Inch by painstaking inch, gives up ancient secrets
TV historian hails island burial site as a world-changer
After thousands of years, inch by painstaking inch, Scotland’s Valley of the Kings is revealing its secrets.
And historian and broadcaster Neil Oliver believes the stories being given up by the Ness of Brodgar, the ancient burial site in Orkney, will help shape our understanding of Britain’s past and present.
Now Neil, best-known for series like Coast, A History Of Scotland and Vikings, is sharing his passion for the site along with other national marvels. The Story Of The British Isles In 100 Places is his soon-to-be-published book and Orkney just had to take pride of place.
“The Ness of Brodgar has been very important to me for several years now,” said Neil. “It’s a Neolithic ritual site that’s about 5,000 years old, so it’s as old, or older, than the pyramids in Egypt. For many hundreds of years it was a place of great significance where people were building structures.
“It’s an extraordinary place – a British Valley of the Kings. To my mind the Ness of Brodgar is the most significant archaeological discovery in western Europe in my lifetime.
“People were busy there for 1,000 years, which is incredible. What do we have going on that will last for 1,000 years? There are excavations there right now and it’s an amazing place to go and see. It had a religious, spiritual significance and we still don’t properly understand the rituals they were conducting.”
Neil’s TV work has taken him to just about every corner of the UK and he reckoned he was getting a unique perspective he wanted to share.
The idea for sharing his insights in a book started to form about seven years ago, but it was only in the past couple of years that he found the time to write it – and then only after whittling down a lengthy list to get to the 100 that made the final cut.
Around half were ones he knew he absolutely had to include, with the others facing a tough fight to make the book.
The oldest site, in Norfolk, is nearly one million years old, and the newest is the Scottish Parliament building. One of the most fascinating sites south of the border is St Wystan’s parish church in the little