Orkney 11th August
Could you cook up something in this? Perhaps not a stir fry but how about a nice sheeps head…….. yum……..not
This is actually an iron age ‘cooking pot’, on the right is the fire. Stones would be heated in the fire and put in the ‘pot’ which was full of water. Eventually enough stones would be added to boil the water in order to cook something tasty like a sheep’s head (apparently!). In order to keep the water boiling they had to keep adding stones and the pot would end up about two thirds full of stones….hence the size. They actually carried out experiments to find out how long this process took, it was something phenomenal like about 9hrs! This, amongst various other useless bits of information I have been acquiring in my travels around Orkney visiting, (amongst other things), the many iron-age and Neolithic sites that they have here. It is truly a unique place with so many historic sites that predate ancient eygpt. The prehistoric ‘village’ at Skara Brae is the best preserved of all the sites on Orkney built around 3500BC it is awesome.
The whole site was hidden under sand dunes until 1850 when a particularly severe storm blew away all the top grass and sand to reveal the site. It is so complete having even stone beds and dressers that have survived the 5000 odd years since people lived there.
Apparently only this year another three Neolithic villages have been discovered!
On a totally different tack, the weeks diving begins on Sunday. Should be meeting everyone tomorrow and have a tour of the boat.
