy in some alignments.This maybe in response to weather conditions wiping out one alignment track so that another substitute alignment was used instead. Examples would be substituting the 1/2 Moon on Apr 14th at the SouthEast face of cairn E for Denebola/leo would also give us the Vernal(Spring) Equinox. Again the last 1/4 moon on Oct 21st could be substituted for the Autumnal Equinox. Regulus could be alternated with Capella. I have not even tried to analysis cairn F ,with its enigmatic standing stone found within the chamber by MacAlister. I just don't have a reliable direction for it, although a possible azimuth might be 352°, which would mean a stellar alignment to possibly Vega in lyra. All other cairns mentioned are in ruins and unreliable for alignment purposes. Although Carrowkeel may lack the asthetic strength and quality of say a Newgrange or a Knowth, it makes up for this lack with amazing astronomical prowess.
