Prehistoric Tombs And Viking Graffiti In Orkney, Scotland

by Sean McLachlan on


There’s something about death.

Graveyards, war memorials, mummified monks, Purgatory Museums … if there’s dead people involved, I’m there. That’s why my 6-year-old son found himself crawling through prehistoric tombs with his dad on remote Scottish islands for his summer vacation.

He loved it, of course. He still has that wonderful sense of adventure children should keep into adulthood. Plus he wasn’t scared in the least. It’s hard to fear death when you assume it doesn’t apply to you. My wife is a bit claustrophobic and so is less into this sort of thing. She prefers stone circles, although she gamely explored the tombs with her crazy husband and son.

What appealed to him, and me, was the spooky, silent darkness of these prehistoric tombs and the strange texture of the stones. That’s why I love this photo by Paddy Patterson. It shows the Tomb of the Eagles on the Orkney island of South Ronaldsay just off the north coast of Scotland. This image highlights the almost fleshy texture of the rock and the dank, dark interior.

Orkney is full of Neolithic tombs. As I mentioned in my previous post in this series, Orkney was home to a flourishing Stone Age culture 5,000 years ago. These people buried their dead in large subterranean tombs with several side chambers that were reused over several generations. The Tomb of the Eagles was one of the biggest and gets its name from the many eagle bones found inside.

Our visit started at the museum nearby, where a docent passed around artifacts found at the site and showed us the skulls of the people buried there. Life was hard back then and those who survived childhood rarely made it past their 30s. One woman’s skull showed an abscess the size of marble. Strangely, it never got infected. Her teeth showed signs of wear consistent with chewing on leather, a crude but effective way of softening it up for use. Since the traditional method of curing leather required soaking it in urine, and urine is a natural disinfectant, perhaps her abscess never got infected because she was chewing on urine-soaked leather all day. The good old days? I think not.

%Gallery-161068%While the museum was great, I must admit I was a bit disappointed by the tomb itself. It was unprofessionally excavated by a local farmer who tore off the entire roof to get inside. Now it’s been covered with a concrete cap that reduces the whole effect. Hopefully someone will provide the funds to restore the roof someday.

A much smaller but almost perfectly preserved tomb is Cuween Hill on Orkney Mainland. Overlooking the road between Kirkwall and Finstown, it has a central chamber and four side chambers. My son and I had to crawl inside through a tiny entrance passage. When we got there, we found someone had lit candles at the entrances to each of the side chambers.

“Why did they do that?” my son asked.

“Because they’re respecting the ancestors,” I replied. “Leave them alone. We’re going to respect their respect.”

“OK,” he replied. “Just don’t burn yourself when you crawl over them.”

My son knows me well enough to know that a little bit of fire won’t stop me from exploring an ancient tomb.

What struck me about this tomb was how well it was made. There was no mortar; it was simply made from rectangular slabs of rock cleverly stacked atop one another to form arches, doorways and passages. A lot of care went into their final resting place.

Besides human remains, archaeologists discovered 24 dog skulls in Cuween Hill, prompting witty locals to call it the “Tomb of the Beagles.” Another tomb had otter bones. Perhaps each group had their own communal tomb and totem animal.

Orkney’s most famous Neolithic tomb is Maeshowe. Built around 2700 B.C. within sight of two stone circles and at least two major settlements, it appeared as a massive artificial hill 30 meters (100 feet) around and 11 meters (36 feet) high. It was surrounded by a ditch and earthen embankment, something also found around many stone circles.

Entering through a long, low passageway, we soon were able to stand and admire a central chamber fashioned much the same way as Cuween Hill but on a much grander scale. The passageway was acted as more than an entrance. For a few days around the midwinter solstice, the setting sun shines through the passage and onto the back wall. If you don’t want to brave the Orkney winter, you can watch it on a webcam.

Maeshowe’s walls are covered in Viking graffiti. According to the Orkneyinga Saga, on Christmas Day 1153, a group of Vikings were making their way to a nearby port in order to sail off to the Crusades. A sudden storm blew up and the Vikings broke into the tomb to find shelter. To pass the time, they wrote runes on the walls. Most of these are prosaic, like “Tryggr carved these runes.” One fellow showed off by writing in two rare styles of Runic. Those who could read it were rewarded with the boast, “These runes were carved by the man most skilled in runes in the western ocean.”

Another hints at a buried treasure: “Crusaders broke into Maeshowe. Lif the earl’s cook carved these runes. To the north-west is a great treasure hidden. It was long ago that a great treasure was hidden here. Happy is he that might find that great treasure. Hakon alone bore treasure from this mound,” signed “Simon Sirith.”

For a complete listing of the graffiti, check this link.

