More Archaeology News

As I've posted many times here, archeology is "big" in Orkney.  This last week an exciting find was discovered by some builders on the island of Sanday, one of the Northern Orkney islands. It was a stone slab about 4ft 6 inches long bearing what is thought to be a 1,200 year old carved Pictish stone cross. Click here for more details.


Summer is also the time for various archaeological digs in Orkney, and here are some links to their blogs:

Ness of Brodgar 


Info on a dig on the island of Rousay

Brough of Deerness Blog

General news about archeology in Orkney

I'm hoping to visit the Ness of Brodgar dig again this year so will post photos! (Previous posts 2010, 2009)

Archaeological dig on South Ronaldsay

Last year I mentioned the archaeological dig that was taking place at "Banks'" in South Ronaldsay, one of the linked islands off the Orkney Mainland.  Season two has just started and Dan Lee, one of the Archeologists from ORCA (the Orkney Centre for Archaeology) has been posting some YouTube footage. There are other clips too if you go to Youtube and take a look. It's fascinating seeing a site unfold.

Dan is coming out to Graemsay on Saturday - not that we have made any new discoveries, but he's going to talk to us about some of the WWII history and take look at a couple of the sites of early Christian churches - though nothing is left of them now.

Anyway take a look at the video and see what new discoveries have been made on Mainland Orkney.

Ness of Brodgar Archeology Award

I've written about the Ness of Brodgar dig (on the Orkney Mainland) several times here (in 2009 and 2010).  Well on Saturday the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology (ORCA) received an award at the British Museum as the Ness of Brodgar project was named "Research Project of the Year 2011"! The dig will be starting up again in the summer and it will be exciting to see what new finds emerge.

More info on archaeological digs in Orkney can be found here

More archaeological finds

For those of you interested in archaeology excavation work has started in South Ronaldsay (one of the linked south isles in Orkney) on a Neolithic chambered tomb. This tomb was discovered by accident in September and this last week a team from the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology (ORCA) have been working on the site, led by Dan Lee. The dig is a race against time as one of the chambers is filling with water and so they are trying to uncover and preserve the fragile contents, which include human remains.  There is a regular video diary available to view here    The poor team have also been battling against atrocious weather with gales, horizontal rain and hail!  Exciting finds though!

Note (5 November) some photos on the Orcadian Newspaper Archive

Orkney "bleeds" archaeology

Or rather the full quote is "Scratch the surface of Orkney and it bleeds archaeology". As well as the plethora of existing sites that abound in Orkney (here is a good resource of existing sites and monuments), there are continual searches for new finds. The photo above (courtesy of Tom Muir) is of a dig currently underway at Cairns, Windwick, South Ronaldsay.

Last year on the island of Westray the "Orkney Venus" was found. Now known locally as "The Orkney Wife"! This is a small crudely carved figure, estimated to be 5000 years old and thought to be the earliest representation of a human figure found in Scotland. The "Orkney Wife" is now on display in the Heritage Centre on Westray (click here).

Work is still continuing on Westray and further finds are hoped for this year. The diary of the dig at Notland can be found here.

Also last year excavations were underway at the Ness of Brodgar, between the Ring of Brodgar and the standing stones of Stenness. There's some info and photos from my visit to the dig last year here. Archaeologists are returning this year and work will begin from 19th July and go through to 22nd August. I'm sure they will have a daily blog again so I'll post a link once it's live. You can see a diagram of the site trenches and geophysics here.

The Westray Wife.....

Last August archaeologists came across a small crudely carved figure at a dig in Westray, it is estimated to be 5000 years old and thought to be the earliest representation of a human figure found in Scotland. This figure is officially referred to as the Orkney Venus but appears now to be called locally "The Westray Wife". The term "wife" in Orkney is a generic term for "woman" whether she is single, married or divorced! I'm known as "the wife of Sandside", or sometimes "the peedie wife" (peedie = small). Anyway I digress, click here for a short YouTube film showing a 3D representation of the figure.

The "Westray Wife" is on a tour of Scotland at the moment and will return to Orkney in the summer so I'm hoping to be able to see it for real, and perhaps to see some of the dig too. Personally I think it should be called "the Peedie Wife of Westray"......

Note - on a totally unrelated topic, I have recently discovered a great blog written by "DancingBeastie" about seasonal life in a Scottish castle - so take a look at today's entry "What it feels like to inherit a castle in Scotland".

Stone circles

Orkney has a number of examples of standing stones and stone circles. Don't think "Stonehenge" here - not massive blocks, but still impressive "henges" in their own right. Last week I went for a wander around the Standing Stones of Stenness (dating from around 3,100 BC) and the Neolithic Ring of Brodgar (dating from around 2,500 to 2000 BC). I love visiting these in the winter as I get them to myself! In the summer I must share them with visitors. The Stones of Stenness, Ring of Brodgar and Maeshowe are all within about a mile of each other. Great monuments which blend in among the landscape and modern houses of today.

