Barnhouse and Ritual

 Barnhouse and Ritual

When I first visited Barnhouse many  years ago I looked at the largest structure, Structure 8, (which i now interpret to be a sweat lodge) and had to interpret the site from the structures that Historic Scotland had created. I remember thinking as I walked around the building, looking at the entrance that this was a place where people had to walk across a hearth in order to get into the place and then that there was another hearth in the middle of the building as well.

When I more recently read the report on the excavation and interpreted the plans I discovered that Historic Scotland had, intentionally or not, done a fine job of Disney-fying neolithic Orkney, as if it really needed it!

The plans from the excavation clearly show that the entrance to Structure 8 is a small lobby, with a hearth for heating stones on ne side, two entry points from outside, and a passage to the interior of the structure. Nobody had to walk over hot coals to get inside. They were more civilised than that.

In the centre of the main room of the structure was a feature that looked like a hearth, but buried in the bottom of it was the base of the king-post that supported the roof of the pyramid. Marks in the ground also suggested the presence of seating arrangements around the king-post, one for the fire keeper, who brought the stones into the sweat lodge, and another for the person who laid the water onto the stones to create the steam that caused the sweat.

I have worked with ancient monument guardianship people like these Historic Scotland workers, in England, with English Heritage, and they are some of the best people i worked with, ever.

.....but i would be very careful about asking them to reconstruct a historic site. The consequences might be too interesting!

Jeffery Nicholls