Don’t miss the rest of my series, “Exploring Orkney: Scotland’s Rugged Northern Isles.”

Coming up next: “Shapinsay: Visiting A Wee Scottish Island!”

Midnight In Paris: Dark Moments in the City of Light

by David Farley on
The pounding began at 12:46 a.m., a slow banging that echoed through the courtyard of our tiny ground-floor apartment in the center of Paris.

Boom … boom … boom.

I’d been woken up before by the random pigeon cooing in the courtyard or the occasional wine-soaked resident stumbling up the stairs. I’d also been routinely roused out of a dream state by the building’s concierge, Madame Dontas, as we were instructed to call her, who insisted on sweeping outside our door at the first light of day. This noise, however, was different.

Boom … boom … boom.

“Do you hear that?” Jessie whispered, rolling over to face me. The pounding, louder and more frequent as the minutes ticked on our bedside digital clock, indicated there was a very impatient (possibly deranged) person on the other side. If this were happening back in New York – a place where I speak the language and know the proper procedures in which to deal with an unexpected, possibly inconvenient situation – I could handle it. But being in a place that was unfamiliar and foreign to me only amplified the fear. I barely knew the language – my French wasn’t even good enough to transcend eye rolls from waiters and condescending switches to English by shoe salesmen when I made gross mispronunciations or failed to conjugate an irregular verb the right way – and this paralyzed me.

Our apartment was directly across the courtyard from the oversized thick wooden front doors that led out to the Rue des Pyramides in the very center of the city. It was one of only two apartments on the courtyard. The other belonged to the Dontas’ who had just left that day for their native Portugal. There had to be other people in the building, but it felt like we were all alone – just us and the thugs trying to get in.

Then incomprehensible screams and hollers began to accompany the pounding. “What do you think it is?” Jessie said, sitting up. “What do they want?”

I crawled out of bed, squatted down in front of our apartment door, and lifted the narrow mail slot. I could see the front door rattle – little cracks of light – every time the mysterious potential intruders pounded on the apartment building door, about 40 feet from me. Jessie squatted next to me and together we watched the door in front of us shake. She locked her arm in mine and I squeezed hers tight to my chest. I hadn’t been this frightened years.

Jessie wondered out loud if we should call the police. But that would mean I’d have to talk … in French … on the phone. I didn’t know what frightened me more: what these guys might do if they succeeded in getting in or having to actually talk in French on the phone. I’d have to explain what was happening and I must have been sick the day we went over the chapter “When an intruder comes to say bon soir” in the French class I took before we moved to Paris. Despite my frustrations with speaking French, I was the more linguistically inclined between us and therefore the mouthpiece when one of us had to say something in another language. But if I called, I’d have to meet the police outside and what if they asked for my passport and they’d see that we didn’t have a residency permit.

The door began shaking more violently with each pounding and the screams from the other side grew louder. “Maybe we should call,” Jessie said.

Kitty Genovese popped into my head. “But we don’t even know the number for the police,” I said, relieved that I didn’t have to make the call.

“I think it’s 1-5,” Jessie said.

Damn. I went over to the phone and dialed. It was that European phone ring I still hadn’t become accustomed to – the kind of ring that, from an American ear, almost sounds like a busy signal. Someone answered. I paused.

“Good evening,” I sputtered out in French. “I have an emergency.” I hesitated, hoping the person on the other end of the line would say, No problem, we’ll send someone right away, and that would be it. It wasn’t.

“And…?” the man on the other end of the phone said.

“There is a man who…er….um….” I didn’t know the word for knock, pound, slam their fist, break down the door, cut me up into tiny pieces and deposit my remains in a dumpster.

“There is a man who boom, boom, boom” – I mimicked the sound – “on the door.”

Is anyone hurt? Do you need an ambulance?”

“No. Not yet”

“So what do need me for?” the voice on the other end asked.

I paused. I knew that the French were more nonchalant than Americans, but this was ridiculous.

Just then, in a terse whisper, Jessie said: “They’re starting to kick the door down.”

Before I could answer the question from the voice on the phone, he added: “This is medical emergency. Call the police emergency line if someone’s trying to enter your apartment.”

Then I could hear the swift motion of a hang up.

“Wait! Wait!” I screamed. “Hello?”

“What?”

“Do you have the number for the police?”

He let out a sigh and then said, “1-7.” Then the phone went dead. He’d hung up as soon as he could.

When the woman at the police emergency center answered the phone, I tried a different approach: “Parlez vous Engles?”

