Archaeology Leaflet
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Brochs Warning Shetland’s most spectacular sites are some of the 80 Many of Shetland’s sites are scheduled and it is illegal visible Iron Age brochs which are located around the to dig into them or disturb them in any way, even if you coast. From the wall head of Mousa Broch there is a do have the landowner’s permission. Play safe and do good view of both the sound and of the Broch of not disturb any sites - they are Shetland’s Heritage for Burraland, opposite (at Sandwick). It is possible to see everyone to enjoy. Archaeology from one broch to the next in the South Mainland, and The official record of the sites in Shetland, the Sites and part of their purpose must have been Monuments Record, is held at Shetland Amenity Trust, to act as a network of watch towers Garthspool, Lerwick, Shetland, ZE1 0NY. to guard the shores. Tel: 01595 694688. Inside the tower, we think there were If you find any objects when you are exploring, in Scottish Discover yesterday tomorrow several wooden floors and numbers Law, they must be reported. Staff at the Shetland of people must have lived inside. The Museum and Archives, Hay’s Dock, Lerwick will be area around the broch was often pleased to help you. Tel: 01595 695057. A broch was solid at enclosed - an outer defence in times ground level, other than of danger and, later, additional where there were cells houses were built in this courtyard. Some Useful Contacts Brochs are very enigmatic and so Shetland Museum Hay’s Dock, Lerwick, archaeologists have carried out and Archives: Tel: 01595 695057 major work at Old Scatness; Unst Heritage Centre: Haroldswick, Unst, unfolding the story of the broch and Tel: 01957 711528 the Iron Age Village which surrounds Fetlar Interpretive Centre: Houbie, Fetlar, it. Clickimin Broch, on the edge of Tel: 01957 733206 Lerwick, stands several metres high and is easily accessible. Mousa is the The Old Haa: Burravoe, Yell, Tel: 01957 722339 best preserved broch in Scotland (brochs are not found outside Tangwick Haa Museum: Eshaness, Tel: 01806 503389 Scotland) standing 13 metres high Scalloway Museum: Main Street, Scalloway Mousa Broch is 13m with a staircase between the double Bressay Heritage Centre: Leiraness, Bressay, high with a staircase wall to the top. Off the beaten track, Tel: 01595 820750 between the double the striking red granite broch at Hoswick Visitor Centre: Hoswick, Sandwick, wall at the top Culswick, West Mainland, the well- Tel: 01950 431406 preserved broch at Burraness, Yell, and the broch on Quendale Mill: Quendale, Dunrossness, the edge of the Loch of Houlland, Eshaness, are just Tel: 01950 460969 some of the treats in store for the walker. George Waterston Memorial Centre: Fair Isle,Tel: 01950 460405 Clickimin Broch Mousa Ferry: Sandwick, Tel: 01950 431367 Contents copyright protected - please contact Shetland Amenity Trust for details. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the contents are accurate, the funding partners do not accept responsibility for any errors in this leaflet. Wherever you look in Houses for the Dead Burnt Mounds Shetland you will be The earliest Shetlanders were buried in cairns, the If you find a turf covered heap of sure to find the majority built in the shape of a heel. The remains were fist-sized, heat-shattered stones remains of ancient laid in a small chamber in the centre. Who was buried beside a burn, it will be a Bronze Shetlanders who have Stanydale temple on Shetland’s Westside in them? We do not know - there aren’t enough for the Age burnt mound. been there before you. Low intensity use of whole population and the chambers are small. Burnt mounds are usually Perhaps the bodies were laid out for animals and birds the hill land in more recent times and the crescent shaped and might have a to eat, and just a few bones from each person were put box of stone slabs visible in the scarcity of timber means that these remains inside the cairn. A ceremony might have taken place in centre. Archaeologists debate are some of the best that you will find in the concave façade at the front of the cairn. Even so, their use. Were they cooking sites, Britain. there was not room for many meat being boiled in the trough by people inside. heating stones in a fire and Tangwick, Eshaness. Excavated burnt mounds The biggest cairns are on placing them into the water? seem to have industrial In addition there are the spectacular and hilltops (e.g. Ronas Hill) but Experiments at Tangwick buildings beneath them internationally important sites of Mousa broch there are also very impressive demonstrated that this was (Scotland’s best preserved broch), Jarlshof and cairns on lower land - usually difficult. Perhaps water was taken from the trough and