24 October: Jarlshof Prehistoric and Norse Settlement

After a very slow morning, we drove to the southernmost tip of Mainland Shetland to see Jarlshof Prehistoric and Norse Settlement. I was fascinated by the fact that the information at the site is given in English, German and nynorsk (New Norwegian), indicating that the majority of the tourists are Norwegian and Germans. And I guess they chose to use nynorsk instead of bokmål (Norwegian) because of the close links to the western parts of Norway.More about this later.

The name of the site means 'earl's house' and was created by Sir Walter Scott when he wrote his novel 'The Pirate'. It refers to a fictional house based on the 16th century laird's house, the Old House of Sumburgh, which still towers over the prehistoric remains today.

Jarlshof's surroundings are truly magnificent, with steep cliffs, strong winds and big waves crashing against the cliffs and against underwater reefs.

A multiperiod settlement

The site contains remains dating from 2500 BC up to the 17th century. Just like Skara Brae, this site was uncovered by violent storms, this time towards the end of the 19th century.

Upon excavation, the site was found to contain a remarkable sequence of stone structures – late Neolithic houses, a Bronze-Age village, an Iron-Age broch and wheelhouses, a Norse longhouse, a medieval farmstead, and a 16th-century laird’s house.

The buildings that fascinated me the most were the wheelhouses. These houses were round, where the 'spokes of the wheel' divided the house into separate rooms.

I was also fascinated by the Norse settlement, which shows that the Vikings were skilled farmers and fishermen, not only raiders.


In Norway the viking longhouses were built from wood, in Shetland they had to be built with stone as there was not enough timber available. However, the frames, roof  and furniture were built from timber. The timber was imported from Bergen, which was only 48 hours away by ship. This was considered a short boat ride for our seafaring nation. 'I'll just pop over to Norway for some timber to build a new roof, I'll be back in a flash.'

A visualisation of Jarlshof

As I was writing this blog post, I came across a computer generated film by Kieran Baxter. The film is based on kite aerial photography and is really amazing - it made it so much easier to understand what Jarlshof would have looked like in different time periods. On the website Kieran Baxter's webpage you can also see the process of how the film was made.

 

Mousa Broch and the Shetland ponies

We (or rather I, the tour guide) had already decided we wanted to see Mousa Broch, and the Iron-Age broch at Jarlshof made us even more keen to go see it.

Mousa Broch is the finest preserved example of a broch or round tower in Shetland. With its 13 metres it is the tallest still standing in the world, and amongst the best-preserved prehistoric buildings in Europe. It is thought to have been constructed around 100 BC, one of 570 brochs built throughout Scotland.

Unfortunately the ferry had closed for the season, so we had to admire the broch from the mainland. We were lucky that the weather was so clear, it was easy to see it.

As we were searching for the best place to look at the broch, we ended up on a dead-end track, where there were a number of Shetland ponies.

We've seen them in such great numbers here in Shetland, so I went outside to take a photo. This turned out to be a little difficult, because they came straight over to me to see if I had a snack to offer them. The boys and I ended up cuddling these trusting creatures for quite a while - they were so charming it was almost impossible to leave.

Trondra and Burra

From Mousa Broch we drove across the island of Trondra and on to the island of Burra. The landscape is a bit like a combination of Iceland's grassy hills and Australia's beautiful, sandy beaches.


Almost everywhere we turn here in Shetland, we see ruins of old stone buildings and at Burra they seemed to be exceptionally abundant.

When we reached the southernmost end of the island, we left the car to take a look at a few of the ruins, walk on a sandy beach and enjoy the magnificent landscapes.

The rain stopped as we were getting out of the car, leaving us a magnificent rainbow and a little later we enjoyed a wonderful sunset.

On our little afternoon walk I was fascinated by the two beaches on the narrow strip of land we crossed to get to the tip of the island. The beach on one side had white, finely grained sand, the other side was filled with small, dark, round pebbles. Amazing how two beaches only a few metres apart could be so different.


As we continued walking, we came across some sheep. A few of them had left the grassy hills and were exploring a very rough and uneven beach. I wonder what they were doing down there.

On our way back to the car we also saw a rabbit and a seal. The seal was extremely curios, the rabbit was not.