Secret History

'Upside down houses' built for the dead in Stone Age tomb in Orkney

Heritage Daily
Fri, 04 Sep 2020 20:09 UTC

Maeshowe

A study of the Maeshowe tomb by the University of the Highlands and Islands has suggested that the side chambers of the tomb are styled upside-down, as inverted netherworlds for the dead to pass on into the afterlife.

Maeshowe is a Neolithic chambered cairn and passage grave, built around 2800 BC on the mainland of the Orkney Islands in Scotland. Maeshowe is one of the island's largest tombs, consisting of a large mound reaching a height of 24 feet that encases a complex of passages and chambers built from crafted slabs of flagstone.

The interior contains a 36-foot-long passageway that leads to a central square shaped chamber, illuminated on the winter solstice in similarity to the grand passage tomb of Newgrange found in Ireland.

The latest research was conducted by Jay van der Reijden at the university's Archaeology Institute, who studied communally-built dry-stone tombs - referred to as 'houses for the dead' given the similar layout to domestic houses.

Reijden's results suggest that the chambers of the Maeshowe tomb were built for the deceased, by inverting the architectural design as though the chamber is within the underworld.

Jay van der Reijden said: "The wall-stones are like wallpapers, and when you repeatedly hang them upside down in distinct locations patterns become discernible. The swaps include the reversal of multiple architectural features normally placed on the right-hand side being on the left only inside the side chambers. The interpretation is that the side chambers are built to be within the netherworld, by the main chamber walls acting as membranes, separating this life and the next, and that the internal walling material is conceived to physically represent the underworld."

Nick Card, Excavation Director of the Ness of Brodgar said: "Despite being a focus of attention since its first modern-day entry over 150 years ago, the iconic Maeshowe continues to reveal its secrets through careful and considered study. This study offers new ways of approaching and understanding the construction and use of not only this monument but has wider implications for the study of Neolithic stone-built monuments and the society that constructed them".

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Reader Comments

Tiu · 2020-09-06T06:04:57Z

They were probably just reading the plans upside down. I wonder if they found a buyer?

codis · 2020-09-08T13:17:47Z

Tiu Or they had cheap but illiterate immingrant workers employed.

Baybars · 2020-09-09T06:52:36Z

Too much LSD in University is my guess

Highland Fleet Lute · 2020-09-09T07:23:27Z

"The wall-stones are like wallpapers, and when you repeatedly hang them upside down in distinct locations patterns become discernible. The swaps include the reversal of multiple architectural features normally placed on the right-hand side being on the left only inside the side chambers. The interpretation is that the side chambers are built to be within the netherworld, by the main chamber walls acting as membranes, separating this life and the next, and that the internal walling material is conceived to physically represent the underworld."

Have you been making up tall stories again? Just wait 'til you get home. Your dad's going to give you a thick ear.

Ivar · 2020-09-10T22:15:13Z

Winter Solstice AKA Christmas Eve. We still have traditions in Norway that continues this. You can see it on all the ancient Nordic graves. The reason it illuminates then has to do with cycles of rebirth. It illuminated because that was when the child was supposed to become his ancestor, by going into the grave and retrieving a heirloom so he could remember his previous life (christmas gift, given by Santa/Jolnir/Odin). This is the 'nisse', the child and ancestor in one, who lives underground, but comes into our house in Christmas. In Norwegian folk tradition he comes alive and dances on Christmas, and we still sacrifice porridge to him, but we have no grave mounds now so we do it in barns, cellars, etc. The child had previously gone around dressed as a goat (julbokk), before the burning of the straw goat, so that the child can be symbolically reborn the next day, like the goats of Thor.

Ivar · 2020-09-10T22:17:33Z

"Underground", and "Grave Mound" is just symbolism for the womb of the mother.

Tiu · 2020-09-11T00:19:57Z

Ivar On page 161 (p173 in the pdf) in the book called "Ireland: Land of Pharaos" by Andrew Power [Link] there's a photo of an ancient basin from Brú na Bóinne (AKA Newgrange) mound in Ireland depicting cell division from the initial stages of an embryo forming. Brú na Bóinne is also unmistakably shaped like a womb, and the entrance passage, which illuminates the inner chamber of the mound on the solstice and aligns with Saturn represents the birth passage - it's not a straight line either, it is contoured. The book in the link is well worth reading, it covers a number of subjects and issues from both the current era and the ancient past.

Ivar · 2020-09-13T19:02:02Z

Tiu Much appreciated!

