Orkney is home to many Neolithic sites, and we visited several of them yesterday. These included two stone circles and three ancient ‘villages’ and almost all of them were older than the pyramids.
These two shots are of the Ring of Brodgar, built on a low hill between two lochs. It’s about 100 m in diameter and over 4000 years old. I’ve been to other stone circles in England and this one is right up there with the best of them in terms of majesty and mystery.
Only a short drive down the road are the older Stones of Stenness. The ring is much smaller but the stones are taller and feature graffiti that in one case was written by a Viking!
Skara Brae is a famous preserved Neolithic village that was occupied between 2500 and 3200 years ago. Partially sunken into the ground, the homes include stone furniture and many included personnel effects which suggests to some it was abandoned in haste (Pompeii comparisons have been made).
I particularly enjoyed the mysterious objects found in the ruins: intricately carved circular stones that are presumed to have had religious use. They look almost alien, and to me it’s curious such a relatively small ‘village’ contained so many.
Later in the day we visited another old village, the Broch Of Gurness:
Bigger but perhaps not as famous as Skara Brae, it’s an unusual experience to wander the streets of this place and imagine what life was like for the inhabitants thousands of years ago. These locations – and Orkney is riddled with them – fill my mind with questions that will never be answered…
Orkney has a whole second appeal to WW2 buffs that I’d be interested in exploring, alas today we return to the mainland. It’s slightly tricky to get here, but if you’re ever visiting Scotland I would suggest you include Orkney in your itinerary.
