Midhowe Broch on the island of Rousay, Orkney is a 2,000-year-old Iron Age fort, ‘comprising the
substantial remains of a broch surrounded by a cluster of smaller buildings, all standing on a small promontory and protected on the landward side by a thick wall and ditches. The site looks out to the south and west, across the sea at the western end of Eynhallow Sound, which has a notable concentration of broch sites along its shorelines’ (Historic Scotland).
We were there in April and I flagged the location in Drone Scene at the time with a still photo.
I also made a photosphere with my smartphone inside the broch:
and a conventional drone photosphere to complete the set,
(Both photospheres as they came out of the devices.)
Video and aerial stills - Mini 2; ground stills Pixel 7 Pro or Sony A5000.
Nice job Howard, well captured and edited… Music is just right too…
Midhowe Broch and the Tomb are amazing sites, visited last time we were here - sadly not had the opportunity this visit as we have the MiL with us and can’t just be out flying the drone every day for her sake…
Seems like this is older than 2,000 years. Plus 2,000 years ago, the Iron Age in Britain had ended.
This broch was built during the Iron Age about 2200 years ago. The structure was later fortified. Around 100 AD more buildings were erected and about 1800 years ago the broch was altered to accommodate two living areas.
Yes, ‘2000 years’ was my rounding of the 2300-1900 year estimate for the likely construction start date. However, Historic Scotland call it Iron Age, and as far as I can see while the Iron Age in Britain conventionally ends with the Roman invasion, that didn’t happen as early in Scotland. Barry Cunliffe’s scheme cited on Wikipedia (British Iron Age - Wikipedia), the construction start ranges from Middle to Latest Iron Age.
It is a remarkable site, with the Midhowe Cairn (inside the barn structure visible in the video) dating from 5,400 years ago, and just a little further away the ruins of St Mary’s church, abandoned 200 years ago. A video of the latter will follow.
Correct, 43 BC. But realistically, it wasn’t a fixed point in time.
Agreed, the further out you go, change is a lot slower. And yet this makes an interesting read …
The earliest surviving mention of the Orkney Islands is found in the accounts of the Roman geographer Diodorus Siculus. Writing around 56BC, Diodorous set out to record an account of, what was then, the known world.
There is no evidence of a Roman presence in Orkney, although there have been a few Roman artefacts unearthed at late Iron Age/Pictish sites. These tend to be things like fragments of pottery and jewellery - items that do not necessarily mean that the people of Orkney had any contact with the Romans - only that they knew, or traded with, people that did.
Quite so. The Historic Scotland Statement of Significance, downloadable here, discusses all this and more in greater detail, pointing to fragments of Roman pottery found on site and discussing whether, for example, brochs were built as defensive structures, and the ‘idea of brochs as refuges against slave-raiding, possibly by the Romans or by war-bands selling slaves into the Roman Empire’.
In contrast, the illustrations on the boards at the site focus on domestic and other activities.
