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Neolithic
Chambered Tombs
Tales from the Tomb
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Part of a network of ritual sites: connected,
it would seem, with the great standing stones.
But what significance do these tombs hold buried
in the earth? Measurments of the sun and the moon,
a cult of the ancestors, suggestions of resurrection,
turning cycles. Theories abound, but the chambered
tombs in which the Orkney Isles are so abundant
won 't let go of their secrets that easily.
Maes Howe Tomb - Orkney - Factsheet
- The
greatest architectural achievement of
Scotland鈥檚 Neolithic builders: the 5000
year old chambered tomb of Maes Howe in
Orkney. The builders of the chambered
cairn known as Maes Howe put a lot of
effort into its construction. First a
knoll on the edge of their fields was
cleared and levelled off. Huge stones
weighing up to 30 tons were dragged to
the site and carefully constructed into
a finely finished tomb of precision masonry
without mortar. Then the whole structure
was sealed in clay and stone and covered
over by a circular mound of earth over
8m/26ft high and 38m/123ft in diameter.
A standing stone was erected next to it
and they dug out a ditch 14m/45ft across,
with a bank rising next to it to mark
it as a sacred space.
These Neolithic farmers probably lived
at the nearby settlements of Barnhouse
or Skara Brae and worshiped at the Stones
of Stenness.
- Maes
Howe was the house of the dead - the house of the ancestors.
To
enter, one would have had to open the tomb by pushing aside
a huge block which sealed the entrance, and, stooping, clamber
down the dark, stone-lined passageway that led to the cool,
central chamber - 4.7m/15ft wide and 4.5m/14ft high in the
heart of the mound. Off
the central chamber were three recesses that were blocked
by boulders. In this space the bones of the ancestors were
kept, however, when archaeologists entered the tomb 4, 500
years later, only one small fragment of a human skull was
found.
- Raising
the Dead?
The neolithic farmers may have brought
their dead ancestors out for special ceremonies
or decisions: to invoke the authority
of their spirits.The tomb has been specially
aligned with the midwinter sunset. Once
a year the sun's rays reach down the passageway
and strike the back wall of the tomb,
perhaps bringing life to the house of
the dead, but certainly marking the death
of the old year and birth of the new one
- a symbolic gesture showing that the
turning of the seasons was a mark of the
cycles of life and death. Perhaps this
was the time of year when Maes Howe was
re-opened.
- Tomb
Raiders
Over the centuries many people have tried
to dig into Maes Howe looking for treasure.
Oliver Cromwell’s troops tried in
the 1650’s, but failed. However,
earlier raiders did get in. They were
the Vikings and they carved their runes
to prove it. They might have reused the
tomb as a burial mound in the ninth century
when its outer bank was rebuilt. If they
did, they would have cleared out any Neolithic
remains they found.
- The
Icelandic Orkneyinga Saga, written around
1200 AD, tells us that Harald Maddadarson,
son of the Earl of Atholl, was caught
in a terrible blizzard during an attack
on Orkney. He and three companions sheltered
in Maes Howe for three long days waiting
for the storm to abait, by the end of
which two of the Vikings had been driven
completely mad.
-
Later the same year the Viking crusaders
returned and carved their boastful runes
into the tombs walls: ‘These
runes were carved by the man most skilled
in runes in the Western ocean…with
this axe owned by Gauk Trandilsson in
the South of Iceland.’
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