Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland, is renowned for its remarkably well-preserved monuments. Many of these are Neolithic (10,000 BC to 2,200 BC) and consist of stone circles and chambered tombs, which are still highly visible in the landscape. Chambered tombs are monuments built of stone with a chamber area designed to hold the remains of the dead.
In many parts of Britain, chambered tombs have been robbed for stone, and while this was also the case on Orkney, most sites do not seem to have been as badly affected as in other parts of the country.
In 2020 one of my team encountered a series of letters preserved in National Museums Scotland’s library relating to a dispute over some Neolithic objects discovered in Orkney in the 19th century.