Clickimin, (multi-period sites several metres high). on knowes which command poured over hot stones to create steam for a sauna, or Shetland is indeed a treasure trove from the past. good views. Punds Water and to make felt, or was it for a more smelly purpose, such Vementry are examples not to as tanning or fulling? Burnt mounds were usually well Ancient Crofts be missed. away from the houses. Cruester, Bressay Shetlanders have been working A burial chamber or cist demonstrates how complex these sites can be. There in Pettigarth’s Field on the land, keeping sheep and the island of Whalsay are some spectacular burnt mounds on Fair Isle, but cattle, and growing crops, for over with over 300 on the mainland alone, they are easy 5,000 years. On the Westside, to find. visitors can follow ancient Standing Stones Souterrains boundary dykes for miles across Standing stones have been erected Shetland’s earliest refrigerators, these small the hill. The Scord of Brouster has throughout Shetland from underground passages which widen out slightly at the three excavated houses amongst prehistoric times to the present day. end, would have been good places for storing salted the fields. There are five houses at They formed boundary markers, meat over the winter. However, occasionally they are Stanydale, together with an navigation aids and others were Ancient fields, clearance found inside houses, under hearths (e.g. Jarlshof). exceptionally large and very memorial stones. Among the cairns and houses can be Perhaps grain or items which needed to be kept dry found in many hillside impressive building described by dramatically placed stones are were stored here. Crawl down a lit souterrain at locations in Shetland its excavator as a ‘temple’. Newing, Nesting; one along the Jarlshof, or, for the more adventurous smaller person, road to Muness, Unst and one in the disappear into the souterrain at Wadbister, Bressay garden of Leagarth House, Fetlar, (take a torch). where the Stone of the Ripples was Multi-period site at Jarlshof later moved and set into landscaped grounds. Underhoull, Unst- an Iron Age refrigerator The largest standing stone in Shetland is sited at Lund in the island of Unst Archaeology in Shetland Left: Longhouse at Hamar Right: Viking times re-enacted at Haroldswick Many ruinous 12th century chapels stand in graveyards still used today as at Lund, Unst Left: A Pictish house under excavation at Old Scatness Right: Life in Pictish times Picts Chapels By the 7th century AD, Shetland There are several houses, possibly one farm, which By the 12th century there were numerous chapels was firmly part of Pictland, and the evolved over the centuries, at Jarlshof. The Vikings’ throughout Shetland. Most of these are now very most enduring legacy of these parliament (or Alting) was situated fairly centrally in ruinous but take time to visit Lund, where there is a people is their art work: carved Shetland in the fertile Tingwall Valley, where an islet fish carved on one of the window lintels. Framgord has stones and silverwork. Carved projects into the loch. fascinating crosses in the surrounding graveyard, as stone slabs have been found at Soapstone well as a Viking or Norse farm just outside. Both these Cullingsbrough, Bressay (where sites are in Unst, as is Kirkaby, where the early circular intriguingly the graveyard has The properties of soapstone, or graveyard is still visible. been built over the broch), and talc, were known 3,000 years Papil, Burra. Mail, Cunningsburgh before the Vikings ever came to was the find spot of several rune Shetland. The Vikings, however, and ogham stones and the Mail did not make much pottery, but Figure. Some of these stones are instead used natural materials. Papil Stone - a They carved stone bowls straight replica stands in on display in the Shetland Replica objects carved in the churchyard Museum and Archives. out of the rock. The shapes of the soapstone during the living bowls were left in the hillside, and history project at Old Scatness Evidence of where bowls St. Ninian’s can be best seen at Catpund, were carved out of Catpund Cunningsburgh. The cliff faces at soapstone When the chapel on St. Ninian’s Isle Fethaland, North Mainland is also was excavated, the remains of 7th covered with these marks. century stone shrines were found, showing that the island was important in early Christian times. The chapel which is still visible is Kirkaby, chapel & graveyard Unst rather later in date (it lies over an Underhoull, souterrain, broch & Norse house Hamar, St. Ninian’s Chapel, Norse house earlier one). There are replicas of the reached via a Bordastubble, standing stone beautiful tombolo Lund, chapel silver treasure found here in the Framgord, chapel & Norse farm 3000 BC Shetland Museum and Archives.