Ancient Irish Tomb Big Draw at Winter Solstice

[icymist]

From December 19 to 23—if the weather cooperates—20 lucky people a day will crowd into an ancient Irish monument's main chamber. There, they'll bathe in 17 minutes of light put off by the rising sun on the shortest days of the year.

This year about 28,000 people applied to take part in the ritual at the Newgrange monument, located in the Irish countryside in County Meath, reports the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Center (Ireland map).

The Stone Age monument dates to around 3200 B.C., making it 500 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt and a thousand years older than England's Stonehenge.

Archaeologists believe the grass-covered mound in Ireland is a "passage tomb." A tunnel runs to a cavelike chamber, where the remains of the dead were placed. (Related video: "Ireland's Mysterious Newgrange Tomb".)

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