Physical Graffiti

I like ruins, the remnants of ancient and not so ancient civilizations. I try to imagine what daily life must have been like. History is wild when you think beyond kings, queens and battles to the day to day life of average people. What would my life have been like had I lived then? What did folks do for fun? Had fun even been invented yet?

This was yet another reason for making the long journey to the Orkney Islands, ten miles off the northern tip of the Scottish mainland – closer to the Arctic Circle than to London. The 70 islands in the chain are simply lousy with Neolithic sites -- 2500 BC and 2000 BC (that’s just eleventy million kinds of old!).

I’d read of Maeshowe, a chambered tomb (cairn) with 2 separate rings of standing stones nearby – like Stonehenge but without the crowds, entry fee or souvenir vendors.

My first visit was in late winter/early spring -- not yet tourist season that far north. The first day was warmish as I set out, walking the 6 miles from Stromness and hoping to hitch a ride. There was a strong, annoying wind pummeling me and, sadly, no cars.

Maeshowe wasn’t open but I managed to find the elderly caretaker at the tea shop across the road. He, very kindly, agreed to take me in.

Getting in was a monumental challenge to my steel clad claustrophobia. We crawled 36 feet through a dark, low, arched stone tunnel to get into the chambers. I suspect the anticipated embarrassment of traveling all that way and then freaking out, is the only thing that kept me moving -- that and being exhausted from my long windblown walk.  I’d have been better off entering on the winter solstice when the perfectly aligned weak sun shoots straight down, illuminating the tunnel. Would've been way better than the caretaker's one small, weak ass flashlight.

While it was awesome as all get out to just be in the place, what grabbed me solid (and has me laughing and snorting still) was the graffiti dating from, at least, the early 12th century. These were runes carved into the walls, left by marauding Vikings.

"Thorni fucked. Helgi carved" -- Oh my. Thorni got busy while Helgi worked?  Real classy, man.

"Ingigerth is the most beautiful of all women" -- this was inscribed beside a rough drawing of a slobbering dog. Earliest known example of high sarcasm or was the graffiti artist, perhaps, the love sick slobbering dog?

A few examples of medieval tagging:
"Ofram the son of Sigurd carved these runes"

"These runes were carved by the man most skilled in runes in the western ocean"

"Tholfir Kolbeinsson carved these runes high up"

After I managed to get out, back down that panic inducing, interminably long tunnel, I hiked a short ways over to the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar. These were/are magnificently breathtaking. It was late in the day, sun fading and not a soul about as I wandered around and wondered what the circles were for and how did those ancient people get all those ginormous stones there and upright? Was there a supervisor saying “no, no, a little to the left” as a crew of men lifted, dragged and cursed the supe?

So, this is what they did for fun in 2250 BC, then? No, really?