Home Visitor Centre Tours Winter Solstice Solstice Lottery Images Local Area News Knowth Dowth Articles Art Books Directions Contact

Knowth Guide Book

Knowth Guide Book Knowth is a guide book published by the Royal Irish Academy and based on material from the archaeological excavations published in their seven-volume Excavations at Knowth series.

Knowth, County Meath, has been a place of ritual activity and settlement from the beginning of the Neolithic through to the modern era. It is a national monument and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Property: the ancient Brú na Bóinne passage tomb complex that also includes Dowth and Newgrange.

This book offers a clear and accessible overview of what Knowth is all about, outlining why it is of interest and importance. In part, it is intended as a guide that people can use to navigate their way around the site, but it is also a book that anyone can read, use and enjoy away from the monument and still get a sense of Knowth and how it came to be what it is.

This guide also draws attention to the remarkable richness of the archaeological discoveries made at Knowth, including its two large passages aligned on an east–west axis, the extensive assemblage of megalithic art carved on the kerbstones, and evidence for later activity from the Bronze Age through the early medieval period. By placing these findings in their wider cultural and landscape context within the Brú na Bóinne complex, the book helps the reader understand Knowth not as an isolated monument, but as part of a long-lived and evolving sacred landscape at the heart of prehistoric Ireland.

Purchase at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

Did you know?

  • Knowth and the other passage tombs in the Boyne Valley contain the largest collection of megalithic art in Europe. Knowth has the largest collection at any single location.
  • The number of blue glass beads recovered at Knowth is more than twice the combined total from all other Late Iron Age burial sites in Ireland.
  • Early medieval “graffiti” in the form of ogham and insular inscriptions was carved in the passages of the East and West tombs of the Great Mound at Knowth in the eighth century AD.
  • Knowth has yielded the most extensive collection of tenth to thirteenth century archaeological material from any rural site in Ireland, exceeded only by discoveries made in the urban excavations of Dublin and Waterford.
  • At the time the carved flint macehead was recovered in the East tomb at Knowth in 1982, it was one of only two maceheads known to have been found as grave goods in an Irish passage tomb. The other, a partial pestle macehead, had been found in Knowth’s West tomb in July 1967.
Helene King, editor, speaking at the Knowth Guide Book Launch Helene King, editor, speaking at the Knowth Guide Book Launch

Knowth Guide Book Launch at the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre

Meath Chronicle | September 2024 | John Donohoe

Knowth, a new guidebook, was officially launched by the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) in Brú na Bóinne visitor centre as a part of the National Heritage Week 2024 programme.

Guests to the launch were welcomed by the Academy’s president Professor Pat Guiry, who said: “Although this book is not as monumental in size as its cousins in the Excavations at Knowth series, it nevertheless succeeds wonderfully in doing justice to the monument it celebrates. The research it draws on is broad and interdisciplinary. It is the work of expert contributors.”

Helena King, editor of the book, worked alongside the contributors, Edel Bhreathnach, Claire Breen, Kerri Cleary, Patrizia La Piscopia, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf and Elizabeth Shee Twohig, and the RIA’s designer, Fidelma Slattery, to produce this full colour, pocket-sized guidebook, filled with photography by Ken Williams and illustrations by Steve Doogan. The work of the late archaeologist George Eogan, who directed the Knowth excavations for almost 40 years, was acknowledged and praised, with each of the speakers giving a special welcome to his wife and family who were in attendance.

This new book, with a distinctive green cover displaying motifs found in the megalithic art of Knowth, is based on material from the archaeological excavations published in the RIA’s seven-volume Excavations at Knowth series. It offers a general overview of what Knowth is all about, outlining why it is of interest and importance.

In part, it is intended as a guide that people can use to navigate their way around the site, but it is also a book that anyone can read, use and enjoy without being on site and still get a feel for Knowth and how it came to be what it is.

The book was officially launched by Chief Archaeologist at the National Monuments Service, Michael MacDonagh, who remarked that: “This book was conceived, intended and designed to be accessible to all, to make the tomb’s complexity and significance easily understood. It is no easy task to distil decades of research and knowledge of such a complex monumental landscape as Knowth into an accessible publication. In fact, it is tremendously difficult to do so. Yet here it has been unassumingly done, in a simply genius one word title little book - Knowth - that’s all. No fussy long title needed. Genius.”

Purchase at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.