5,000 Year-Old Maeshowe Chambered Cairn In Orkney
Maeshowe is a world-famous Neolithic chambered cairn and passage grave situated on Mainland Orkney, Scotland.
This 5,000-year-old burial cairn is a masterpiece of ancient design and engineering, a testament to the skill of Orkney's prehistoric residents.
That's because it was deliberately designed to align with the setting of the midwinter sun.
Just as the last rays start to disappear – which is at around 15:10pm at this deepest, darkest time of midwinter – a shaft of light creeps down the passageway and illuminates the inner chamber.
Thousands of years ago, Maeshowe would have helped locals cope with the depths of winter.
Since it would be dark for 18 hours a day, the startling contrast of the dark tomb being suddenly transformed would reassure them that the days would soon slowly start to lengthen.
The light would have reminded them of the re-emergence of life on Earth in spring – and perhaps also the tantalising promise of eternal life in another world.
Maeshowe is a Scheduled Monument and is part of the "Heart of Neolithic Orkney", a group of sites including Skara Brae, which were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Maeshowe is one of the largest tombs in Orkney; the mound encasing the tomb is 115 feet in diameter and rises to a height of 24 feet.
Surrounding the mound, at a distance of 50 feet to 70 feet is a ditch up to 45 feet wide.
The grass mound hides a complex of passages and chambers built of carefully crafted slabs of flagstone weighing up to 30 tons.
The 10m-long narrow entrance chamber is lined with massive stone slabs, while the central chamber is square and spacious, around 5m across, with huge standing stones – one in each corner – instantly drawing the eye.
Some of these would have weighed more than three tonnes, and the effort involved to put them in place was almost unimaginable, especially since any tools were most likely fashioned from antlers.
Even the work it would have taken to dig out the ditch surrounding the 7.3m-high and 35m-diameter mound seems improbable.
The ditch is 4m deep and carved out of solid rock by people without metal tools.
The site has inspired a range of theories, with most archaeologists and historians believing it was either a place of ritual and religion or an astronomical centre to observe the skies.
A potential explanation for the extraordinary genius of Maeshowe engineering and the lack of human remains was described by Peter Tompkins in 1971, who compared the structure at "Maes-Howe" to the Great Pyramid.
He suggested that the site was used as an observatory, calendar, and for May Day ceremonies rather than as a tomb.
Tompkins extensively studied numerous documents related to the measurement and exploration of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
He stated the central "observation chamber" at Maeshowe was "corbeled like the Great Pyramid's Grand Gallery", was carefully leveled, plumbed", and the jointing is of a quality that "rivals that of the Great Pyramid".
Rather than chambers of a tomb, Tompkins suggested the structure contained small "retiring rooms for the observers".
He suggested the entrance was very similar to Egyptian pyramids in that it had a "54 foot observation passage aimed like a telescope at a megalithic stone (2772 feet away) to indicate the summer solstice" (p. 130) in addition to its "Watchstone" to the West that indicated the equinoxes.
The "sighting passage" points to a northern star like the pyramids of Saqqara, Dashur and Medûm.
Tompkins stated that "The similarity [of the pyramids] to the structure at Maes-Howe is indeed amazing".
Estimates of the amount of effort required to build Maeshowe vary; a commonly suggested number is 39,000 man-hours, although Colin Renfre calculated that at least 100,000 hours would be required.
Dating of the construction of Maeshowe is difficult but dates derived from burials in similar tombs cluster around 3000 BC.
Since Maeshowe is the largest and most sophisticated example of the Maeshowe "type" of tomb, archaeologists have suggested that it is the last of its class, built around 2800 BC.
The people who built Maeshowe were users of grooved ware, a distinctive type of pottery that spread throughout the British Isles from about 3000 BC.
The land around Maeshowe at its construction probably looked much as it does today: Treeless, with grasses representative of ‘pollen assemblage zone’ MNH-I.
A Neolithic "low road" connects Maeshowe with the magnificently preserved village of Skara Brae passing near the Standing Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar.
Low roads connect Neolithic ceremonial sites throughout Britain.
Some archeologists believe that Maeshowe was originally surrounded by a large stone circle.
The complex including Maeshowe, the Ring of Brodgar, the Standing Stones of Stenness, Skara Brae, as well as other tombs and standing stones represents a concentration of Neolithic sites that is rivalled in Britain only by the complexes associated with Stonehenge and Avebury.
If you’d like to visit Maeshowe, it’s by guided tour only.
Tours depart from the new Maeshowe Visitor Centre (at Stenness), postcode KW16 3LB.
Tour times: 10am, 11.30am, 2pm and 3.30pm Due to limited capacity, it is strongly recommended to reserve your visit online to guarantee entry and avoid disappointment.
This also applies to Historic Scotland members and Explorer/Orkney Pass holders, but entry is free as normal for members.
Due to limited capacity, it is strongly recommended to reserve your visit online to guarantee entry and avoid disappointment.
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