‘Elements of Architecture’ – new book due in early December
Ness of Brodgar: Elements of Architecture – the next in our series of books looking at the Neolithic complex – is due out in December but can be pre-ordered now. Here, author Mark Edmonds gives some details of the new publication.
August 2024 saw the end of our final season of excavation at the Ness of Brodgar. As we started backfilling, there wasn’t one of us who didn’t feel a wrench as the buildings that we’d worked with for so long disappeared back into the earth. It was the best strategy for their protection but even so, it was a poignant moment.
Our occupation may have come to an end, but our preoccupation with these remarkable buildings continues.
After 20 years of fieldwork, we now know that the Ness was both a monumental settlement complex and a focus for gatherings, bringing in people from across Orkney and further afield. And we also know that it was a powerful place long before Maeshowe, the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar were even imagined. For that reason alone, the site rewrites the book. But that’s just scratching the surface.
We’re now working to understand just how and why the Ness became one of the most extraordinary Neolithic sites in north-west Europe. And as part of that process, we’ll be producing a small series of books, each one dealing with a different aspect of our research. Our intention in each book is to present material that has captured our imaginations, to explore possibilities, and to move the process of interpretation forward.
We’re not offering “final words” at this stage – that will come with the publication of the principal site monograph in a few years’ time. Instead, these more interim studies focus on different aspects of the Ness, encouraging us to push our research into new areas and to keep the conversations going.
The first, Ness of Brodgar: Past Present and Future, was published to coincide with the Orkney Museum exhibition in 2024. The second, Ness of Brodgar: Elements of Architecture, focuses on the fabric of the remarkable architectural statements that dominate the site.
We’ve called this book Elements of Architecture for several reasons.
We’re interested in all of the different materials that were caught up in construction, and in the craft of masonry, the chains of operations that carried people from outcrop to isthmus and from foundation slab to rooftop. We’re also trying to establish the biographies of each building, tracking them from birth, through life, to death, then threading their stories into the longer-term history of the site. And that also requires thinking about how building at the Ness related to architectural traditions across Neolithic Orkney as a whole. There’s certainly plenty to keep us busy!
Elements of Architecture does not offer a comprehensive register of every structure, a definitive statement on their date and duration, or the character of their use. The details will come later. Here, we’ve tried to catch a sense of what makes the architecture of the Ness so special, and the challenges that we face in interpreting such a remarkable body of material.
