Martin Brennan

Background

Martin Brennan was born in 1942 to Irish parents in Brooklyn, New York.

Education

In early ages, Martin Brennan was educated at Pratt Institute at the faculty of visual communication.

Career

For many years Martin has been a student of prehistoric rock inscriptions and structures, particularly the ancient Irish structures known as chambered mounds, or passage graves. These structures consist of a passageway into the earth, leading to a stone cavern, under a large mound of earth and stone. These graves are decorated on the inside with carvings of spirals and other symbols, inscribed markings that archaeologists had long considered to be mere doodles.

One winter solstice sunrise, Brennan and his research partner were standing in the ancient stone chamber at Newgrange, and they noticed that exactly at sunrise, a beam of light shone into the central chamber and lit some symbols on the back wall. They wondered if other sites were astronomically aligned to the sun, and visited other ancient sites in the Boyne Valley and Loughcrew Mountains of Ireland to investigate this idea. The Stars and the Stones, later reissued as The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland is an account of their observations at the sites. They found that all of the sites were aligned to the sun and moon so that, on certain crucial dates in the ancient ritual calendar, the inner chambers and the symbols in them were lit by the rays of the sun or moon. Brennan contends that the structures were not originally intended to be graves, but that they were immense and accurate calendars, and that the carved symbols represent specific solar and lunar periods. As John Michell wrote in Britannia Internet Magazine, “This interplay of light and darkness with the carved symbols on the walls of the inner chamber suggests that the buildings were used for purposes other than burials: for recording seasons and astronomical cycles and as places of vigil and initiation. Rather than tombs, perhaps, they might be called temples.”

The Stars and the Stones explores the history of the structures and other theories about their origins and use, as well as Martin’s interpretations of the meaning of the monuments and their associated art. In Archaeology, Ronald Hicks wrote that this last section is flawed because Martin draws conclusions that are not supported by any available data, and because he claims that archaeologists are not interested in these sites. “More serious,” Hicks wrote, “is the fact that my observations at some of the sites this past summer simply do not support his claims. Nonetheless, the book is worthwhile reading for anyone interested in Old World archaeoastronomy.”

In The Hidden Maya: A New Understanding of Maya Glyphs, Brennan examines the hand signs shown in Maya pictorial writing and art and attempts to form a system of interpretation of the complex signs, which have been studied by many scholars over the centuries.

Achievements

• Martin challenged conventional opinion and mystery around the function of Newgrange, Dowth, Loughcrew and other passage tombs of Ireland. Thanks to his presented overwhelming evidence it was concluded that many of these 5,000-year-old monuments were used as astronomical observatories.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Boyne Valley vision

    (In this book, Martin Brennan presents an entirely new int...)

    1980
  • The Stars and the Stones: Ancient Art and Astronomy in Ireland

    (Martin Brennan examines stone age carvings in Ireland, di...)

    1984
  • The Hidden Maya: A New Understanding of Maya Glyphs

    (Brennan uses Plains Indian handsigns and other communicat...)

    1998
  • The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland

    (This revealing text describes the exciting discovery and ...)

    1994

Views

Brennan believes that the Maya used a system of gestural hand signs similar to the sign language used by the Plains tribes of North America, and draws parallels between the two systems that allow him to decipher texts that have not been understood for hundreds of years.

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields
  2010