She didn’t, so I went though the same kind of verbal miming I had already done with the ambulance emergency and then she asked the address. “Rue des Pyramides 7,” I said. She said the police were on their way. I put the phone down and Jessie and I hugged, relieved that we were going to get through this. We both paced around our diminutive one-room apartment and then squatted in front of the door again, peering out the mail slot. We watched the door continue to shake with each pound as we silently rooted on the police who were undoubtedly just around the corner by now. But, in fact, they weren’t. Twenty minutes had gone by and the thugs outside were still screaming and pounding. And then finally, our phone rang.

“Bon soir,” the familiar female voice from 20 minutes ago, said. “The police officers just informed me that the address you gave them is a church. You are not living in a church, no?”

“A church? No,” I whispered. “We’re at Rue des Pyramides 7. Just a block from the Louvre.”

“Ah,” she said. “Rue des Pyramides,” putting an accent over a part of the street name that I apparently hadn’t. “Before you said Rue des Pyramides.”

It sounded exactly the same to me. To this day, I have no idea where I sent the police, but apparently they were now on their way, which was good because when I put the phone down and peered through the mail slot, I watched as the front doors to the courtyard burst open. Even the thugs were surprised when the doors swung open and slammed against the side walls.

French criminals, I had thought, were relatively harmless. They’d sneak around in a beret, with a black mask over their eyes and a stylish black-and-white-striped shirt. When I taught English as a second language, there was a section in the text book for stupid criminals and one of the anecdotes told of a burglar in France who, lured by a nice bottle of Bordeaux and a hunk of brie, decided to put down the jewels he was five-fingering for a minute and have a brief epicurean feast. After a little while, he was sleepy, so he lay down on the couch to take a nap, only to be woken up a few hours later by the police.

These guys, however, weren’t dressed in the French national burglar outfit. Nor did they seem very hungry for cheese. About five of them poured through the door and made a sprint straight for us, as we slightly lowered the mail slot. But instead of coming to knock our door down, they tore up the stairwell, screaming as they advanced up into the building. C’mon police, I thought. Where are you?

Noise and ruckus from above echoed throughout the courtyard. Where was everyone? Was this entire building empty except for us? Jessie and I kept mentally willing the police to stride through the busted open front doors. Five minutes later, the thugs stomped down the steps and exited the building, leaving the doors wide open. We didn’t know what they wanted; nor did we know if they got what they had come for. But twenty seconds after they left, the police arrived. And, surprisingly, they were met in the courtyard by several residents. I was too bashful to go out and talk to them, saying I was the one who had called the police; I was the one who couldn’t say the name of the street correctly, which is why they had just missed the intruders. Instead, Jessie and I sat inside and listened to the trembling voices of the residents intermingle with the police officers’ radio dispatches on their transmitters.

Like good criminals, we opened a bottle of wine, unwrapped a hunk of cheese and ate and drank until we became sleepy and then drifted off into the Paris of our dreams.

Still Want To Go To The Olympics? Have An Extra $100k?

by Kraig Becker on

Travelers hoping to attend the Olympic Games in London probably should have booked their hotels and bought their tickets months ago. After all, the opening ceremonies are tomorrow and events are already starting to ramp up. But if you’re the kind of person who puts everything off until the last minute, and you have a spare $100,000 burning a hole in your pocket, there are still some luxury options to be had.

Members-only travel site In The Know has partnered with private jet charter PlaneClear to deliver a London travel experience unlike any other. Their five-night Luxury Olympics Package includes a private jet to the U.K., shuttle service in a Mercedes S Class vehicle, accommodations at the exclusive Belgraves hotel and a personal 24-hour concierge.

While attending the games, travelers will also be allowed to select tickets of their choice to some of the most popular events, including gymnastics, swimming, diving and more. They can also choose to either attend three events with the best seating possible, or five events with “second tier” seating. The package also provides access to an Olympic hospitality tent, after-hours parties, leisure activities and more.

It is difficult to put a price tag on the experience of a lifetime but in this case someone has. Prices for these luxury packages start at a staggering $97,500 and can be booked by emailing info@flyplaneclear.com.

Your private Gulfstream or Challenger aircraft is standing by to whisk you off to London today.

Six Great Mediterranean Cruise Ship Ports

by Chris Owen on

Some of the best Mediterranean cruise ship ports appear on a variety of itineraries from several cruise lines. Traveling via cruise ship, vacationers are able to see six or more different ports on a seven- to 10-day sailing. That’s covering a lot of ground quickly and efficiently, making a Mediterranean cruise one of the most intense of all sailings.

As if a new, different and exciting port every day was not enough, shore excursions on a Mediterranean cruise run between four and 10 hours long. That makes for a long day, but one well worth it when visiting iconic bucket list destinations like Rome in Italy, Dubrovnik in Croatia or Marseilles in France. After a few days on board, destinations can seem to run together though, with no plan in place for getting the most out of time spent ashore.