One of the Stones of Stenness, with the Hoy Hills in the background

In the background over the top of one of the smaller Stones of Stenness you can just make out the domed shape of Maeshowe a Neolithic chambered cairn.

Below are some of the stones from the Ring of Brodgar

Around the Ring of Brodgar are other mounds which have yet to be excavated - you can just make one out to the right of the standing stone below. Again the Hoy Hills in the background.


The stones are covered in moss and lichens which follow the strata of the stones

Symbols of the past and present - on the horizon you can see the wind turbines of Burgar Hill.


There is talk that the Ring of Bookan has some funding for an archeological dig to take place this year. Archaeologists will also be continuing last year's excavation on the Ness of Brodgar. So the land in this area still has some secrets to yield.

Skara Brae

I've had a colleague from far south visiting for the last couple of days. Among the talk of work etc we did find time to take a quick look at Skara Brae which is located in Skaill Bay (see here for loads of info). As well as investigating for ourselves this important neolithic village, we had also to sample the wonderful home bakes sold in the cafe - for quality control purposes you understand. It's important these are tasted regularly to ensure they come up to the high standards expected by tourists.....

Anyway - just sharing some pictures with you. Must dash - lots to do, may not be around for a few days - so hopefully these photos will keep you going.......

These photos are of one of the houses in the village



This shows the famous "neolithic" dresser - where objects made of bone and pottery were found when the site was excavated.


The village is now right on the shore and in danger from coastal erosion, but evidence suggests that it was much further inland when originally inhabited. The green mound in the bottom left corner is the top of one of the houses.

Ness of Brodgar dig

I was standing in the middle of a field, with rain dripping off my nose, holding a stone mace head that, up until a few weeks ago, had lain hidden under tons of earth for the last 5,000 years...... I can't really find the words to express the feeling, but it *was* brilliant!

I'd finally got a chance to go and visit the Ness of Brodgar dig. (This blog post won't do justice to the site and all the hard work of the archaeologists, so do take a look at *their* blog.) Unfortunately the day I was over on the Orkney Mainland was also A Very Blustery Day (as Winnie The Pooh would say) and it was chucking it down, rainwise. However undaunted I parked on the edge of the dig and joined around 30 other enthusiastic people to hear one of the team working on the dig give us some insight into what they had been doing this summer.

The excitement of the young archaeologist giving us the guided tour was palpable. The dig had been revealing it's secrets slowly but surely. Stones with curious markings, the remains of a shattered but still upright standing stone, pieces of pottery, an axe head, and the beautiful smooth remains of the mace head that I held in my hand.

The site is huge and, thankfully, funding has been found to continue the work next year. There are tempting glimpses of other structures yet to be revealed, and the geophysics hinting at past shapes of stone structures.

The stone walls are made of sandstone which naturally breaks very cleanly so the old walls look like "dressed" stone, with clean lines. No one is yet sure what the site would have been used for. Several of the structures are too big to be domestic dwellings, so the archeologists are piecing together the evidece as they slowly scrape and sift through all the earth that has covered the site for thousands of years.

And right through the middle of the site is a Scottish Water mains water main! This was put in during the 1960's when no one was really aware of what lay beneath. One can imagine the cursing and swearing that went on as the workmen tried to lay pipe through all that stone. In one sense it seemed sacrilege to see the water main cutting it's linear way through the ancient stone settlement, yet in another, it felt like a natural continuity as humankind makes its mark on the landscape, generation after generation.

And another team of archaeologists are excavating on the island of Westray (Links of Notland) and this week unearthed a neolithic carving of a human figure (picture and report here). It's reported to be the earliest carving of a human figure found in Scotland. It's tiny (3.5 cm x 3 cm) but is a significant find. Well it has been said that "scratch the surface of Orkney and it bleeds archeology" and that's certainly been true this year.

My memory will hold the feeling of the stone mace and I will continue to wonder at the craftsman who carefully fashioned the stone into a working tool with skill, patience and effort over five thousand years ago.......


(Sunday note: I've just found some information on a dig going on at the Brough of Deerness (East Mainland of Orkney) too - for more info click here

Orkney archaeology

I forget who it was who said "Scratch the surface of Orkney and it bleeds archaeology" but it certainly seems to be true. Orkney, due to remoteness, escaped the worst excesses of the industrial age and the land is largely undisturbed. So not only have wonderful Neolithic sites (neolithic period from about 4000 to 1800BC) such as Skara Brae (photo above) been discovered, but other sites are still being explored and interpreted with several "digs" being conducted in Orkney this summer.


One of these digs has a daily blog written by those working at the site of the Ness of Brodgar, which is quite close to the Ring of Brodgar (a circle of standing stones, photo above). They are finding interesting bits of pottery and linking together the history of this site with others on Orkney. The dig goes on through August and I'm hoping to get along to one of the tours given by the team. I'll post some photos when I do!