Cold Blows The Wind

First up on our Orcadian adventure was Maeshowe which is older than Stonehenge and even older than the Egyptian pyramids, and also a whole lot colder.

Constructed about 5,000 years ago, Maeshowe is a Neolithic tomb, or burial cairn, built from enormous sandstone blocks.  Though nothing is known about who and what was interred here, the scope of the project suggests it was a structure of great significance.  It's not much to look at from the outside any more, but crawl through the passageway and you come across a complex of passages and chambers built of carefully crafted slabs of flagstone, weighing up to 30 tonnes.  Sadly you're not allowed to take any pictures inside.

In the 12th century the tomb was broken into by Vikings searching for treasure.  A couple of years later another group of Vikings sought shelter in the chamber from a three-day blizzard.  Waiting out the storm, they carved runic graffiti on the walls, including "Olaf was here" apparently.

Maeshowe was originally surrounded by a
deep ditch and stone wall

Maeshowe is aligned with some other Neolithic sites in the vicinity, including Structure 8 in Barnhouse village, and the Barnhouse Stone which sits in a field around 700 meters away and is perfectly aligned with the entrance to Maeshowe.  This entrance corridor is so placed that it lets the direct light of the setting sun into the chamber for a few days each side of the winter solstice, illuminating the entrance to the back cell for over fifteen meters.

A Neolithic 'low road' connects Maeshowe with the magnificently preserved village of Skara Brae where we'll be heading in a few days time, passing near the Standing Stone of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar which were out next port of call.

Four mighty stones are all that's left of what is thought to be one of the earliest stone circles in Britain.  The Standing Stones of Stenness were raised about 5,000 years ago and originally consisted of 11 or 12 stones, surrounded by a wide ditch crossed by a single causeway, which was in turn surrounded by a substantial outer bank.

Standing in the large hearth in the centre
of the circle

In 1984 archaeologists made a surprising discover close to the Standing Stones of Stenness.  Excavations uncovered a cluster of buildings, dated to the same time as the stone circle, and very similar to those at Skara Brae.  What made the find of particular interest was its location - set in the landscape which includes Orkney's great ritual monuments of the Standing Stones of Stenness, the Ring of Brodgar and Maeshowe.  The location of this village of Barnhouse suggests that people who lived here used, and perhaps even built, the circle.

Standing in the middle of 'Structure 8'

A mile north of the Standing Stones of Stenness is the Ring of Brodgar, the last of the three Stenness monuments to be built 2500-2000BC.  Twenty one of the original sixty stones still stand among the heather, some over 5m tall.

It is thought that the Ring was used as a meeting place for ceremonies possibly involving feasting and commemorating the dead.  It sits in a natural amphitheatre surrounded by hills and flanked on either side by the waters of Harray and Stenness lochs.  This prominent and open position suggests that ceremonies held here were very public occasions as the community, gathered at the Ring, would have had clear views of what was happening inside. However, the centre of the henge itself may have been an especially sacred place, with access limited only to certain people.  Which 5,000 years later didn't include us as they were 'resting' the grass.

The stones form a near perfect circle 104 meters across surrounded by a 10 meter wide ditch that has two opposing causeways crossing over it.  Unusually for a henge monument there is no trace of an earth mound around the outside of the ditch.

Brodgar may originally have been a circle of 60 stones, though only 36 survive today.  Although there is no clear evidence it is possible that the arrangement of stones followed the changing seasons or the cycles of the moon and sun, as many homes and tombs of Neolithic people often line up with the rising or setting of the sun.

 

And after all that we were well and truly frozen to the bones, so headed straight into Stromness for some warming soup and a stop at the local museum for a quick catch up of Orcadian maritime history.  I don't have any photos of that!