Who is the mysterious daughter of a Pharaoh said in myth to be buried at Newgrange? This is the topic of the latest Mythical Ireland Podcast, episode #28.
For decades, some researchers and writers into Irish myth and history have suggested a connection between the ancient Irish and the ancient Egyptians who built the great pyramids at Giza. Is there any substance to these claims?
The quick answer is 'little, if any', but there are sparse mentions of the Pharaohs in Irish mythology. The reasons for this are nuanced, and mostly relate to the fact that the ecclesiastical scribes who wrote Ireland's myths and legends down in the Middle Ages were well acquainted with the Old Testament. When compiling books like Lebor Gabála Érenn (The Book of Invasions), the monks synthesized indigenous Irish myth with narratives from the Bible.
In the Metrical Dindshenchas poems about Brú na Bóinne, mention is made of a mysterious 'daughter of bold Pharaoh' being buried 'in the floor' of Brú na Bóinne, almost certainly at its most famous monument, Newgrange.
Is this just a medieval scribe's imaginative invention? Did the compiler of the Dindshenchas take a wild flight of fancy? Or is there another possible explanation for why a monk in the Middle Ages might make reference to an important woman, apparently the daughter of a Pharaoh, believed to be buried under a great monument?
In this latest podcast, I take a deep dive into the verses of the Metrical Dindshenchas to explore the mystery. Over many years, I have found verses in the Dindshenchas that appear to contain information that could not have been known about when the poems were being written in our monasteries.
Is this another example? Or is there a simple, straightforward, prosaic answer as to why a Pharaoh's daughter might even be mentioned in the context of a sacred archaeological and mythological landscape such as Brú na Bóinne?
If I can say one thing about the Dindshenchas in particular, it's that we dismiss it as fanciful, synthesized mythologising at our peril. There is much in these verses, and indeed in the prose versions of Dindshenchas tales, that suggests knowledge of key facts about prehistoric monuments were still in currency several millennia later, when these tales and poems were being written down.
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