Excavation
There is a mound at Tonroe, Tulsk, County Roscommon. About 18 months ago I noticed that some of the stones in this mound were becoming more exposed. On a couple of different occasions I suggested to my father that we should take some steps to preserve the mound.
On the 20th of February a group of us visited Newgrange on reconnaissance. On Tuesday the 22th of February 2011 our volunteers started to dig. We knew from the exposed stones where the front of the cave and passage might be.What we didn't expect was that the front would be blocked up. It became apparent as the clay was baled out through the gap between the exposed stones in the roof of the cave that this was a very old man-made structure. The function of the two holes/windows in the built-up front of the cave was obvious , the lower one was for drainage while the upper one was to let in the light (the sun shining directly in every day at 2pm GMT). Being 8.32 degrees west of Greenwich this would be 1:33 pm summertime, or 12:33 pm real time; might this actually be mid-day?
The co-ordinates are, Latitude (north) 53.780131 i.e. 53 degrees 46 minutes and 48.4716 seconds: Longitude (west) 8.31608 i.e 8 degrees 18 minutes and 57.888 seconds.
The excavation hole at the front of the cave was holding water and needed to be pumped out daily. Water was running into the cave after rain. On the map for this land is marked a "Dry Drain" which runs from south to north, due west of the mound. It can be clearly seen on the Google Earth satellite map passing to within 90 metres of the mound. Standing over the entrance to the cave one could clearly discern a path of slightly different coloured grass/vegetation running from there directly to that drain, meeting it at right-angles. Pat dug a hole at this intersection and filled it with water. It disappeared within a few minutes.Michael brought Laser equipment on to the site and determined that sufficient incline was present to effect drainage of the souterrain.On St.Patrick's day 2011 they put in a drain along the line (which did contain small stones suggesting a pre-existing but now non-functional drain) from the "Dry Drain"to the drainage window at the front of the cave (and slightly beyond). So ended the water problems for the cave.
Excavation was at a standstill. There was no choice but to dig in at an angle under the really big (centre)stone on top. This revealed a small chamber.We decided to rebuild the east side of this immediately for two reasons,firstly it would be better to restore it while still fresh in the mind and secondly to provide support for that big centre stone. Now there was no roof left to burrow under, this was later proven to be incorrect. We pointed up the front still not knowing whether it was part of the original structure or an add-on from a later time. By April 11th the sun had risen too high in the sky to enter the cave and a shadow about 1cm wide could be seen along the inner margin of the lower window stone. At the beginning we had dug a trial hole 13 metres back from the front in what we thought was a straight line with the passage, which revealed nothing (no stones /no roof). After a lot of reflection we decided to go for it and dig out a large trial hole behind the little chamber. On April 19th 2011 the business end of the cave came forth. It had a twist,steps and no roof.
The final excavation brought together the front and back sections of the cave and the full extent of the little chamber came into view, complete with lintel. Pat and Michael then extended the drainage system all the way along the cave to the bottom step. This involved putting two 3/4 inch pipes under the stone at the front of the little chamber (water was remaining in it after every rainfall ). The big square stone one-third the way toward the front of the cave from there (cast in the mud on the ground before the drainage) looked like it belonged on top of that stone (beneath which now were the pipes) so they put it there, and it fitted. There are eight foundation stones on the west wall of the twist. seven steps, and six foundation stones on the east wall of the twist. Similar stones extend all the way from the front into the chamber and gave us the prompt to keep going with the excavation.There are two stones at the front of the cave (east) to perch upon and observe events within, these are floor level. There are three levels of height in the souterrain.There are four roof stones for the front part of the cave,each more than one meter squared. The should sun shines on the first five foundation stones for the nine days of solstice. The end of the cave is a tiny stone between west stone six, west stone seven and the bottom step, which cannot be seen from the window in front. We can only identify one stone with writing/hieroglyphics, this is in the roof of the front section of the souterrain. Impressive calcium carbonate deposits adorn the stones high up at the front on the inside. One roof stone has a groove and nearby hole which can be threaded through.
In the rubble and clay taken out of the bottom of the back of the cave was a big flat stone which looked like it was a roof-stone for the front of the cave.This begged the question as to how it might have got there. On June 23rd 2011 when the temporary electric fence around the excavated part of the mound was being supplemented with a post and rail fence around the whole mound we realized that what had happened in Teotichucan and Palenque probably occurred here previously. It is likely that those who abandoned the souterrain took off this roof-stone ,put/threw it in the back of the cave and buried the whole souterrain by filling it with clay baled in through the holes made by removing this and two other roof-stones (neither of which have been identified so far) from the front of the cave, and with clay baled into the back of the cave through the dwelling/observatory which was built over it. Finally they would have set it alight and sealed the secrets of the souterrain. We put the stone back in its place that day.
There is suspicion of some kind of electromagnetic shield around this mound. There is no mobile phone coverage at all in the cave, and very poor reception on the mound, even though it is direct line of sight of two mobile phone masts, neither of which is any more than 500 metres away.
On the night of 14th/15th of August 2011 the light of the harvest moon shone into the souterrain at 4-50 am, its patch of about 4cm by 10cm tracking a path from west to east along the floor about one metre inside the south wall until it was obliterated by sunrise. Ironically (given that its declination in the sky was so high that if the cave was reinstated fully this light would have no chance of entering) no record of this exists, as it was also obliterated by camera flash.
