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Maes Howe And The Winter Solstice


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Maes Howe is a 5000-odd year old stone age burial chamber on the Orkney mainland. Read about it here

That's impressive enough but at sunset on the midwinter solstice (Dec 21st this year) the setting sunlight shines a beam of light in a perfect alignment over a single monolith several hundred yards away and right into the entrance tunnel and onto the back wall of the interior of the chamber.

There is a webcam setup here although sadly the weather forecast for Tuesday is for scattered cloud but we'll have to wait and see.

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Brilliant place - really enjoyed Maes Howe and ALL the associated sites nearby...

The whole of Orkney and Shetland is bespattered with similar fascinating locations and wonderful land and sea-scapes.

I would recommend you ALL take a trip up to the far North, whenever you can asap, to visit the likes of Maes Howe, I 'would' but...

...I'm not as into all that religious mumbo-jumbo stuff, as Tom obviously is... :whistle

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To embellish your pedantry, A solstice happens twice a year,THE (as in a definitive) solstice happens once a year...and I was talking about the midwinter one anyway :P

Anyway, sunset in Kirkwall is sceduled for 3:14 today should you wish to view the Maes howe webcam

The winter solstice is very pleasant- with the old pagan feelings of death and rebirth.

The summer solstice is also most fine-at least once in your life be there for sunrise on the summer solstice.

Cheers for the webcam link- will be online- along with third year and the multimedia projector.

Edited by Tom McB
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Maes Howe And The Winter Solstice, those clever Stone Age Orcadians

Aye... mibbe... but...

...the present Orcadians cannae organise a videocam in a dark-room! :angry:

As mah wummin asked when I was grumpin roon aboot 3.14 this afternoon,

'What did they do in the old days when there was no sun and loadsa mist and rain and stuff?' Fair question. I had no answer, then I had a ponder...

It IS awfy faur up and awfy dreich on occasion.

How do you motivate a squad of (no offence, FJ) simple stone-age Fermers to down tools and build a big.... 'thing', that'll do what exactly?

"It'll show us where the sun would be setting if the bloody mist and rain would clear away - on midwinter's day - so we'll know exactly when that is. It'll be useful for planning crops n at!"

'But what if it's raining or misty?'

"Trust me... I'm with DEFRA. It's a good and relatively inexpensive idea. By the way, can I interest you in Foot and Mouth?"

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Also one of the other sites mentioned on Orkney was Skara Brae. Could this be an alternative spelling of Skaro? Is Orkney the homeland of the Daleks?

I can give you a definitive 'NO' to Daleks EVER having visited Skara Brae.

If they did, they'd still be stuck there.

For Daleks, the Skara site makes a flight of stairs look like the vast sweeping pampas of the Argentine in comparison. :)

And here's a

wee picture

of Skara Brae.

It IS nice, though... :)

Edited by chingford
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  • 2 years later...

Great, Tom. :)

Ta.

Like a couple of years ago, last night MsChing nagged asked if I was going to check out the Maes Howe vidcam...

I'd forgotten!

I said I would, cos it'll be a sign....

...from solstice this afternoon, I suggested to her, the days will be getting longer and brighter AND StMirren will start to stick in the goals.

I'm gaunie be a Druid or sic-like, when I grow up...

ETA:

Here's the link again, btw -

for live vidcam coverage of the winter sun striking the back wa, o an ancient burial-type mound on Orkney!

Edited by chingford
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  • 11 months later...

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