Page 5, MacBeath

From:- The Orkneys in Early Celtic Times, Two Lectures, by James M. Macbeath, published by William Peace and Son, in 1892.


Page 5


The traveller who first made known to the inhabitants of Europe generally the existence of the British Isles was the eminent mathematician Pythaeus, the contemporary of aristotle and Alexander the great.

 Pythaeus of Marseilles landed on the shores of Britain, probably Kent, in the early summer of the year 330BC. He traversed considerable portions of the country and found that while inland consisted chiefly of forest and marsh , with pasture here and there for sheep and cattle in the open spaces through the woods, the natives, who were numerous, grew wheat only in narrow strips along the seaboard opposite Gaul, which they "thrashed in barns, as owing to the little sunshine and much rain it could not be done in open fields." 

When travelling northward however he found that corn could not be grown owing to the naturally backward condition of the country, the inclemency of the seasons and the savage state of the native tribes the Caoilldaoin, or "People of the Woods". 

The ostensible objective of the adventurous voyager at that early period was to discover the Cassiterdies of Herodotus who wrote in 484BC , of the Tin Islands, which were then believed to lie somewhere off the northwest coast of Spain. 

At a very early period the ancient Britons were familiar with tin and in the 5th century BC, if not earlier, traders from Tyre and Carthage visited the British isles for the purpose of obtaining that metal to compound with copper found so abundantly in several parts of Asia. 

After some months residence in England Pythaes sailed northwards along the east coast , thence to the Orcades and the Shetland group. 


More about the migration of neolithic people to Orkney, in the Orkney Riddle 


#neolithic #prehistory #archaeology #Orkney #Scotland #Brodgar #skarabrae

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Westrays

Image
  Orkney Riddle The Westrays   The Knap of Howar Probably the earliest settlement on the Orkney Archipelago is the Knap of Howar. A Pig bone was found there dated to 3630–3360 (OxA-17778)  The Knap of Howar sits on a small island called Papa Westray which is one of the northernmost islands of the Orkney group. The island is almost 7 km long and 2 km wide, and the Knap of Howar lies on its west coast.  Papa Westray is one of a group of islands that are separated from the mainland Orkney group by the Westray and Stronsay Firths. The main islands of this group are Westray, Papa Westray, Sanday, North Ronaldsay, and Stronsay.  The two oblong buildings of the Knap of Howar, are thought to represent a dwelling-house and a multipurpose workshop-cum-barn, built side by side with an interconnecting passage allowing access from one to the other.  Excavation revealed traces of a central hearth, footings for wooden benches and post-holes for roof-supports. A stone quer...
Read more

Skara Brae, Childe’s Excavation

Image
  The Orkney Riddle Skara Brae Childe’s Excavation  Skara Brae, one of the most perfectly preserved Stone Age villages in Europe, which was covered for hundreds of years by a sand dune on the shore of the Bay of Skaill, Mainland, Orkney Islands, Scotland. Exposed by a great storm in 1850, four buildings were excavated during the 1860s by William Watt. After another storm in 1926, further excavations were undertaken by the Ancient Monuments branch of the British Ministry of Works. During the 1970s radiocarbon dating established that the settlement was inhabited from about 3200 to 2200 bce. In 1999, as part of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney, Skara Brae was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, along with Maes Howe, a large chambered tomb, as well as two ceremonial stone circles, the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar. (Britannica) Structure 7 (above) is the most complete building found at Skara Brae. It’s condition is preserved, and it is barred from public access. A...
Read more

Walkable Land in the North Sea

Image
 The Orkney Riddle Walkable Land in the North Sea There is an area of shallow sea that links Holland with East Anglia. It is likely that this passage would have provided walkable land between England and Holland until a time when Neolithic people were exploring Northern Europe.  The bathymetry chart above indicates this broad area of shallow water joining Lincolnshire, and Norfolk, in England to Holland. Elsewhere, to the south of this region deep water gullies would have prevented any migration by animals, people, or plants. The Norfolk Banks (above) are a series of ridges on the floor of the North Sea, beside the Norfolk coast. Detailed chart, above shows bathymetry of ridges and troughs of the Norfolk   The location of this section of the Norfolk Banks, above, is indicated on the plan above it. The main features of the Norfolk Banks that can be seen in the plan and section are as follows  1- the high ridges of these banks are parallel to each other.  2- the...
Read more