September 7th about one o'clock. Coming down Wasdale road from N. Past the traditional graveyard side [marked by a hut] the loch opens out and the bright overhead sun picks out figures in the loch, two (?conjoined) circles of dissimilar sizes on the side near the road and a long ?ellipse towards the other side and a little further north. First impression is that the gale is whipping waves that flush underlying vegeatation up to reflect underlying archaeology. But the camera later reveals that the plnts are actually a myriad small stones. Also the circles have a clear central space, so annular rings I suggest. An archaeo tells me thay in Skye exceptional conditions can bring crannogs into view. Alternately these have been mooted as fish traps of unknown age.
I have always thought that there should be a Neolithic settlement below Howe Harper, as with the Cuween and Wideford Hill Cairns. Just remembered that in a field S/SW of the loch thre is what could well be a dry version of the lochbed sites, after a prolonged period of rain it is marked by a shallow pool.
|
August 24th 2010
Went to Brodgar day before end of dig as though they have made lovely discoveries on last days much will be be going back under black plastic early on the day. Past Bridgend went around the back of the Kokna-Cumming mound to come upon the Lesser Wall of Brodgar from behind by a gentler slope. Glad they have realised that this is a late feature as otherwise what would one make of the Brodgar standing stone pair straddling its view eastwards and the tomb outside its supposed remit. To me the point of it is to face the Staneyhill Tomb - I forget what they call it in political science but it is like gardeners "borrowing a view" by bringing a further vista into the visitor's eyeline. What does this mean for the hypothesis that the Greater Wall of Brodgar was meant to form a northern boundary to the whole Ness assemblage ? It doesn't seem to have any similar alignment [and perhaps too thick to find a statistically valid one anyhow] but is it equally late, performing a non-liminal function yet to be identified. At the bottom of the Lesser Wall's southern side there is now a pavement just under the level of the Wall base by the remains of what is to my eye another wall at a slight angle to the later Wall. Near the bottom of the Wall it looks to me as if there are what is left of two cruder walls parallel to one another over and at right angles to my putative earlier wall, and hence the pavement below. To my dismay the area of trench behind the Wall has still not been dug below the level of its top. Probably a "health and safety" thing. Here there are two arcs of collapsed wall, perhaps an inner and outer section. Not that this necessarily means one or both had not been straight when still standing. Oh, I can barely wait for their investigation. And then maybe sometime they can go down to the Wall base here to see if the Lesser Wall might be part of some other structure yet.
On to the main Ness of Brodgar site a bit of height not only gains you perspective but also frees you of photographing beige stone against beige stone and having to decipher it later ! First up is the new to this season next-to-roadside observation platform with a long ramp for wheelchair access. Then there are the large spoil heaps by the northern and western sides, as long as you don't mind the shifting soil underfoot in places. The space between Lochview and the dig is too smaa for anything but a photographic tower for the bosses, so you can't use that. It amazes me that at first glance it all looks practically the same as last time. Up on the platform on this side of the site the bulk is taken up by Structure 10 on your left with its, ahem, standing stone. No work is ongoing in the 'cathedral' now. In front of the platform's near end Structure 8 is divine. Along the western edge are what I see as three sub-square interior cells but on plan I see are duplicated on the opposite side, forming two rectangular and one long oval sub-divisions of the whole. This is basically how it has looked since last year. But on my third visit of the season exterior to the northern wall at the trenches edge are (I think) three small strucures that make you think of mini-roundhouses. All this mixing of linear and circular or sub-circular forms throughout the site strike me as less a striving for a practical form [and/or effective ritual space] and more the search for an artistic vision, squaring the circle to put the art into architecture. Very nice, whatever. Next is the small Structure 7, pinned between 8 and the Structure 1+9 combo.
The latter can be seen from the first spoil heap. Up here the first thing you spot is a large circular wall arc [?9 - the structure plan on Orkneyjar is from the season's start] in front of which work has been going on in a linear structure apparently leading up and terminating before it with what I take to be either a wide facade (pehaps fronting a courtyard entrance) or two flanking ?guard-cells. Looking left from this by the edge of the trench is a short length of low parallel orthostats that catch my eye but have been left behind for now.
From the top of the next spoil heap is a clear view of Structure 1, a large structure (oval or semi figure-of-eight) with rectangular niches or cells scattered along the interior edge. These are formed by the drystane walling (but multi-coloured) and tall thin orthostats. Near the trench edge to the right a double wall or pair of walls with pavement between them is nicely exposed. At the far end of the mound I look south to Structure 12, a large clean-looking oval with a couple of long cells. On my previous visit I only noticed the one nearest the spoil heap after I got back from an image taken near Lochview. That nearest the road looked as if someone had taken the Great Wall of Brodgar and removed the flesh to leave a rectangular skin.
