As part of Kirkwall Grammar School’s annual activities week, the Ness’ education officer, Katy Firth, and Professor Mark Edmonds were joined by pupils at the Maeshowe visitor centre last week.

After hearing about the Ness of Brodgar excavations, they visited Maeshowe, where the group set to looking for some of the very faint decorated stones inside.

Back at the visitor centre they used flint to incise their own designs on stone fragments before artist Megumi Barrington-Uenoyama demonstrated a Japanese printing technique to create prints of the stones. 

One method of Takuzuri involves placing paper onto the incised stone and spraying a fine water mist over it. Then an ink is pressed on to the paper using a tool known as a tanpo, which transfers the patterns of the rock and incised designs on to the paper. 

Our thanks to Historic Environment Scotland and the Maeshowe visitor centre for hosting us.

Focus on farming with Glaitness P5s

Previously, Katy visited Glaitness Primary School, in Kirkwall, as part of P5’s project on farming.

At the workshop she showed the youngsters evidence of Neolithic farming found at the Ness of Brodgar, including sheep teeth, cattle bone, pollen, and pots (their contents and decorations).

Some of the young archaeologists’ reports are shown below:

“Katy Firth came to our school to show us evidence for people farming in the past at the Ness of Brodgar. She showed us teeth, flax, bones and pollen. When Katy came she gave my table flax and she showed us how people five thousand years ago made clothes but I don’t think we did the best job at it but it was interesting.”

Paddy

“Katy Firth came to see Primary 5. She came to see us because of our topic which is farming. She showed us flax , seeds, bones, teeth and pollen. My table made flax fibres.”

Logan

“Katy, an archaeologist, came to see P5. Katy taught us about 5,000-year-old farming. She had six things to show P5. Katy showed us seeds which would have grown into barley and wheats. Katy told us that they grow flax to make clothes. She showed us bones and that showed that they kept cows. Archaeologists can tell from pollen that they had flowers. I really enjoyed it.”

Abby

“Katy Firth came to Glaitness School to educate the P5s on the Ness of Brodgar. She taught them about specifically farming back at the Ness of Brodgar 5,000 years ago. They specifically taught about sheep teeth and pollen. I enjoyed learning about the charts and the numbers.”

Lochlan

“The education officer at the Ness of Brodgar, Katy Firth, came to P5 at Glaitness School to teach about farming in the past. She told us about pots that farmers used that were made of clay to put their food in. We did an experiment where we put milk in bread and we learned that the residue never comes out. To finish off we listened to some facts and I enjoyed it very much.”

Logan

“Katy came in to school to tell us. First she came in we did not know what she was doing. I did seeds – there was barley, wheat and oats. There was also flax, pollen and sheep’s teeth. I would like Katy to come back.”

Mason

“Katy Firth came to visit Primary 5 to teach them about farming 5,000 years ago. She had an experiment where you would pour milk on bread and it stays forever. She let P5 hold artefacts from 5,000 years ago.”

Marshall

“Katy Firth (Molly’s mum) came to tell us a little but about the Ness of Brodgar. Katy even showed us some things that will be in the museum in the future. She even charged P5 nothing and she was so nice that we could see something that might be famous in the future. She even showed us some teeth from sheep which were disgusting but interesting at the same time.”

Ronnie

“Katy Firth (education officer for the Ness of Brodgar) came to teach us about the Ness because our topic was on old farming in Orkney. Before she came we had already been to Skara Brae and Kirbuster Farm Museum. Katy split us into 5 or 6 groups and each group got a folder and there was evidence. We had to piece the evidence together. Some of the things in the folders were flax which was like twisted together to make it stronger.”

Isaac