Old,older,oldest,not so old.

Orkney, like the Shetland Islands has been settled for a loooonnnnnnggggggg time. You do remember catching the ferry here don’t you. Late at night ,snuck into the hotel… Anyway moving on, your program for today is a walk around Kirkwall ,the main town,off to see some old fossils ( not locals but rocks ) and a burial site. Ready.

The town: old but with wider main streets and narrow lanes where the old castle wall was.

The castle is a ruin. You didn’t say hurrah did you? Anyway we took a photo and did not enter. Look at the cathedral. St Magnus was built in 1100’s. It is massive and 4 stories in some parts. The organist was practising and the sound was magic.

So that was old but moving along. We are off to see fossils and a heritage centre. Not all of the fossils came from Orkney.  

Churchill Barriers were built during WW2. Before the Barriers, the islands were unlinked. A submarine managed to move between the islands and sink a British battleship, the Royal Oak. The barriers were built to prevent this happening. Old ships were used to block the channels until the barriers were completed.

Now moving to older…the fossils were oldest. They have discovered a burial site and burn mound . They don’t know what the structure at the burn mound was for but it had evidence of a grinding stone and water heating. This was a square that would have held a 1000lites of water. Water was heated by dropping heated stones into the water. Brewery? Sauna? No one knows.

At the same location was the burial site. It was three interconnecting chambers entered by a tunnel. A very small , dark long tunnel you crawled through. I did not go in but a volunteer took photos for you.

They have recovered bones and skulls from the site along with Eagle bones. The site has been named Tomb of the Eagles. It is believed that bodies were laid out until the bones were clean and then moved to the tomb as no full skeletons have been found. The bones are still being examined.

.

Moving on, your last experience for the day is the Italian Chapel. This was built by the Italian POW’s while they built the barriers. They built and decorated the chapel so they could have somewhere that was beautiful to spend their time creating and enjoying. The main painting was from a card one of the prisoners had been given by his mum.

Are you pooped? Information overload? Well go have dinner as it is more archeology tomorrow

ps. I now have photos of wildflowers with labels if you have a burning desire to know what they are.