The space between 12 and 10, or in 10, has three or four standing stones. I think they are roughly in a square. It is remarkable how many odd stones are scattered about the site, different in colour (red maks a change from beige) or shape (proper looking standing stones or blocky forms mostly). Not too much rhyme or reason for the most part, so I am thinking this is just a monumental version of picking up a pebble on a beach and taking it home.
All the above is only how I have this eclectic site in my mind's eye. Carefully as they excavate still there are different stages in any season's dig, structure's co-mingle and turn out to be part of other's. During an extended period of experimentation you can't even sort features out by materials used. And any single structure can be such a glorious mix of drystane walls, slabs, orthostats and standing stones, along with what I might call exhibition pieces.
By the time I am done with all three cameras there are still twenty minutes until the next tour and I give a moment's thought to tagging along for the display of new finds at its end. You are never sure what will be displayed or whether you will be able to take piccies, the latter depends on the group more than the presenter.
|
|
On the one hand there is a viewing platform at the east side of the dig, on the other a light fence has started going up around the dig itself. Finally the Lesser Wall is exposed again. They think they have reached the bottom, where there is a fine paved area revealed on the south side i.e. outside the archaeologists gargantuan temenos. Looking along the wall between the standing stone pair with my new super-duper camera I can confirm a definite alignment with the Staney Hill Tomb [there may be another site between them and some tumuli beyond but I shall stay with the certain]
|
|
To save a wee bitty on the legs take the 9A bus from Kirkwall Travel Centre to the Sunnybank Road where the new route starts - still climbing though
|
|
If they want to know how the slate roof was put together they could do worse than look at the farm buildings. Not the usual form or fashion but tall trapezoid slates laid in even more elongated trapezoid columns with narrow and wide ends alternating along the roof.
|
|
Before visiting the site Orkneyjar's Ness of Brodgar weblong has essential links to fuly detailed diagrams of the 2010 trenches and 2010 structures
|
NMRS record no. HY21SE 19 is a small mound of earth and stones on the SE slope of the hill between the Ring of brodgar and Bookan farm which has/had a stone setting around the base. Its present dimensions of ~8m diameter by 0.6m high accords well with those of 27' diameter and 18" high reported in 1946, meaning little or no erosion has happened since.
It can be seen by the northern fence of the field that also holds the Wasbister 'disc barrow' and the Bookan Cairn settlement (as well as a possible burnt mound by the pow/lochan). From below it appears as a bright green grassy mound on the hill's SE slope skyline. Only a few yards away is a very rough mound. From some views the ragged mound is so big that this and the cairn could even possibly be a single item subjected to different fates at E and W. But I only found a single flat stone on the whole of the mound's surface. I make the cairn round with a diameter varying from 6.4-6.5m, which is several feet short of the recorded 8m/27'. Though there are some loose stones around the base there are no signs that these have ever been embedded. But even sans stone setting my eyes thought there might be a cropmark 'ring' about the cairn of roughly the right size.
|
|
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21SE 26, located on the south side of the Lyking road junction at Voy, now consists of two mounds at HY25351496 & 7. A likely cist slab was found at the centre of the N mound but the later discovery of burnt material led to its present designation. It is a metre high, its companion slighter at 0.7m, but the centre would also be the centre of a mound incorporating both present mounds - the two stone blocks at the N side most likely having come from the unrecorded excavation of a site similar to Hawell burnt mound say
|
|
Must stress again [after what I saw today] that this is no walk-in, no incline or few steps but a narrow metal ladder going down. Gate no longer stiff. Coming along the farm road you can look across to the remains of Ingshowe broch. At low tide the shallowness of the inlet means it hasn't been that long archaeologically since it was dry land.
|
|
Come up the minor road alongside Maes Howe [marked Fursbreck Pottery] up and past Hybreck until you reach the Grimeston road junction. Pass along the Grimeston road to a fieldgate on the left. Here I entered the place where the standing stone is, striking a diagonal by a small dry burn (these being all over and about Staney Hill I imagine one can rule out glacial deposition for the big rocks ?). From the Staney Hill road you can see the stone behind a ledge like a very low cliff, and then coming this way it reveals itself to be standing above one end of a long wiggly quarry
|
|
viewed from main road with equivalent of 520mm lens it is obvious my possible quarry (unmapped ever) is the mound. On the one hand you can see why someone there might think this a burnt mound i.e. crescent-shaped and by water. But from these images it is obvious this is the remains of a large circular mound eaten by the bay.
