By Bernie Bell.

Walking clockwise round the room – first of all Anne Mitchell with a selection of books about The Ness

plus art-work donated by Jeanne Bouza-Rose depicting the People of the Ness in action 

which I’ve written about previously.

Next to Anne’s table The Man Himself –  Nick Card presenting information about the Time Team 2026 dig.

Then, Chis Gee with his replica carved stone objects

The film included in the link here, shows just how much work goes into each  carved object. A lot of work  but …how very, very satisfying it must be, to produce such a thing.

And Mark Edmonds, with a tray containing a replica hand-axe – and the flakes which illustrate the process of knapping to make the axe

Mark also had original artefacts, which folk were allowed to hold!

But not the ’sky stone’ – that’s far too precious

Moving along the row of tables, Gary LLoyd had a display of original stone tools, and explained how the trained eye can tell the difference between a worked tool and a beach cobble

He also had a replica ‘Brodgar Eye’

When I first saw what they’re calling the Brodgar Eye I said to Mike…..it’s Maes Howe, it’s a representation of an aerial view of Maes Howe, as a ‘negative’.  Each time I saw it, I was more convinced of this. 

I was looking at a booklet by Claire O’Kelly about Newgrange.  I turned the page, and saw…….that carving.  It’s on the underside of kerbstone 18 at Newgrange.  To me, it’s a representation, of the same thing as the ‘Brodgar Eye’ carving. 

So, to me, here is a carving on the underside of a kerbstone at Newgrange, which looks awful like the ‘Brodgar Eye’ which was only found a couple of years ago, at the Ness of Brodgar.  To me, a direct link, through the carvings, between Newgrange and Maes Howe.  Both aerial views.  The ‘Eye in the Sky’?

Mike also pointed out that Newgrange is the ‘flip-side’ of Maes Howe as in, the sun shines down the passage at Newgrange at sunrise on the shortest day, and shines down the passage at sunset on the shortest day, in Maes Howe. Reflecting and balancing each other.

There’s a pic of Kerbstone 18 in this blog post.

To quote the wonderful Robert Plant…‘Oh – and it makes me wonder’

Antonia Thomas displayed some examples of decorated stone from The Ness

Antonia has written a book about  the carvings and decoration at the Ness entitled  ‘Art & Archaeology in Neolithic Orkney – Process, Temporality and Context’ , which is well worth reading.

Katy Firth, Education Officer for The Ness, was in charge of the hands-on activities and helped Mike to make a groovy Neolithic-themed book-mark

which we brought home and placed in Antonia’s book!

From stone to ceramics, and Joanne Greave, the lady who carefully pieced together the myriad pieces of a Neolithic pot

Bits and pieces – putting together a Neolithic pottery puzzle

and is proud to count herself among the ’sherd nerds

And next to Joanne – Sarah Carter, another pot lady, demonstrating her experiments with how the decorations on Neolithic ceramics might have been produced, including some inventive use of berries and antler tips!

There were a lot of ceramics found at The Ness, from almost complete pieces to tiny, tiny sherds.  A selection of reconstructions were on display.

It’s not all about the larger, more easily noticed finds. A flotation tank is used to sift out the sometimes miniscule fragments which can tell them as knows a lot about a site

I was thinking about when Skara Brae was first discovered and excavated and that what was dumped as rubbish then would be a treasure trove of information now.  The archaeologists of the time did, however, preserve a unique site which might have gone for good otherwise.

At the next table, Sarah-Jane Haston told of how barley grains, crab apples and hazelnuts were found at The Ness, and let folk look at them through a microscope

Second only to stones, I likes bones!

I’d never actually seen a pig’s skull – what a fine beast!

I’m sorry to say that I didn’t get the names of the two ladies over-seeing the bones tables, but when I was talking with one of them, she told me about  an  exhibition in the Kirkwall Museum of bones and photographs relating to the cattle of Swona.  Entitled…. ‘Wild, Still‘, the exhibition runs until the 23^rd of September, but we decided to Carpe Diem and go to that too…..

To be continued

Ness of Brodgar Hand-prints