World Heritage Identification Number: 514
World Heritage since: 1999
Category: Cultural Heritage
WHE Type: Archaeological Sites
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
Criterion (i): The major monuments of the Stones of Stenness, the Ring of Brodgar, the chambered tomb of Maeshowe, and the settlement of Skara Brae display the highest sophistication in architectural accomplishment; they are technologically ingenious and monumental masterpieces.
Criterion (ii): The Heart of Neolithic Orkney exhibits an important interchange of human values during the development of the architecture of major ceremonial complexes in the British Isles, Ireland and northwest Europe.
Criterion (iii): Through the combination of ceremonial, funerary and domestic sites, the Heart of Neolithic Orkney bears a unique testimony to a cultural tradition that flourished between about 3000 BC and 2000 BC. The state of preservation of Skara Brae is unparalleled amongst Neolithic settlement sites in northern Europe.
Criterion (iv): The Heart of Neolithic Orkney is an outstanding example of an architectural ensemble and archaeological landscape that illustrate a significant stage of human history when the first large ceremonial monuments were built.
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
Number of Components: 4
(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.)
