The Norse on the Ness
A few weeks ago conversation at excavation HQ drifted from matters Ness and the Neolithic to apparent Viking Age runes found in the 1920s at the nearby Brodgar farm. Read more
Author: Sigurd
Wednesday wildlife – a selection of welcome and not-so-welcome sights
This week’s photographic selection from Ness of Brodgar excavation director Nick Card.
… Read more
Geophysics suggests the Ness may not be as unique as once thought
When the Ness of Brodgar was discovered in 2003, it was without parallel. But we now suspect it might not be. Read more
Wednesday wildlife is back…
After its summer break, we’re back with a new series of Wednesday Wildlife – weekly gallery of photographs taken around the Ness of Brodgar by excavation director Nick Card.
Click… Read more
Touching our ancestors – the Ness and the SPOTtimespotTIME artwork
By Elaine Robinson
Having had a lifelong interest in archaeology, imagine my excitement from the point of view as an artist who has been collecting fingerprints since 2015, when my… Read more
Enclosing the midden mound – Iron Age activity at the Ness excavation site
The Ness complex was abandoned at the end of the Neolithic, around 2500BC, but at least one section was brought back into use, some 1,800 years later, in the Iron Age. Read more
Video – ‘Why Rocks?’
Orkney International Science Festival talk by Dr Martha Johnson, highlighting the Ness of Brodgar rocks that don’t fit the local geology, and showing clues to their origins. Read more
Video – ‘The Ness in Rock and Stone’
Today's Orkney International Science Festival talk featuring Ness of Brodgar site director Nick Card, Dr Ann Clark and Dr Antonia Thomas of the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute. Read more
Fourth pottery fingerprint belonged to an adult male
Examination of a fourth fingerprint found on pottery sherds from the Ness of Brodgar suggests it was left by an adult male.
The analysis by Professor Kent Fowler, the director… Read more
The final find of the season…before the cover-up began
Just when you think it’s all over, we have one last find to share with you – a delicately incised stone from Trench J.
We’ve been hard at work… Read more
That’s excavation done for another year so thank you all
Dig Diary – Day Thirty-Three
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Ah well, the inevitable has happened and this is our last day of excavation at the wonderful Ness of Brodgar.
… Read more
One day left to visit the Ness before the site closes to the public
Dig Diary – Day Thirty-Two
Tuesday, August 10, 2021
How time flies.
The end of the season is nigh and if you’ve yet to visit the site, tomorrow… Read more
Another hammerstone and a site awash with planning frames
Dig Diary – Day Thirty-One
Monday, August 9, 2021
Well, readers, this is the beginning of the last week of the excavation campaign for this year.
We have… Read more
A decorated stone slab on the floor of Structure Thirty-Two
Dig Diary – Day Thirty
Friday, August 6, 2021
It’s been a quiet sort of day at The Ness, with the only real noise and disturbance coming from… Read more
‘Painted’ stone in Structure Ten and illustrating our ‘puzzling pot’
Dig Diary – Day Twenty-Nine
Thursday, August 5, 2021
So here we are rapidly approaching the end of our penultimate week of excavation.
Knowing the end… Read more
