jbright's Travel Journals

jbright

 
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  • From United States
  • Currently in Germany

British Isles 2010

All the things I've seen, places I've been whilst studying throughout the UK and Ireland in summer '10.

Day 34: Skara Brae... and More Stones

Scotland Scotland  |  Jun 16, 2010
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Highlights

  • AFter Skara Brae, we stopped by stones similar to the Standing Stones of Stenness, except there were significantly more and they were in better shape. Also, they formed a circle. Their name? The Ring of Brodgar. They date from the same time as the Stones of Stenness and Skara Brae and many think that they were used for sacrifices.


    The thing that really gets me is that these stones are massive--I'm guessing at least 11 feet--and from all the evidence at Skara Brae, the people who 'planted' these stones (as Bryce said) had to have been about 3 and 4 feet tall. 

 From far away, it might just look to passersby as a little mound with random dips and sand pits, but up close, you can really see that it housed a civilization. 

Thankfully, we only were in the hostel at Kirkwall for one night as today we left back to Inverness. Yesterday, on the bus, Michael asked us if we would want to visit this place called Skara Brae, which he explained was a little town. He said that he went there with his dad when he was about nine and it remains one of his fondest and most impressive memories. Naturally, we all agreed that visiting would be amazing, even if we did have to pay £6. 

We pulled up to Skara Brae and Skaill House and I still wasn’t sure what to expect. The first place we walked into was a recreation of House 6, I didn’t really find this significant (mostly because I didn’t read the little papers they gave us) as I wasn’t sure what House 6 was. There was however a little pit in the middle that they claimed was a bed. Frankly, I thought it was more of the size of a dog’s bed. Anyway, then we continued on our walk and they gave us a timeline so that we could really understand just how old Skara Brae was—it’s even older than the Pyramids of Gaza and Stonehenge. Skara Brae dates back to 3100 BC!

When we reached it, I was amazed. Really, just walking around was so interesting. From far away, it might just look to passersby as a little mound with random dips and sand pits, but up close, you can really see that it housed a civilization.  There were different signs telling about all of the things that those who discovered the little village had found out about the people of Skara Brae. Some of the signs went into detail about their home living, the tools they used, that sort of thing.

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