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A group of archaeologists found evidence that the prehistoric site of Navan Fort, in Northern Ireland, includes an Iron Age religious complex, as well as a royal residence from medieval times, the RTE chain collects.
The work was carried out by scientists from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Germany, with the use of non-invasive remote sensing methods such as, for example, the analysis of the electrical resistance of the soil, the lead researcher of the study told local media , Patrick Gleeson. In this way, the archaeologists obtained a "map" of the remains of constructions hidden under the earth.
According to Gleeson, excavations at the site had revealed as early as the 1960s a "spectacular" series of buildings, including some octagonal in shape and early Iron Age, as well as a structure erected around 95 BC.
The recent study identified these constructions as «a series of massive temples, one of the largest and most complex ritual scenes in any region of northern Europe by the late prehistoric and pre-Roman era«.
At the same time, the investigation detected other constructions from the medieval period on the site, which served as residence of the kings of Ulster or governors of the medieval Irish kingdom, made up of several provinces. This discovery, Gleeson emphasizes, shows that Navan Fort is not only a prehistoric center, but that it "has a longer history, stretching to the 1st millennium AD., and probably until the second ».
Navan Fort is an important site for Irish mythology. It appears, for example, in the Ulster Cycle, a set of tales about heroes of the Uliad, a people that according to legends occupied the former territories of the current northern province of Ulster.
Via Queen’s University Belfast