|
Twice I have opted to go from the Stenness parish kirk through the fields to the Stones of Stenness but instead had to follow the fence running NE-SW south of it. And each time I have looked at the stump of the old field wall that this follows. Apart from this both times I have cause to note several large stone fragments near the line that aren't from a wall and each time have mistakenly looked for a gate or other entrance. Now I have the explanation because Pococke's location for a holed stone, 124 yards west of a stone 18 yards south-east of the circle. Further I identify this with the stone depicted by Lady Stafford : tall and shaggy, cleft from the top to ground level, having an angled top (not slanted) and with a central hole near to the base. It is even possible that Dr.R.Henry's description of the stone having a hole 3' up, rather than five, is a reference to this rather than a lapsus pennae.I believe it to have been possibly the size and even age of the Watch Stone
So there were two holed stones near the Stones of Stenness. Of the sentinel stones in Pococke's drawing along the shore the one (?'stone of sacrifice') that isn't the Watch Stone ('stone of power') is described as having a stone in the middle of it. It is roughly diamond shaped and matches well with the stone doublet of Stanley's 1789 drawing (admittedly the latter is a shade more rectangular). Walden's map of 1772 shows a single stone, but this is shown as having just been cleaved in two and the other half of the doublet could be the stone lying flat under the breaking instrument but is more likely from this Stone of Odin. If the former was this heaved out of the shallow hole shown or is that the result of an excavation having taken place ? A hundred and fifty yards N of the stones brings it close to the shore as Pococke shows [~HY30671275], near where Odin Cottage is now.
|
BROUGH OF BIRSAY SAFE CROSSING
Radio Orkney has discontinued their early morning tide times for tourists to reach the Brough of Birsay. Their system took three-and-a-half hours off the Kirkwall low tide and then allowed five hours for safe crossing. Ocassionally this proved conservative but on very rare occasions folk still got stuck. The reports will be resumed when/if a more reliable method is found.
|
|
Finally found Fairy Well at HY2943212982. The Ring of Brodgar and knowes are in a large field with a quarry and such at the SW corner. From this corner a short fence forming a Y with it goes towards the loch and 5m from the base of the Y the well is well hidden by undergrowth at the edge of the steep bank here (about a fence post height). Scramble down onto the shore and look back at the 'cliff' face, watching your step as the ground is lumps and bumps and very squishy [so you don't notice your feet sinking in]. All the way up are large stones of varying shapes though at the moment the spring comes from a gap at the base. A man came walking his dog which lapped up the fresh water momentarily revealed. Not a very regular construction and it appears to have collapsed back - a few feet to the east several yards of the bank have been roughly faced with very large slabs etc. to hold the bank up. Removed as much veg as I could, not sure how it would stand wholesale removal in its present state.
|
From below Easter Voy followed the loch edge around The Ness. Voy simply means Voy means bay or inlet. There are two of these sites ; site 1 is RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21SE 85 at HY27071511 then slightly further away a likely burnt mound site 2 is HY21SE 86 at HY26091490. Somehow I failed to see the ever-visible causeway linking the former to the land, probably that short distance walking the field edge rather than the shoreline deprived me of this or its more visible from the islet than the shore. From a Romantic perspective site 2 is the more interesting site, with large stones on the top giving a jaggedly profile and that fine section of wall exposed in the western side.
Near the main road is another burnt mound, HY21SE 26 at HY25351497, in the last open space on the south side of the Lyking road. Its being so close to the mill and its dam I can't help imagining this too was once an islet in the loch like the islet at Redland to the south. In the north side are a couple of very obvious stone blocks. Too nacked by now to go in for a look. The record is for two mounds. That at the back is reckoned natural but it strikes me that what with the disparity between their sizes these could have formerly been one, with the 'cist slab' from the highest point being its centre too. The derelict building on the burn's other bank is Voy Mill itself. On this side further along tis a small scatter of middling stones unlike the usual result of wall collapse and these could have been taken from the burnt mound and removed here after the rest received use elsewhere.
|
Gate to field containing Bookan Tomb nicely open. Top of this bare now, no plastic. Gate directly right of track is also open and leads into field with the "eminence thrown up by the brecks" [look at the photos and you really cannot see them as other than a tight grouping] - brecks as land of naturally broken appearance rather than brecks as rough land brought into cultivation. The ground is rather damp near the gate as the farmer is drying a hummock of black stuff off. The quarry is in the brecks but I don't believe The Brecks are all quarry as a walk around shows a proper quarry fenced off from them at a neck N of the mounds and the rest is too curvy.
