Five thousand years ago, a community of people flourished on an island north of Scotland. And today, their homes look like their residents only left yesterday. They had central heating, sewerage toilets, furniture and water tanks.
Neolithic dwelling in Skara Brae (Orkney Islands). Indoor setting: open hearth, kitchen table, etc.
Skate Dram on the west coast of the main Orkney Islands could have become the most remarkable prehistoric monument in Europe if not for its inaccessible location.
It was built centuries before Stonehenge or the Egyptian pyramids. It was called the Pompeii of England because the settlement was also destroyed by a cataclysm that buried many secrets for millennia.
Where did these people come from? Where did they go? These questions have been raised repeatedly since a great winter storm hit the Orkney Islands in 1850. When the storm subsided, numerous ancient stone buildings were revealed. The first studies did not find clues as to their origin and age, they decided that this was the work of the Vikings.
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The Orkney Islands lie about twenty miles north of the northern tip of Scotland. A cruel and unforgiving climate reigns here, the land is barren, there is no vegetation, and the islands are open to all storms of the raging Atlantic Ocean. Since there was no timber to build boats, the people of Skara Brae confined themselves to fishing from the shore. This problem also related to the construction of housing, it is surprising that the first settlers were extremely skilled in the use of stone in everything related to their life: the buildings themselves and all the furniture in them were skillfully made of stone. The stone beds were covered with heather or straw. Stone reservoirs provided collection of rainwater.
The buildings were rounded at the corners to reduce resistance to strong winds, low ceilings kept warm as much as possible, and one large wooden door led to the street. Houses were partially dug into the ground for better isolation from the cold.
Today, six residential buildings have survived, and the seventh building with the remains of rubble on the floor served as a workshop.
Initially, ten buildings were built, in which more than fifty people could live. All houses resembled one another and were connected by underground passages. Many have described Skara Bray as a "neolithic site."
Carved ornaments adorn some of the walls, as well as necklaces, beads, pendants and rings made from whale teeth. Residents made high-quality earthenware.
Fish and shellfish formed the basis of their food. It is likely that whales were also included in the diet, as evidenced by the use of massive bones supported by rooftops, or the whales were washed ashore by frequent storms. The roofs consisted of slabs of peat and deer skins, reinforced with leather ropes; leathers were also used as blankets.
Deer on Skara Brae were highly prized for their antlers and meat. The inhabitants gathered fruits and nuts, knew how to harvest meat for future use, grind grain and make bread.
According to the historical scenario, around 40,000 BC. Homo Sapiens displaces Neolithic man throughout Europe. However, people entered Scotland about 9000 years ago, in those days a strip of land still connected the British Isles with the mainland. (A thousand years later, the isthmus sank into the sea, and Britain became a group of islands.)
The first Scottish settlers are known as the St. Andrews Golf Course, but even from the shores of Scotland, reaching the Orkney Islands was incredible work. The communities of St. Andrews cannot be compared in complexity to Skara Brae.
What drove the early inhabitants of Skara Bray? Curiosity might be, but why did they decide to stay in such an uncomfortable, desolate place?
Maybe they were running from unknown pursuers and looking for a safe hiding place, but who were their enemies? The most acceptable answer is that the inhabitants of the islands were shipwrecked, and in the absence of trees on the islands, they could not build boats to sail away. But then the questions remain, who were these people, and where did they come from?
Trying to solve these mysteries, paleontologists have put together all the known information about these fearless travelers. They were skilled stone workers - that was the first fact. They were resourceful and knew how to adapt to the harshest environmental conditions. The houses they built show that in their knowledge the inhabitants of Skara Bray were quite ahead of most of the peoples of that time.
They probably had some sort of social organization that lasted six hundred years.
When a storm in 1850 exposed the lost settlement of Skara Bray, scientists showed little interest in the event. Viking settlements were found everywhere. In 1913, everything changed.
Professor Boyd Dawkins, a renowned cave explorer, visited Lord Belfour Stewart, the owner of the site, which included Scara Bray. He heard about this place and became interested in it. Research continued largely due to the efforts of William Watt. He spent a lot of time and money on the protection of the unique site and on new searches. Since 1924, Skara Bray has been protected by the state.
In the same year, the site was badly damaged by a storm. The largest archaeologist of the time, Professor Gordon Childe, was invited to clear the site. He believed that it was a settlement of the Pictish, one of the ancient tribes of the north of England, which were absorbed by the Scots between the 6th and 9th centuries AD.
When the studies were continued, he was amazed at their results and could not accept the fact of the extraordinary antiquity of the culture. It was revealed that Skara Bray is a Neolithic village, founded earlier than 3100 BC. and flourished until at least 2500 BC.
4,500 years later, the winter storm of 1850 brought a new miracle to the world. In the early 1970s, the age of the settlement was finally established by carbon dating.
And Skara Bray concealed many more mysteries. When experts on ancient languages tried to decipher the runic writing on stone beds, they concluded with surprise that this language was not runic at all …
Runes have been used in Northern Europe since the first century AD. So they could not have been known to the people of Skara Bray. The runic alphabet has only 16 letters. Some of the runes correspond to the letters of the alphabet, while others can be compared to a kind of shorthand. Two runes had a special meaning in those days: the signs "field" and "cattle". The Runic language has undergone significant changes over the centuries, but the oldest version, which was speculated to be used in Skara Bray, became known as "Futhark".
Estimates made in the 19th century said that if it was Futhark, then only excerpts from it. Time passed, the study of runic writing made great progress, new data appeared, and after them an irrefutable conclusion. Signs on stone objects in Skara Bray have nothing to do with Futhark or runes in general.
So what is it? The new proposal looked absolutely incredible: the writing is of Egyptian origin.
Some of the hieroglyphs in the Futhark language are indeed very similar to the ancient Egyptian ones. In addition, the pyramid pictograms carved into the rocks at Skara Bray may have some meaning. But what do they mean in the context of other drawings?
The scale and type of construction of these Neolithic buildings correspond to the civilization of Ancient Egypt. Plumbing, so rare in the ancient world, is also similar in both cultures. As well as pottery. The stone spheres found at Skara Bray depict pyramids.
Supporters of the Egyptian origin of Skara Bray claim that the settlement was built with the help of astronomer priests. This upper class of society was essential to survive in such an unfriendly climate, as well as to organize an able-bodied community. Many of the drawings in Skara Bray seem to have astronomical significance and are associated with the lunar calendar, the solar system, the equinox, and the signs of the zodiac.
Skeptics claim that the ancient Egyptian priests were unlikely to have been exploring the North Atlantic in the days before the construction of the pyramids. We know that the ancient Egyptians were not historians and did not leave any books that could tell their research. When Alexander the Great destroyed Heliopolis, the center of science, he destroyed the last traces of ancient Egyptian knowledge.
Who were these pioneers who built a society in the Orkney Islands that was unique for their time? While Skara Bray continues to keep its secret. For five thousand years …