Savvy travelers learn quickly to pace themselves. An interesting cruise ship-sponsored Mediterranean cruise shore excursion at every other port usually works well. Choosing the “on your own” version of an excursion seems to produce good results for many as opposed to being carted around from place to place with a tour group. At the ports where no excursion is planned, many travelers choose to simply walk off the ship and enjoy the day shopping, sight seeing or simply sitting at a sidewalk cafe, drinking in the local flavor.

Here are six of our favorite cruise ship ports of call when sailing the waters of the Mediterranean.

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[Photos by Chris Owen]

The Heart Of Neolithic Orkney

by Sean McLachlan on


For reasons that aren’t very clear, the Orkney Islands just north of Scotland were the happening place to be 5000 years ago.

The temperature was warmer in Orkney back then, with forest and deer in addition to the abundant bird and marine life that still mark Orkney out as a natural wonderland. The Neolithic (Late Stone Age) people farmed the land and hunted game. They also built some of the most remarkable prehistoric monuments in Europe.

The photo above shows the Standing Stones of Stenness, a stone circle built around 3100 B.C., making it one of the earliest of the 1000 stone circles in the UK and roughly contemporary with the earliest building phase of Stonehenge. It was once made up of about a dozen massive yet thin slabs, but now only four remain standing. Several lone standing stones stood in the surrounding area.

Many legends and traditions grew up around the stones. One stone, called the Odin Stone after the Norse god, had a hole near its base. Young Orcadian couples used to promise themselves in marriage by clasping their hands through it. A local farmer got so sick of these happy couples trespassing on his land that he knocked the stone down in 1814, with the intention of taking the rest down too. The Orcadians were furious and the farmer wisely stopped destroying the stones.

Like many stone circles, the Standing Stones of Stenness was surrounded by a ditch and earthen palisade. The opening led to a nearby village of the same date called the Barnhouse settlement. Here archaeologists uncovered 15 round stone houses. The rooms have stone furniture and little recesses for beds. They also have fireplaces made up of four stone slabs. One of them seems to have been moved from here to the center of the Standing Stones of Stenness. Why? Nobody knows.

%Gallery-160972%Less than a mile away across a narrow isthmus between two lochs stands the Ring of Brodgar, a massive stone circle measuring 104 meters (340 feet) in diameter. The only stone circles bigger than it are Avebury and Stanton Drew in England. Twenty-seven stones still exist, and archaeologists have found evidence for a total of sixty.

The Ring of Brodgar was built between 2500 and 2000 B.C. and is the youngest of the great Neolithic monuments in the area. Like the Standing Stones of Stenness, it was surrounded by a ditch that would have been filled with water, thus making a symbolic “island” like the real ones these people lived on.

A couple of minutes walk away, archaeologists have discovered an impressive Neolithic settlement made up of large stone buildings. The largest, rather unromantically called Structure Ten, measures 25×20 meters (82×65 feet) with 5-meter (16-foot) thick walls. This is by far the largest Neolithic stone building found in Britain.

Called the Ness of Brodgar, this settlement was inhabited from about 3,200 to 2,300 B.C. Each of the buildings was used for a time and then covered over. Structure Ten got special treatment. There seems to have been a big feast there as a grand finale, with the bones of some 300 cattle deposited at the same time, as well as a complete skeleton of a red deer, which seems to have been simply left there and not eaten. You can read more about the Ness of Brodgar excavations on their blog. New information is being uncovered every day.

So the dates of the two stone circles and two settlements show there was about a thousand years of activity in this area. Archaeologists believe that it was a ritual focal point for all of Orkney and maybe even for people in more distant lands.

On the Bay of Skaill, on the western shores of Mainland, is the Neolithic village of Skara Brae. The eight structures are similar to the Barnhouse site but on a much grander scale. Each has a large square room, beds to the sides, a central hearth and a stone “dresser.” These shelves of stone have caused all sorts of debate among archaeologists. Some think they were simply for storing things, while others suggest ritual use. The buildings were connected by covered passageways.

Skara Brae was occupied from about 3200-2500 B.C., the same period as the other great Neolithic sites. Before Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids, Mainland Orkney developed a great and little-known civilization.

The prehistoric sites on the Orkney Mainland are collectively known as the Heart of Neolithic Orkney and are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Beyond those mentioned here, the UNESCO listing includes many tombs, including the impressive Maeshowe. More on them tomorrow!

A great resource on all things Orcadian is the Orkneyjar website, which has a seemingly endless supply of articles on the history, archaeology, culture and folklore of Orkney. Highly recommended!

Don’t miss the rest of my series “Exploring Orkney: Scotland’s Rugged Northern Isles.”

Coming up next: “Prehistoric Tombs and Viking Graffiti in Orkney!”