I became a devoted disciple of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) programme, The Sky at Night, hosted by Patrick Moore. Patrick was a particularly distinctive character. I don't think his suit ever saw the inside of a dry cleaners, his hair was always in need of a good combing and one of his eyes periodically twitched every now and then ,I forget which one, due to long periods of squinting through various telescope eye pieces. But what he lacked in appearance was more than compensated for by his vast resevoir of knowledge which he delivered during his short 1/2 hour show with a veritable rapidity that was only surpassed by another TV celebrity, Peter Murray, the horse racing commentator(see the Guinness Book of Records). Patrick fairly opened the sluice gates of knowledge as soon as the Sky at Night logo finished revolving. It seemed as if he never breathed once during the whole programme and would have made a great pearl diver in some far off tropical paradise. It is rumoured he started inviting guests on his show just so he could breathe more easily and became my hero in navigating the complexities of astronomy, that is until I read somewhere that he had acquired the lens mirror to the great Irish telescope, The Leviathan of Parsonstown, a monster of a scope situated in the heart of Ireland at Birr Castle Demesne in Co. Offaly. This telescope was once the world's largest in the 19th century owned by the then 3rd. Earl of Rosse(to be honest, Patrick is a descendent). My admiration for him took a nosedive to somewhere between Zenith and Nadir. This act rendered the telescope permanently inoperable,(even though it went out of service in the late 19th century) recently its housing and wooden tube have been painstakingly restored to their former glory. So while we are all waiting for Patrick to do the right thing, why not check out what is arguably the oldest covered observatory in the world. Not only that, it is possibly, by my reckoning, some 7,100 years old, in its mound phases, dating to 5100BC and situated at Knowth megalithic complex in Co. Meath, close by to Newgrange as part of the Bru Na Boinne complex(if you are an archaeologist familiar with Irish passage mounds, please bear with me on this article as some reconciliation is noted between what I propose and the current archaeological model).

This site is located approximately 5.5 miles(8.8kms) WSW of Drogheda town off the N51 road at a prominent bend in the river Boyne.It lies in a shallow flood plain with very little horizon elevated points. Slane town is 2.3 miles (3.68kms) to the immediate West of the complex and beyond that lies the next megalithic site, Loughcrew at 24.8 statute miles(39.68kms). This observatory has two 'telescopes'. You can walk inside their focal lengths, they have no glass eyepieces and are not mounted on any tripods, but instead fixed in position, just like the Leviathan of Parsonstown. The telescope casings are not made of steel but comprised of heavy stone uprights(ortostats). and take in a gunsighted window on small fields of view to the Eastern and Western Irish skies.

Its enormous and if I left it at that I would be leaving out particulars that make this site unique and staggering to the imagination. Covering an acre of space, Knowth comprises one large mound denoted as Site 1 and 17 smaller satellite mounds that shield site 1's perimeter. It has some 127 kerbstones, huge perimeter delimiters for the large mound and some 180 orthostats alone within Site 1's two back-to-back passages. Most of the stonework is decorated in 'rectilinear'and angular styles and represents the largest concentration of Megalithic artwork to survive intact in Europe amounting to 25% in total and 45% of the total Irish megalithic ornamentation.(Note1)

There were two other exciting finds discovered when excavation finally got under way in 1962. A single limestone pillar, 1.6 m high stood outside the Eastern passage entrance kerbstone and a yellow sandstone pillar 2.56 m in height outside the opposing Western passage kerbstone.(Note2) Excavation is winding down even today and in its 38th year under the auspices of Prof. George Eogan, the chief archaeologist. My lack of photos of the site is due primarily to this long period of public restriction.

Interesting finds uncovered two macehead stones, one exquisitely carved into an anthropomorhic head image and composed of flint, the other of an ash-flow tuff composition and only part of it survives. Various assorted pendants, stone pegs, beads and other ornmented accessories were also uncovered.(Note 3)

The archaeologists dated the site initially to approximately 2500BC based on a confluence of Carbon14 samples around that date and taking into account the ornamentation styles in reference to contemporary styles in Spain and Paleobotanical determinants that suggested forest clearance around that date. However this appeared to be too conservative an estimate and today its accepted that the constuct date is around 3300BC, considerably older than nearly all the C14 dates arrived at. I say nearly all dates but puzzling to everyone connected to the excavation a single C14 date was taken from the humic acid redeposited basal layer to the Site 1 mound and this gave what I believe the archaeologists considered initially an anomalous date of 4885bc. +/-110!! (Note 4) Strange as it may seem this C14 sample is bandied about in the literature as if it were incomprehensible to conceive of such a far off construct time. Irish archaelogists argued with their Swedish counterpart , Goran Burenhult, when he relied on a single C14 date for Site 4 at Carrowmore in Co. Sligo. It may have been luck, but further evidence confirmed Burenhult's tenacious hold on that earlier date while Goran ignored all previously discovered C14 dates for that complex. In other words Burenhult steaked his reputation on the earliest date for his site. Is it then possible to rely on 4885bc as an indicator for Knowth and disregard the later dates?

Is there another way or method to arrive at a construct time for Knowth?