Prehistoric Site sights in Orkney Islands
- Sort by:
- Popular
-
Taversoe Tuick
Taversoe Tuick is an intriguing burial cairn constructed on two levels, with separate entrances – perhaps a joint tomb for different families, a semi-detached solution to a shortage of afterlife housing. You can squeeze into the cairn and descend a steel ladder to explore both levels, but there’s not much space.
reviewed
-
Tomb of the Eagles
Set in a spectacular clifftop position, this 5000-year-old chambered tomb was discovered by local farmers who now run it privately as a visitor attraction. It’s as interesting for their entertaining and informative guided tour and for the unusual access (lying prone on a trolley, you wheel yourself into the low entrance tunnel) as for the tomb itself.
Before taking the mile's airy walk out to the site, an excellent personal explanation is given to you at the visitor centre; you meet a few spooky skulls and get to handle some of the artefacts found in the tomb, including some sea-eagle talons.
On the way you visit a circular Bronze Age stone building with a firepit, indoo…
reviewed
-
Ring of Brodgar
Situated about a mile north of Stenness, along the road towards Skara Brae, is this wide circle of standing stones, some over 5m tall. Last of the three Stenness monuments to be built (2500–2000 BC), it remains a most atmospheric location. Twenty-one of the original 60 stones still stand among the heather. These mysterious giants, their curious shapes mutilated by years of climatic onslaught, fire the imagination – what were they for? On a grey day with dark clouds thudding low across the sky, the stones look secretive and seem to be almost sneering at the jostling summer crowds. Free guided tours leave from the carpark at 1pm from June to August.
reviewed
-
Maes Howe
Egypt has the pyramids, Scotland has Maes Howe. Constructed about 5000 years ago, it’s the a Stone Age tomb built from enormous sandstone blocks, some of which weighed many tons and were brought from several miles away. Though nothing is known about who was interred here, the scope of the project suggests it was a structure of great significance.
Creeping down the long stone passageway to the central chamber, over 6.7m high and 3.5m wide, you begin to sense the indescribable gulf of years that separate us from the architects of this mysterious place.
No remains were found when the tomb was excavated in the 19th century, so it’s not known how many people were originally …
reviewed
-
Mine Howe
On a farm at Tankerness, the mysterious Iron Age site of Mine Howe is an eerie underground chamber, about 1.5m in diameter and 4m high. Its function is unknown; archaeologists from the TV series Time Team carried out a dig here and concluded that it may have had some ritual significance, perhaps as an oracle or shrine.
reviewed
-
Midhowe Broch
Next to the Midhowe Tomb is Midhowe Broch, the sturdy stone lines of which echo the stratifications of the rocky shoreline. The best example of a broch in Orkney, it's a muscular, Iron Age fortified compound with a central partition fashioned out of stone slabs, with two hearths, water tanks, quern stones and lots of Skara Brae–style stonebuilt storage shelves.
Dating from around 100 BC, it has a cluster of well-preserved outbuldings, including dwelling houses (you can see the holes for the hinge pins of wooden doors) and a forge for smelting iron.
reviewed
-
Brough of Birsay
At low tide (check tide times at the shop in Earl’s Palace) you can walk out to the Brough of Birsay, about 0.75 miles northwest of the Earl’s Palace. This windswept island is the site of extensive Norse ruins, including a number of longhouses and the 12th-century St Peter’s Church.
There’s also a replica of a Pictish stone which was found here, carved with an eagle and human figures. St Magnus was buried here after his murder on Egilsay in 1117, and the island was a place of pilgrimage until a few centuries ago. You can continue across the headland to the attractive lighthouse, built in 1925, which has fantastic views along the coast.
reviewed
-
Midhowe Tomb
Dating from around 3500 BC, the 30m-long Midhowe Tomb, dubbed the ‘Great Ship of Death’, is the longest chambered cairn in Orkney. The vast stone tomb is covered by a modern stone building, and has a suspended walkway allowing you to walk above the main passage and see the 24 stone ‘stalls’ where the bones of 25 people were discovered.
As well as human remains, many bird and animal bones were found in the cave, perhaps meant as food for the deceased. The cairn is 5.5 miles west of the pier and a steep 550m walk down from the road.
reviewed
-
Knowe of Yarso
A boggy half-mile walk from the road leads to the Knowe of Yarso, a stalled cairn; it contained the remains of 29 adults, and was in use from 2900 BC to 1900 BC.
reviewed
-
Dwarfie Stane
The 5000-year-old Dwarfie Stane is the only example of a neolithic rock-cut tomb in Britain, hollowed out of a huge sandstone boulder dropped here by a glacier during the last Ice Age. It lies a 10-minute walk east of the road through Rackwick Glen (signposted from a parking area), beneath cliffs that are loud with nesting fulmars in summer.
An opening in the west side, a metre square, gives access to two small, rounded burial chambers; a large block of stone that once sealed the entrance sits just outside. A concrete repair on the roof (dating from the 1950s) marks where the tomb was plundered at some unknown time in the distant past.
The stone is associated with Viking …
reviewed
Advertisement
-
Blackhammer Cairn
Blackhammer, 1.5 miles west of the ferry pier, is a chambered cairn that served as the burial place for a farming community around 2500 BC. Only two sets of human remains were found here, along with animal bones and fragments of neolithic pottery.
reviewed
