Ancient Orkney

Welcome to Andy Nicol's Orkney page. Here you will find some pictures of Orkney's impressive heritage.

See "Visit Orkney" page for travel details in case you feel the urge to go there and see for yourself.

If you came directly here from another web site, please look at Garioch's Prehistoric Sites index page for details of other prehistoric sites.

Introduction

The Orkney islands are located off the north coast of Scotland. The large, central island is called Mainland; main towns are Kirkwall and Stromness. Burray and South Ronaldsay are connected to Mainland via the "Churchill Barriers", which were built during World War II by Italian POW's, ostensibly to improve communication between the islands, but actually to keep German U-boats out of Scapa Flow.

Here is just a small selection of the ancient history of Orkney.

Midhowe

Midhowe lies on Rousay island, near Brinyan Pier. Of particular interest are a broch and a chambered tomb.

The Broch

The broch was excavated in the 1930's and then handed over to the nation. Many later buildings surround the broch - these were built against its outer walls and are of historical interest in their own right. Some items of Roman origin were found on the site, for example red Samian pottery and a bronze ladle.

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This broch interior measures 30 feet in diameter within a wall 15 feet thick and standing 14 feet tall. At the remaining lower levels, the outer and inner skins of the wall are separate, with passageways between them and stairs leading to upper levels.

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Here you can see the interior of the broch. It was divided up using upright stone slabs, although these may have been added after the original building.

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Of particular interest at Mid Howe are the door-checks, bar-holes, guard-cell, galleries and staircase. The entrance is unusually large, at approximately six foot.

The Chambered Tomb

The chambered tomb at Midcairn was built about 3500 bc. When excavated, the remains of 25 people were found lying inward on the benches in the chambers and on the floor. Two other burials of later date were also discovered.

Bones of oxen, sheep, red deer, pig and birds show that the people were both farmers and hunters.

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At Midhowe there is a stalled burial chamber containing twelve compartments. Here you are looking along the tomb towards the entrance, with stalls one both sides.

Nine complete skeletons were found along with the remains of sixteen other bodies including six adolescents and two children.

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Here you can see one of the compartments with its raised stone shelf.

The skeletons were placed on or under the shelves in the compartments on the east side, with their backs to the walls and their knees drawn up, facing West.

Brough of Birsay

The "Brough of Birsay" is located on a tidal island off the north-west coast of Mainland. The first picture was taken looking back at Mainland from the Brough.

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A symbol stone was found in the remains of this 12th Century church and graveyard. This stone has three warriors inscribed on it. Fragments of the original stone are kept in the Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh; a casting stands here to face the weather.

Within the walls of the churchyard lies a well, which is the only structure of pictish origin now visible.

Considerable evidence has been left of metalworking; hundreds of broken pieces of moulds (and some whole moulds) were found, indicating that bronze brooches were cast on this site. Some sixty or so clay crucibles were also discovered, which would have been used to melt the bronze for casting. Fragments of bronze sheet were also found; these indicate that objects of beaten bronze were made here, too.

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A pair of longhouses from a Norse settlement, thought to date from 11th Century, is shown opposite.

Ring of Brodgar

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The "Ring of Brodgar" is a late Neolithic Henge with stone circle. The henge or ditch is 30 feet wide, 6 feet deep and 370 feet in diameter. The stones stand 7 feet tall in a circle 20 feet from the inside of the henge. Only 27 out of the original 60 stones still stand; they are made of sedimentary rock, and some have been struck down by lightning.

A unique feature of this henge is the absence of the mound which normally surrounds the ditch.

Tomb of the Eagles

The Tomb of the Eagles at Isbister, South Ronaldsay, was opened in 1958 by a local farmer, Mr. Sinison. It appears as a grassy mound about 135 feet long by 50 feet wide, and stands to height of 10 feet. Inside, there is a stalled chamber which has been partly excavated.

Different body parts such as skulls and long bones, had been collected into separate groups. It has been speculated that this indicates that the and that ancestors were worshipped as a group rather than as individuals. There is also evidence that bones were exposed before burial.

A large number of bones from eagles and other raptors had been found inside the cairn, indicating that they may have had a special significance for the local population.

At the time we visited, the Sinison family had a small museum containing artefacts from the tomb. Visitors were allowed to enter the cairn, though access was difficult due to the size of the entrance.

Sorry, but conditions inside the tomb were too difficult to get a decent photograph.

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This is a neolithic house outside the "Tomb of the Eagles", a chambered tomb dating from approximately 3000 BC.

The tank in the centre of the room may have been used for cooking. Stones may have been heated in a fire and thrown into the tank to heat the water and cook the meat. The sudden change in temperature would have shattered the stones, explaining the large number of fragments found nearby.

Skara Brae

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Skara Brae is one of the best-known sites in the Orkneys, and the best preserved group of Stone Age houses in Western Europe.

Because wood was extremely scarce on Orkney, the houses were built almost entirely from slabs of sedimentary rock, which were used to make box-beds, dressers and storage tanks for fish and crustaceans. There is even evidence that water was piped under the settlement, possibly for sanitation. Several settlements were built on the same site, dating from about 3000 BC.

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This picture shows one of the dwellings in Skara Brae. These were typically 15 feet square, with a single door leading to a shared passageway.

Two box-beds are visible, and the small alcoves in the walls would have been used for storage. There is a fireplace toward the centre of the room. The walls were corbelled (i.e. converged towards the top) and roofing would have been by whale-bones and animal skins or thatch.

A passageway winds its way between the houses to the outside. The whole structure would have been covered in "midden", a mixture of household rubbish and earth. This provided insulation and protection from the weather.

Stenness

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Built between 1000 and 2500 BC, this ring originally comprised twelve upright stones, the tallest of which was over 5.7 metres high. Around this ring was a ditch 6 metres wide and over 2 metres deep, dug through solid rock in places. There was a bank of similar width thrown up outside the ditch. On the northern side, there was an 8-metre causeway through bank and ditch.

It is this combination of bank and ditch which archaeologists call a "henge".

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Unfortunately, only four of the upright stones remain, but holes for the other eight have been discovered during excavations. The original ring of stones formed an ellipse 10 metres by 12 metres, pointing 20° W of North.

The 3-slab structure in the second picture has been rebuilt twice in recent times, but is similar to structures found in other great stone rings and would have been part of the original circle.

In 1906, when a fallen stone was re-erected, it took only eight men. They inched the stone up on a progressively enlarged wooden ramp until it fell into its stone-hole. The original builders may have used driftwood or stones to build the ramp.

Most of these images have been created in approximately 800x600 format to fill a S-VGA screen. They may be converted for use as Windows wallpapers by saving them in .BMP format.

These pictures are provided for your personal enjoyment, not for commercial use. If you want to publish these images, please ask permission first.