Traditional names or just another ‘Loda’ old nonsense?
Is there any truth to the antiquarian claims that the two Stenness circles were traditionally known as the ‘Temples of the Sun and Moon’? …
Digging into henges and henging…
The Ring of Brodgar and Stones of Stenness have been classed as “henges” since the term was coined in the 1930s. But are they really? And what exactly is a henge? …
The centre of their world – a place where heaven, earth and people met
By natural coincidence the Ness of Brodgar peninsula roughly lines up with a solstice axis. Is this one of the reason’s the area became a magnet to people for millennia? …
Video: The dead of winter – Maeshowe and the solstice
Today, Saturday, December 21, is the winter solstice – a day inextricably linked to Maeshowe in Stenness …
100 years on: the discovery of the ‘Brodgar Stone’ at Ness complex site
100 years ago this week the ‘Brodgar Stone’ was found – a taste of things to come …
Fruitless and forgotten – the 1861 excavation inside the Ring of Brodgar
For many, many years, the uncertainty surrounding what, if anything, lay inside the Ring of Brodgar has been put down to the fact the interior is unexcavated. But now, it seems, that is not the …
Maeshowe – the mummies, the giant and the mound-dweller…
A look at what may have lain behind the 1861 newspaper claim of two mummies and a giant in Maeshowe …
The Overbigging enclosure – an ‘elaborate and rather enigmatic monument’
Neolithic or later? A look at the large ditch-and-bank enclosure, near Overbigging, about 480 metres north-west of Maeshowe …
A henge at Staneyhill in Harray?
Another large ditch-and-bank enclosure in Orkney’s West Mainland. But is it actually a Neolithic ‘henge’? …
Was there more to Neolithic ‘dressers’ than just a set of shelves?
In the years since Skara Brae’s excavation, there has been much debate over the role, and significance, of the so-called “dressers” that have become icons for the site …
