Dowth: The Third Tomb, and the Crater in It

Dowth is the third of the great Brú na Bóinne tombs and the one almost nobody visits — which is the reason to go. It has never been independently dated, but its features put it with the others, between roughly 3200 and 2900 BC. Quartz found fallen outside the kerb suggests it too was faced in glittering white stone. Dowth South, the shorter of its two passages, is aligned on the winter solstice sunset rather than sunrise, so the low light runs along the left side of the passage and lights three stones in the chamber. And on top there is a large crater, left by a botched Royal Irish Academy excavation in 1847 and never repaired.