Orkney, day 2, part 2

[low_delta]

Skara Brae is a stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Mainland, the largest island in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. It consists of eight clustered houses, and was occupied from roughly 3180 BCE–2500 BCE. Europe's most complete Neolithic village, Skara Brae gained UNESCO World Heritage Site status as one of four sites making up "The Heart of Neolithic Orkney." Older than Stonehenge or the Great Pyramids, it has been called the "Scottish Pompeii" because of its excellent preservation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skara_Brae



We paid our admission at the Visitors Centre and walked out to a replica of one of the dwellings. By the time we left there to walk out to the actual settlement, there was a driving rain. My dad and I agreed we'd wait it out in the Visitors Centre. I think we only got as far back as the replica dwelling by the time the rain let up. With that wind, those showers move fast.


The reconstruction, that you can walk through.

Out at the ruins...

that's Skaill House behind. Your admission to Skara Brae covers a tour of that mansion, but we declined.


The village was uncovered by waves in a severe storm in the winter of 1850. They've built walls to try to keep the waves out.










You can really get a feel for what the living quarters were like.










On the right, where the "different" grass is, is a particularly well-preserved house. For many years, to preserve it, they had a glass roof over it, so you could see in, while it remained protected from the elements. Then they realized the sun on the enclosure was causing more damage than if they'd just left it open. So they took the glass off, and built a roof like they think the original was. The public can't see it, but they're preserving it for future study.


This is the guy who yells at you if you step off the path. Many people are annoyed by that, but they really do need to protect it. You can go anywhere you want in Broch of Gurness, but it's less well preserved than this, much younger, and doesn't get as many visitors. I found Gurness less educational as well, since Skara Brae has well-defined dwellings, complete with furniture - beds, "dressers," hearths and more. Archaeology has turned up a lot more useful information about how the inhabitants lived.



Many structures on Orkney appear in the top 25 or so of the world's oldest buildings.


Click to embiggen.

List_of_the_oldest_buildings_in_the_world
Oldest_buildings_in_Scotland

After Skara Brae, it was time to leave Orkney. We had a couple of hours to kill in Stromness. Unfortunately, it was raining, and there wasn't much to see, so we sat in the car at the ferry, for a bit. My dad was sick, and was coughing really bad, so I had to leave the car. I sat in a restaurant with a big bowl of soup, trying to dry out, while catching up on e-mail.


I'd never seen a lightpost with hooves before.






Seems like it was a bigger boat than it appears here. Must be the wide angle lens.


How Low Light, with some WWII emplacements.







By the time we got out of Hoy Sound and into the Atlantic, the sky was clearing. The wind was still really strong, though, and the waves were big. It wasn't so rough that we had to go through Scapa Flow again, but the boat was really rolling.






St. John's Head, on Hoy.


The famous Old Man of Hoy.

Comments

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

Unbelievable that "just" stacked stone covered with dirt could last so long.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

That dirt is what protected it so well. What surprises me is that the dirt preserved other things for 4000 years, like wood and even less durable things.

I forgot to mention the other day, that the Broch of Gurness had also been covered with dirt until sometime in the 1800's.

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

In the ninth picture down, I first thought to myself that there were wood "sides" in that one, but quickly talked myself out of that in the favor of really thin slices of rock. Is there wood in that image?

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Nope, thin slices of stone. Some of them have metal bands on them (like in #10), for preservation efforts.

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

I know you may not realize the impact... but in my head is "and then Kevin went to Scotland" because of the POSSIBILITIES that building with stone and dirt, and the durability, and the practical use of indoor "out of the elements space" and the no available MODERN resources bring to mind are overwhelming.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

And you're squandering all that stone on pavers! ;-)

I assume you're still looking at that ninth picture, of the living quarters. As I said, stone furniture! But that's all they had. There were virtually no trees on Orkney, so no wood. All they had was stone, clay, stone, bone, hides, stone and stone. Oh, and midden. "Compost" was mixed with clay, and packed between the walls.

What amazes me over there are all the drystone walls. They're everywhere. It seems that with hundreds, or even thousands of years of collective practice they'd get really good at it. So with those skills, what do you have to add to the stone walls to get walls good enough for a house?

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

Of all that I have read of natural building, your "midden" is in fact key. To this day when you build with straw bale, or cob, some sort of manure is key. Granted it is recommended that you use an animal that only eats plants manure, but...

what do you have to add to the stone walls to get walls good enough for a house?

Seal? Wind protection, weather protection, insect/vermin protection?

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was thinking more of the advancement of skills beyond stone stacking. Was it really as easy as chinking the holes with clay?

Th midden at Skara Brae was made of all their waste. Shells, animal parts, everything.

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

Hmm.. I can see where the shells and perhaps the bones would serve as an aggregate like in cement. In fact when you think of cement, what they were doing was making it naturally I suppose.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

In my day, we didn't have no fancy-schmancy video games. All we had was rocks! And we liked it!