Maeshowe Orkney
Maeshowe in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site is one of the finest Neolithic chambered cairns in Europe, a passage tomb of approximately 2800 BC whose combination of the extraordinary precision of the drystone masonry, the winter solstice alignment illuminating the chamber at the shortest days of the year and the remarkable twelfth-century Viking runic inscriptions carved into the walls creates a monument of quite exceptional layered historical significance. Historic Environment Scotland manages the site and guided tours are required.
The quality of the masonry at Maeshowe surpasses that of any other Neolithic monument in Britain, the large flat stones fitted with precision to create walls and a corbelled roof of remarkable structural elegance. The monument was built approximately 500 years before Stonehenge and the engineering knowledge required to align the passage with the winter solstice sunset demonstrates the mathematical abilities of Orkney's Neolithic builders with unusual clarity.
The Viking runic inscriptions, carved by Norse explorers who broke into the tomb in the twelfth century, include some of the longest runic inscriptions in existence written in colloquial Norse. They range from boasts about treasure to descriptions of a woman recorded as the most beautiful in Orkney.