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Visit
some of the earliest and most mysterious of Britain’s
stone circles. With the strongest concentration
in the highlands and islands, the stones remain
as a monument to a forgotten age with a forgotten
purpose, although, as we shall see, they've had
more than a little help from modern hands.
The
Stones of Stenness - Orkney - Factsheet
- Stenness
is one of the earliest and most impressive
stone circles in Britain. It
is
over 44m (144ft) in diameter, it was
surrounded by a massive ditch 7m (23ft)
wide and 2.3m (7 ½ft) deep, and was
breached by an entrance causeway.
Little trace of the ditch remains
on the surface today, but Archaeologists
estimate that it took over 20, 000
man hours for it to be carved out
of the solid Orcadian bedrock using
only stone tools.
- Originally
there were 12 stones, but through
time many simply vanished. Even in
very recent history the stones have
changed their shape and numbers.
-
When the famous Scottish novelist,
Sir Walter Scott, visited in 1814,
he found five stones still standing.
No sooner had he seen them than a
farmer, tired of ploughing round the
stones, started to demolish them:
destroying one and toppling another
before he was stopped. Ninety years
later the toppled stone was re-erected
and another smaller, more angular,
stone was discovered hidden below
the ground. When it was put in an
upright position it was dwarfed by
the other monoliths, which, according
to folk tales, were four sun-stricken
giants or trolls turned to stone by
the rising sun.
- Human
Sacrifice at Stenness?
Walter
Scott believed the stones held a darker,
magical secret. He thought a large
slab lying in the middle of the circle
was ‘probably once an altar for human
victims to be sacrificed’. It was
too good an idea to resist, so at
the start of the 20th century, when
the other stones were repositioned
to the vertical, the slab was raised
and placed on top of the two stones
like an altar table. Then, in 1972,
the altar-table stone was toppled
off after a drunken party, or perhaps
by a disgruntled archaeologist who
didn't care for the sacrificial altar
theory?
- Evidence
When the ditch around the stones was
excavated, the bones of oxen, sheep,
dogs, wolves and even a human finger
were discovered.
- Inside
the circle they found a stone hearth,
perhaps used for cooking and feasting,
with what could have been the remains
of a totem pole nearby. Near to the
hearth, traces of a wooden structure
were found next to two central standing
stones - perhaps part of the central
altar of which Walter Scott had spoken.
It has been suggested that the fire,
totem pole, wooden structure and central
stone altar were all used to aid sacrificial
rituals.
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