Maes HoweExplain the archaeological significance of

Maes Howe

• Size. Largest Chambered Cairn in Orkney• Context. Part of a larger Neolithic landscape; links with other

sites? Interconnections?• Prominence. Can be seen for miles around• Continuity. Sequence: House>Stone Circle>Cairn• Design and Architecture. Complex design, practicalities of

engineering using limited technology. 100 000 man hours in construction

• Society. Sheer scale and organisation suggests a society based on a ruling elite

• Alignment. Archaeo-astronomy. Last rays of Midwinter sun shines into passageway. Similar to Newgrange, Ireland.

• Ritual. Sensory experiences heightened by use enclosure, size, Passage, light and dark, acoustics; anniversary feasts?

Find Out More...• (http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk •

http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/index/heritage/worldheritage/world-heritage-sites-in-scotland/neolithic-orkney.htm

• The actual construction; size, dimensions, materials

• Blocking stone and light box• The chamber• Astronomical considerations (eg Light Box,

alignment with sun, planets etc• Heart of Orkney

• Deep structures: Inside/outside• Sensory deprivation: Narrow passage

Claustrophobic, dark, disorientated, noises, echoes

• liminal, Passageway it liminal: takes participants on journey from outside to leads to central chamber

• Hallucinatory: fire, smoke, narcotics...• Remains may have been deposited and removed• Feasting; Ancestral feasting; places for living and

dead

• Tombs NOT just depositaries for the dead..• ..but places of “ritual theatre” and creation of

extraordinary experiences• Conducted by shamen? ... people who create

illusions through sensory experience: light, noise, voices, smoke, narcotics, chants summon other worlds??

• See Price, Archaeology of Shamanism

"The most exciting thing in Orkney, perhaps in Scotland, is going to happen this afternoon at sunset, in few other places even in Orkney can you see the wide hemisphere of sky in all its plenitude.The winter sun just hangs over the ridge of the Coolags. Its setting will seal the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. At this season the sun is a pale wick between two gulfs of darkness. Surely there could be no darker place in the be-wintered world than the interior of Maeshowe.One of the light rays is caught in this stone web of death. Through the long corridor it has found its way; it splashes the far wall of the chamber. The illumination lasts a few minutes, then is quenchedWinter after winter I never cease to wonder at the way primitive man arranged, in hewn stone, such powerful symbolism."

George Mackay Brown, Orcadian poet