Maeshowe

It has been stunning today, perfect, crisp, clear. Colour everywhere, hazy blue skies, white waves, turquoise seas. A blipfest! But in the spirit of the series of sunsets of the past few days it seemed the perfect addition to catch the last rays of the sun at Maeshowe.

Although the shortest day isn't actually until the 22nd December (it varies between the 21st and 22nd, from year to year) today is the point when the sun hits it's lowest point on the horizon. Add to that the fact that the weather conditions looked just right and the fact that it was a Sunday and we could all go, it was the perfect day for us to travel back 5,000 years.

Maeshowe is a neolithic chambered cairn. In fact many would say it is THE neolithic chambered cairn. It sits in the landscape like an upturned pudding bowl and is part of the world heritage site. A mysterious place, been here since before the pyramids were thought of and no one really knows what it was used for. Inside its a wonderful piece of engineering, a masterpiece of dry stane technology.

You travel inside the mound through a low passage into a fairly small chambered room. For 25 days either side of the solstice, given a clear sky, the sun sets behind the Ward hill on the island of Hoy. (That's it you can just see nestled in at the place the howe and the background hill meet.) And before it dips below the hill the light slides along the north wall of the howe passage and lights up a small section of the rear wall inside the chamber with a golden light. This slowly passes along this wall and eventually retreats down the south side of the passage wall.

We were very lucky, the light did what it must have done in the same way 5,000 years ago.

What the people did there as the sun lit up the howe, we don't know. When it was opened up, they found nothing inside (except for a huge collection of runic inscriptions left by a bunch of vikings who took refuge there in the 12th century). No bones, no relics, and no matter what the vikings said in their extravagant graffiti... no treasure (this was the stone age remember). There are all sorts of theories, most popular that some sort of ritual took place there. And witnessing the last golden light of the day it's very hard to think it was otherwise. Although Campbell did suggest they might have performed shadow puppet shows.

There is a webcam on which you may be able to catch the live stream of the event. I've never actually watched it, the pics shown outwith the live broadcast are the last shot taken at 4pm and certainly are nothing spectacular but it's probably worth a look during the sunset (try it from about 2.45pm).

You're not allowed to take photos inside which can be frustrating but looking back it would have spoiled the experience to have people clicking and beeping away. So to get the best view you'll just need to visit yourself.

This has to be number 10 in my Must see series, but this is long enough without adding more links. If you missed the rest of the series, you can go back from number 9..