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WonderArchaeology fact

Skara Brae, a village on Orkney off the north coast of Scotland, was built about 5,000 years ago, and its stone houses still hold their beds, hearths and dressers. It is one of the best-preserved Neolithic, or New Stone Age, villages in Europe.

Skara Brae

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The story behind the card

Built in stone around 3180 BC and lived in for perhaps 600 years, Skara Brae is older than Stonehenge's famous stone circle and Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza. A storm in 1850 stripped away the sand dune that had buried the village, revealing houses linked by covered passageways, each with a stone hearth, box beds and a dresser for displaying possessions, all built from slabs because Orkney has little timber. The archaeologist V. Gordon Childe carried out the first scientific excavations in the 1920s. The site now forms part of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site, alongside the Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness, two nearby stone circles from the same era.

Türkçe oku
İskoçya'nın kuzey kıyısı açığındaki Orkney Adaları'nda bulunan Skara Brae, yaklaşık 5.000 yıl önce kurulmuş bir köydür; taş evlerinde yataklar, ocaklar ve raflar hâlâ yerinde durur. Avrupa'nın en iyi korunmuş Neolitik, yani Cilalı Taş Devri köylerinden biridir.

Skara Brae'de yaşam MÖ 3180 dolaylarında başladı ve yaklaşık 600 yıl sürdü; köy, Stonehenge'in ünlü taş çemberinden de Mısır'daki Büyük Giza Piramidi'nden de eskidir. 1850'de şiddetli bir fırtına köyü örten kum tepesini savurunca, üstü örtülü dar geçitlerle birbirine bağlanan evler ortaya çıktı. Her evde taştan bir ocak, kenarları taş levhalarla çevrili yataklar ve eşyaların dizildiği taş bir raf vardı. Orkney'de ağaç çok az olduğundan hepsi taş levhalardan yapılmıştı. İlk bilimsel kazıları 1920'lerde arkeolog V. Gordon Childe yürüttü. Köy bugün, aynı döneme ait iki taş çember olan Ring of Brodgar ve Stenness Dikili Taşları ile birlikte “Neolitik Orkney'in Kalbi” adlı Dünya Mirası Alanı'nın parçasıdır.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Skara Brae
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