Orkney and ShetlandHeddle, John George Flett Moodie
History
Orkney and Shetland
Heddle, John George Flett Moodie
Orkney (Scotland) -- Description and travel; Shetland (Scotland) -- Description and travel
In some respects the most interesting broch site in Orkney is that
at Lingrow, about two miles S.S.E. of Kirkwall. Contiguous to this
building lies a perfect labyrinth of building of secondary occupation.
A coin of Vespasian and two of Antoninus were found at Lingrow when
the site was excavated in 1870. Another interesting specimen is that
at Hoxa in South Ronaldshay. The little that remains of this building
is situated on the west side of a small bight which opens northwards
on Scapa Flow, and on the east side of the bight stands the site
of a second broch. The two brochs together command both the bight
itself and a narrow isthmus of land which connects it with Widewall
Bay to the southward. Defence of the land passage between the two
areas of water was obviously a prime motive of construction in this
case. Other interesting specimens of brochs are at Okstro in Birsay,
at Burgar in Evie, and at Burrian in North Ronaldshay; but many of the
Orkney sites remain as yet unexcavated, or only tentatively explored.
Stone hand-mills (querns), stone whorls and bone combs, both used in
woollen weaving, stone lamps, imitated from Roman models, hair combs,
and fragments of pottery are some of the articles found in the Orkney
brochs, none of which now show more than a few feet of their original
height.
A consideration of the geographical position of the main area of their
distribution leaves one with little doubt that they were erected as the
best and most economical means that a scanty and scattered population
could devise to check continuous piratical incursions, probably
directed from Scandinavia and the coastal regions of north-western
Europe; but the exact era of their erection is a question that still
awaits definite solution. One may safely conjecture, however, that they
were gradually destroyed by the incursions which they were built to
withstand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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