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On a completely different aspect of this topic, I was in Orkney in the
'70s during the early displays of the first discovery of ancient
dwellings which became exposed at Skara Brae after a major storm tore
masses of turf off the nearby shoreline, uncovering an entire
prehistoric village of stone houses with connected walkways. It was not
hard to understand why this site had been chosen as the nearby cliffs
around the bay consisted of a type of rock that, to this day still
appears to shelve off in long slim slabs; these slabs were evident in
every house and what, for me, remains so memorable was their use for
everyday needs which were identical to ours today - small horizontal
slabs inserted at various levels in the walls to provide shelves and,
most striking of all, rectangular bed frames on the ground consisting of
narrow strips of the stone slabs for the sides, tall upright slabs for
the head and slightly smaller ones for the foot of the bed - exactly how
we still do it today!! And what I saw at that time is only a mere
fraction of what has been discovered since then...
The other site there that made a deep impression was the standing stones
circle at the Moor of Brodgar; seeing it there in its (at least at that
time) splendidly isolated setting looking no different than the day it
was completed made a very powerful impression that left poor beleaguered
Stonehenge, with all the traffic whizzing by, way behind.
Orkney is a totally fascinating place to visit, not so much for its
scenery, but for its spectacularly rich endowment of an amazing variety
of prehistoric to second world war history.
Eleanor Lindsay
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<font size="+1">On a completely different aspect of this topic, I
was in Orkney in the '70s during the early displays of the first
discovery of ancient dwellings which became exposed at Skara Brae
after a major storm tore masses of turf off the nearby shoreline,
uncovering an entire prehistoric village of stone houses with
connected walkways. It was not hard to understand why this site
had been chosen as the nearby cliffs around the bay consisted of a
type of rock that, to this day still appears to shelve off in long
slim slabs; these slabs were evident in every house and what, for
me, remains so memorable was their use for everyday needs which
were identical to ours today - small horizontal slabs inserted at
various levels in the walls to provide shelves and, most striking
of all, rectangular bed frames on the ground consisting of narrow
strips of the stone slabs for the sides, tall upright slabs for
the head and slightly smaller ones for the foot of the bed -
exactly how we still do it today!! And what I saw at that time is
only a mere fraction of what has been discovered since then...<br>
The other site there that made a deep impression was the standing
stones circle at the Moor of Brodgar; seeing it there in its (at
least at that time) splendidly isolated setting looking no
different than the day it was completed made a very powerful
impression that left poor beleaguered Stonehenge, with all the
traffic whizzing by, way behind.<br>
<br>
Orkney is a totally fascinating place to visit, not so much for
its scenery, but for its spectacularly rich endowment of an
amazing variety of prehistoric to second world war history.<br>
<br>
Eleanor Lindsay<br>
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