Meishau ( eng. Maeshowe, Maes Howe ) is a funeral cairn and a tomb of the neolithic corridor type in Maineland , the largest island in the Orkney archipelago , Scotland . Located near the southern shore of Lough of Harrey . The monument is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List as one of the four in the Neolithic Monuments in the Orkney Islands [1] . A little to the west are the Circle of Brodgar , Megaliths Stennes and Barnhouse , and the settlement of Scara Bray is 10 kilometers to the north-west.
| Tomb | |
| Meishau | |
|---|---|
 | |
| A country |  Great Britain |
| Location | Orkney Islands |
 World Heritage Site | |
| Heart of Neolithic Orkney (Neolithic monuments in the Orkney Islands) | |
| Link | No. 514 in the World Heritage List ( en ) |
| Criteria | i, ii, iii, iv |
| Region | Europe and North America |
| Turning on | 1999 ( 23rd session ) |
By design, Cairn Meishau is unique in Scotland or elsewhere.
Meishau is one of the largest tombs in the Orkney Islands. A grass-covered kurgan hides a complex of corridors and chambers built from carefully processed slabs of mica sandstone weighing up to 30 tons [2] . Located in such a way that the back wall of the central chamber, a rough cube resting on a wall with brackets [3] , is illuminated at the time of the winter solstice. (A similar picture is seen in the Newgrange corridor tomb in Ireland .)
The tomb was built by people belonging to one of the cultures of flute ceramics . Meishau recalls a number of other important ancient monuments dating back to the same period. According to a number of archaeologists, he was originally surrounded by a large circle of stones [2] .
According to the Orcnean Saga , approximately in the XII century AD er Meishau was plundered by the Vikings under the leadership of the earls Harald Maddadsson and Regnwald Eysteinsson [4] . They also left some runic inscriptions on the stone walls of the burial chamber, which had served them for some time. In total about 30 runic inscriptions have survived - this is their largest collection in the world.
The roof with eaves was destroyed in 1861 by overly active archaeologists, because of which, in addition, all the material found in the tomb (including possible artifacts) was lost. On the other hand, they almost did not damage the main structure of the tomb, and to this day the monument is a unique example of the stone age construction, which has no analogues in the British Isles.
Notes
- ↑ It is one of 4 World Heritage Sites in Scotland, along with such as Old Town (Edinburgh) and New Town (Edinburgh) , New Lanark and St. Kilda in the Hebrides .
- 2 1 2 Lost Worlds: History of the Pagans Ronald Hutton, Archeologists Erika Guttmann and Martin Carruthers
- ↑ A History of Britain, Richard Dargie (2007), p. 12.
- ↑ "Maeshowe's runes - Viking graffiti" Orkneyjar. Retrieved 30 October 2008.