World Heritage Identification Number: 514
World Heritage since: 1999
Category: Cultural Heritage
Transboundary Heritage: No
Endangered Heritage: No
Country: 🇬🇧 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Continent: Europe
UNESCO World Region: Europe and North America
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Exploring the Heart of Neolithic Orkney: A Journey Through Prehistory
The Heart of Neolithic Orkney, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999, offers a captivating glimpse into the lives of ancient communities that inhabited the Orkney Islands over 5,000 years ago. This collection of Neolithic monuments, scattered across the Mainland of Orkney, provides a unique insight into the rich cultural heritage of this remote archipelago in the far north of Scotland.
More to come…UNESCO Description of the World Heritage Site
The group of Neolithic monuments on Orkney consists of a large chambered tomb (Maes Howe), two ceremonial stone circles (the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar) and a settlement (Skara Brae), together with a number of unexcavated burial, ceremonial and settlement sites. The group constitutes a major prehistoric cultural landscape which gives a graphic depiction of life in this remote archipelago in the far north of Scotland some 5,000 years ago.
UNESCO Justification of the World Heritage Site
Criteria (i), (ii), (iii), and (iv): The monuments of Orkney, dating back to 3000-2000 BC, are outstanding testimony to the cultural achievements of the Neolithic peoples of northern Europe.
Encyclopedia Record: Heart of Neolithic Orkney
Heart of Neolithic Orkney is a group of Neolithic monuments on the Mainland of the Orkney Islands, Scotland. The name was adopted by UNESCO when it proclaimed these sites as a World Heritage Site in December 1999.Additional Site Details
Area: 15 hectares
(ii) — Significant interchange of human values
(iii) — Unique or exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition
(iv) — Outstanding example of a type of building or landscape
Coordinates: 58.99605556 , -3.188666667
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© Dr. John F. Burka, CC BY-SA 3.0 Resized from original. (This derivative is under the same CC BY-SA license.)