Ivar · 2020-09-13T19:09:17Z

Tiu Before/in adddition to grave mounds, sacred caves have also been used like this. These caves are characterized by their similarity to the womb.

Ivar · 2020-09-13T19:18:22Z

Tiu This was the belief shared by the ancestors of todays northern Europe, but in antiquity they spanned from Ireland - Egypt - Tarim Basin. Of course there will be traces of them in current population of Egypt and Xinjiang as well. As well as Iran, India (especially Brahmin class), Turkey, Greece, etc.

Tiu · 2020-09-16T08:29:25Z

Ivar From what I've read, I tend to agree. My ancestors from Ireland were descendants of the Milesians who have had settlements found on the Crimean peninsula and Miletus (modern day Turkey). Legends say they returned to Ireland via Spain with an Egyptian princess named Scotia - who Scotland is named after. She possibly died on her way to Ireland but her two sons Eber and Eremon did make it, Eber is possibly the base name for Hibernia (Scotland) and Eremon for Eire (Ireland).

I've read books that suggest our ancient ancestors were quite capable of trekking the length of the Eurasian land mass based on what we refer to as stone-age technology linking sites along the way.

Ivar · 2020-09-16T16:55:40Z

Tiu I tend to not place much value on such legends. I think because all Europeans have a common heritage we share the myths, and also language roots, so it is easy to mix people up here and there if you want to. I think most people stayed where they were and did not travel in the way you mention here at least. However I do agree that it is likely that there was an influx of people from Spain to Ireland, Cornwall and Wales.

Ivar · 2020-09-16T16:57:18Z

Tiu When I say they spanned Eurasia, I am not talking of a single tribe, but most likely thousands of tribes. With different languages and some cultural differences.

Tiu · 2020-09-18T19:57:04Z

Ivar I suspect our ancestors did travel extensively prior to settled farming, and then the securing of land and formation of larger societies slowly brought an end to the nomadic lifestyle. I'd also agree that most people did not move all the time, and there are many myths and legends which are shared. In later stages of the settlement of groups of people, it was common for large groups to move large distances e.g. from modern day Poland (roughly) to Morocco - although the journey took stages spread over several generations.

Ivar · 2020-09-10T22:20:22Z

3 months later is Easter, which is when the children are "hatched" and also correlates with the name giving day in folk tradition. exactly 9 months after Summer Solstice, which is the month of Juno the goddess of marriage and wife of Jupiter. It was in this month most children where concieved.

Highland Fleet Lute · 2020-09-16T17:15:20Z

I think hippies should be banned from archaeology.

I think there should be great big huge signs by the sides of the roads at Newgrange, Stonehenge and Avebury.

"Newgrange welcomes non-hippies".

"Stonehenge. This is a terrible place!!! Not for you, hippy!!!".

"Avebury welcomes careful drivers. Please stamp out hippies before entering this village".

Rowan Cocoan · 2020-09-16T18:06:34Z

No pictures of their claimed points that theoretically should be obvious? Colour* me sceptical.*

R.C.

*Trying to criticise* like a local..

P.s., HFL, growing up here, all one would ever hear from rednecks trying to start fights was that one was a "long haired hippy faggot mother-fucker", to which I'd sometimes offer them a return by saying only 'I'm not a hippy", and never had one such idiot seize that opportunity and say "So, RC, you concede then that you're a "long-haired faggot mother-fucker"?

Even if they did, I'd counter with "How can a faggot also fuck your mother?" or such, and we know where it went from there.

RC

Highland Fleet Lute · 2020-09-16T18:21:08Z

Rowan Cocoan Different cultural context, Ro.

Go and watch 48 hours of Megalithomania vids, and you'll see what I mean.

Rowan Cocoan · 2020-09-16T18:24:18Z

Highland Fleet Lute It seems to me that you think of 'hippies' as I do, 'free cheetohs and heroin' socialists who (like Antifa / BLM BM types) who often have beau coup college learning and too little understanding of economics 101, Western Civ.. basic reality, etc.

Those nonthinking socialistas have always been around (more in Northern California that around here, of course.)

I guess my point is that long hair doth not make the hippy but is an iffy correlation.

Also: re Megalithomania, thanks! Just punched it up for lunch. (Hmm. maybe..)

RC

Highland Fleet Lute · 2020-09-16T18:47:05Z

Rowan Cocoan My point was, if they're not back-engineering history in their own image, and filling it with their own Leary infested fantasies about Shamen, rites, magic mushrooms and the like, it's some pony-arsed undergraduate degree Freudian projected claptrap about wombs and phallic symbols.

Pah.