56 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM
ANTHONY MURPHY/MYTHICALIRELAND.COMDrone’s-Eye View
A drought and a drone aided in the unexpected
discovery of the remains of an ancient Irish henge.
An outline of the circular enclosure materialized in
July in a wheat ield adjacent to Brú na Bóinne, a
UNESCO world heritage site north of Dublin that’s
famous for megalithic tombs.
Anthony Murphy, an author of books on
Irish prehistory, made the ind using a drone.
Archaeologists have conirmed the site’s importance
and say the henge is about 5,000 years old, based
on when similar monuments in the area were built.
It probably resembled Stonehenge, but made oftimber rather than rock, says Muiris O’ Sullivan, an
archaeologist at the University College Dublin.
The henge’s sudden appearance was caused by
drought. Because its wooden pillars decompose in
the ground, more moisture is retained there, creating
slightly lusher vegetation than on the surrounding
terrain. Last summer’s heat wave exaggerated the
contrast, creating a circular outline in the ield.
The outline was short-lived. Rain eventually
greened the ield, and after the wheat harvest
in August, signs of the monument had almost
completely disappeared.ARCHAEOLOGY
The ghostly outline of a 5,000-year-old structure — which may have resembled a wooden version of Stonehenge — emerges from
a drought-stricken field in Ireland. Irish prehistory expert Anthony Murphy made the discovery while taking images with his drone.