Friday 14th June 2024, European Archaeology Day Tour with Barrie Hartwell at The Giant’s Ring

Guided tour

European Archaeology Day Tour with Barrie Hartwell at The Giant’s Ring

Just six miles from the centre of Belfast, at Ballynahatty in County Down, is one of Ireland’s great Neolithic henge monuments: the 200m-wide Giant’s Ring. For well over a thousand years, this plateau above the River Lagan was the focus of intense funerary ritual including a great timber enclosure, 90m long, with an elaborate entrance and inner temple - a public building in the grand style, elegantly designed to control space, views, and access to an inner sanctum containing a platform for exposure of the dead. By 2550 BC the timber temple had been swept away in a massive conflagration replaced by one of the last great public ceremonial enterprises known to have been constructed by the Neolithic people of the north of Ireland – the Giant’s Ring. It has survived for 4,500 years, an enduring symbol of the ancestral heartland of the Neolithic farmers of the Lagan Valley and their enigmatic religion.
Barrie Hartwell is Honorary Curator and formerly Senior Research Officer in Archaeology at Queen’s University Belfast. He excavated the timber enclosure over 10 seasons during the 1990s and is author of ' Ballynahatty: Excavations in a Neolithic Monumental Landscape ‘

PLEASE NOTE: Whilst a car park is located adjacent to the site, provision is limited If the car park is full upon arrival, large car parking areas are located within a short distance at Belvoir Forest car park beside the hotel and Shaws Bridge and Minnowburn. Please stay safe and take care when accessing and egressing the site.

There are no toilet facilities, and participants should wear appropriate clothing and footwear for outdoors, and to suit the weather.

This event is free of charge, booking is essential at Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/european-archaeology-day-tour-with-barrie-hartwell-at-the-giants-ring-tickets-911310523307
Organised by Historic Environment Record of Northern Ireland