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THE TABERNACLE
Newgrange Passage Tomb
Neolithic Irish Ritual
A circular mound 76 meters across with a 19-meter stone passage leading to a cruciform chamber with a corbelled roof. Above the entrance, a roof box allows sunlight to penetrate the passage for exactly 17 minutes at winter solstice dawn.
Significance Built 3200 BC — older than Stonehenge, older than the pyramids. For five thousand years the sun has kept its appointment with this chamber, illuminating the back wall for seventeen minutes on the shortest day.
What Survives Intact and functional. The solstice alignment still works. Lottery selects visitors to witness the illumination each December.