All the mounds have exposed areas, with HY21SE 24 by the edge of The Brecks undoubtedly the most natural, sitting as it does on the natural rock with its single southern exposure capable of being read as proof either way. There is a steepish drop behind its western end and good rocky outcrops in the cliff-face (though a bit ragged for building methinks). Below its NW'ern end down almost into the brecks are one or two slight oval troughs that might have held something or slipped down from above. Almost under the SW'ern end there is a single rock slab sticking out of the cliff-face, which though almost undoubtedly natural has had an earthfast orthostat set at right angles abutting it as if to hold this back. Just the one orthostat, but definitely not natural.
Sites HY21SE 9 i (nearer to the tomb) & ii (to the N of i) are built partly onto the hillslope and each have several exposed areas, some earth with a few small stones and others with proper rocks. Almost certainly ii is the source of the cist. And not just because it has more structural material about and on it. Calling the feature on its top a circular depression is wholly inadequate. Walk below the eastern flank and look up at the northern end and there is a well-defined near hemisherical bank forming the top edge - despite the excavation definitely an archaeological feature rather than from archaeologist's workings.
|
|
Don't know how I missed the entrance to the ?souterrain before, just inside the fence on the S side of the road at HY2706715113. Guess I looked for a channel further down whereas it starts as a hole like a badgers set (no sign of the masonry walls in the dark, should have used the camcorder's nightlight) literally a couple of feet from the actual fence behind three flat stones. I assume these are a few of the lintels from the intermittent roof of the built passage. This is described as 800cm square to begin with, though perhaps narrowing further on - it goes south-easterly to a ditch but after some 2.5m turns quickly eastwards and then the hillslope and presence of mud stopped investigations progressing to what they describe as the inner end (or else it goes ~100m down to the loch). By the western stone I could see a masonry wall of thin stones behind a grass fringe. Not wishing to be disturbed by the ploughman in the next field I did not enter for a more thorough going over. This side of the road the 'broken' mound is ascribed to outbuildings on account of projecting stones but it is obvious that the passage is within the tower's circuit - at The Howe we found a souterrain which had been struck through the tomb at the centre of the broch so the road might have demolished a northerly continuance (an odd coincidence otherwise).
|
In the same field as the Wasbister 'disc barrow' and the Bookan Cairn settlement are two lesser sites, presumably [a lot?] later than the monuments.
The Wasbister Cairn can be found by climbing the hillslope to a bright green grassy mound by the top end of the northern fence. This very rough mound (very very ragged and disjointed it is definitely an item), is only a few yards away from the cairn itself. From some views the ragged mound is so big that this and the cairn could even possibly be a single item subjected to different fates at E and W. But I only found a single flat stone on the whole of the mound's surface. As for the cairn, though there are some loose stones around the base there is no sign that these have ever been embedded. There are a few horizontal slabs dotted about its surface and one at the northern side with a seemingly curved face sticking out as if originally part of walling - perhaps there are similar out of sight.
The Wasbister Mound lies down near the Dyke of Sean. Rather than a lochan I would consider the body of water a pow or large pool. Either side of the dyke the number and size of pools varies and old maps show many straight lines in and around them of unknown origin, some still visible. The slight mound is most easily seen coming from the barrow to the pool. There is a comparatively large piece of erosion at the highest point showing earth and a couple of smallish stones. In going back to the fieldgate I passed over a large rise - it isn't on record and there are no stones or anything visible but it has a feeling of settlement
|
|
from the valley floor these are almost as omnipresent as the Bookan Tomb [to its right on the skyline though actually further uphill] although closer to the hill their bases are hidden. They lie next to the quarry, the track to which is just over the west fence next the tomb. Unfortunately the diarrhoea pills failed to work so foiled again - Brodgar has no toilets anywhere !
|
|
Still think this could be a much denuded Taing of Beeman like settlement even though the possible dividing orthostats run across the mound apparently on the edge of the southern half rather than strictly in-between. Definitely a game of two very different halves. Backing up from the northern edge of the 'upper' half to take it in I found that I seemed to be stepping back along some kind of small 'causeway' leading up to it. This half consists mostly of a circular depression with a few relaxed stones about it, whereas the southern half has a rather level top with several definite orthostats. Thinking of the Beeman settlement and how it was mistaken for a broch from the air I wondered if the now demoted 'disc barrow' nearby might not be still more settlement [with the bank meant to keep the inhabitants out of the myre].
|
|
Unemployed and so plenty of spare time for researching contributors' questions and queries and for making corrections. Antiquarian and naturalist. Mode of transport shanks's pony. Talent unnecessary endurance. I love brochs.
|
Log in |
Register
Previous 20 | Showing 61-80 of 318 fieldnotes. Most recent first | Next 20 
Top of page