Science

A Personal Tribute To Dr. Euan MacKie And His Work

By Bernie Bell

I have just read of the  passing from this life of Dr. Euan MacKie.

I met Euan at the Orkney International Science Festival………..I think in 2008 – I’m not good with time!

We got talking, then we emailed each other, and had some terrific conversations, discussions, agreements, disagreements.

I valued Euan, not only for his knowledge, but for his acceptance of other ways of seeing that knowledge. Also, because he was, simply, a very good-natured man. A gentle-man. Polite, reasonable, even when faced with un-reasonable behaviour in others.

I will light a candle for Euan.  That isn’t a religious kind of candle – more, just – a thought about light – for Euan.

I could go on, but I think my best tribute to Euan, at this time, is to place here, copies of some of his papers which he sent me to read, for others to read……….

They are only a fraction of his work – a long life, well lived, and a lot of observations made of things which others hadn’t noticed. We mostly discussed archeo-astronomy.

Writing that, reminded me of the fact that, recently, our neighbour discovered that there is a broch just down the road from us, which we hadn’t known about, but are very interested in. When I looked it up on Canmore, sure enough,  who had included the information about this site in his Broch Corpus 1?   Euan.  https://canmore.org.uk/site/2425/north-aittit

Lights in the sky for Euan . Credit Steve Davey

3 replies »

  1. I met Euan at The European Association of Archaeologists at Glasgow and we spent a great couple of hours chatting about ancient astronomy over lunch!….he was so enthusiastic and supportive.. a great loss to archaeology and open-minded thinking and a very kind man.

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