The Orkney Islands offer an especially fertile field to the archaeologist. The sites of a least 70 brochs have been located in the group, as against 75 in Shetland, 79 in Caithness, 60 in Sutherland, and some 70 in the northern Hebrides. These districts constitute the main area of the brochs, which rapidly decrease in number as one proceeds southwards, Forfarshire offering but two specimens, and Perthshire, Stirlingshire, and Berwickshire one each.

“The typical form of the broch,” says Dr Anderson, “is that of a hollow circular tower of dry-built masonry, about 60 feet in diameter and about 50 feet high. Its wall, which is about 15 feet thick, is carried up solid for about 8 feet, except where two or three oblong chambers, with rudely-vaulted roofs, are constructed in its thickness. Above the height of about 8 feet, the wall is carried up with a hollow space of about 3 feet wide between its exterior and interior shell. This hollow space at about the height of a man, is crossed horizontally by a roof of slabs, the upper surfaces of which form the floor of the space above. This is repeated at every 5 or 6 feet of its farther height. These spaces thus form horizontal galleries, separated from each other vertically by the slabs of their floors and roofs. The galleries run completely round the tower, except that they are crossed by the stair, so that each gallery opens in front of the steps, and its farther end is closed by the back of the staircase on the same level.

“The only opening in the outside of the tower is the main entrance, a narrow, tunnel-like passage 15 feet long, 5 to 6 feet in height, and rarely more than 3 feet in width, leading straight through the wall on the ground level, and often flanked on either side by guard-chambers opening into it. This gives access to the central area or courtyard of the tower, round the inner circumference of which, in different positions, are placed the entrances to the chambers on the ground-floor, and to the staircase leading to the galleries above. In its external aspect, the tower is a truncated cone of solid masonry, unpierced by any opening save the narrow doorway; while the central court presents the aspect of a circular well 30 feet in diameter bounded by a perpendicular wall 50 feet high, and presenting at intervals on the ground floor several low and narrow doorways, giving access to the chambers and stair, and above these ranges of small window-like openings rising perpendicularly over each other to admit light and air to the galleries.”

In some respects the most interesting broch site in Orkney is that at Lingrow, about two miles S.S.E. of Kirkwall. Contiguous to this building lies a perfect labyrinth of building of secondary occupation. A coin of Vespasian and two of Antoninus were found at Lingrow when the site was excavated in 1870. Another interesting specimen is that at Hoxa in South Ronaldshay. The little that remains of this building is situated on the west side of a small bight which opens northwards on Scapa Flow, and on the east side of the bight stands the site of a second broch. The two brochs together command both the bight itself and a narrow isthmus of land which connects it with Widewall Bay to the southward. Defence of the land passage between the two areas of water was obviously a prime motive of construction in this case. Other interesting specimens of brochs are at Okstro in Birsay, at Burgar in Evie, and at Burrian in North Ronaldshay; but many of the Orkney sites remain as yet unexcavated, or only tentatively explored. Stone hand-mills (querns), stone whorls and bone combs, both used in woollen weaving, stone lamps, imitated from Roman models, hair combs, and fragments of pottery are some of the articles found in the Orkney brochs, none of which now show more than a few feet of their original height.

A consideration of the geographical position of the main area of their distribution leaves one with little doubt that they were erected as the best and most economical means that a scanty and scattered population could devise to check continuous piratical incursions, probably directed from Scandinavia and the coastal regions of north-western Europe; but the exact era of their erection is a question that still awaits definite solution. One may safely conjecture, however, that they were gradually destroyed by the incursions which they were built to withstand.

Other primitive dwellings, of somewhat wider distribution in Orkney than the brochs, are the “Picts’ houses,” either in the form of chambered mounds, such as the widely-known Maeshowe, or of underground chambers of the type commonly known as weems. Maeshowe (the Maidens’ Mound) is situated in the parish of Stenness, near the high road from Kirkwall to Stromness, and its external appearance is that of a truncated cone 92 feet in diameter, 36 feet high, and about 100 yards in circumference at the base. The central chamber is reached by a straight passage 54 feet long, from 2 feet 4 inches to 3 feet 4 inches wide, and from 2 feet 4 inches to 4 feet 8 inches high. The chamber is 15 feet square on the floor, and 13 feet high, the roof being formed by the stones, at the height of 6 feet from the floor, gradually overlapping. The four angles of the chamber are supported by heavy stone buttresses from 8 to 10 feet high, and about 3 feet square at the base. Off the main chamber on the three sides other than that which contains the entrance, are subsidiary cells, the entrances to which are at a height of 3 feet from the floor. The walls of the central chamber are scored with Norse runes some of which tell that the place, which was known to the Norsemen as Orkahaug, or the Muckle Mound, was broken into by the Jorsala-farers, or pilgrims who accompanied St Rognvald to Jerusalem (Norse, Jorsalaheim) in 1152. Other stones show pictorial designs, several being of fine workmanship. Nothing is known of the date or origin of Maeshowe, which from its elaborate design and peculiarities of detail constitutes a thing unique among the antiquities of Britain. Among weems, or eirde houses, as they are sometimes called, which are irregularly-shaped chambers excavated below the ordinary level of the ground, perhaps the finest Orcadian example is that at Saveroch, near Kirkwall.

At a distance of about a mile and a half west and south-west of Maeshowe is the remarkable series of megalithic monuments collectively known as the Standing Stones of Stenness. The “Ring of Brogar” is the largest and most complete; thirteen of its stones are still standing, while the stumps of thirteen more are still in situ, and ten are lying prostrate. The highest stone stands about 14 feet above ground, and the total number of stones is calculated to have originally been sixty. This circle has a diameter of 366 feet, and encloses 2½ acres. Of the “Ring of Stenness” proper, which has a diameter of 104 feet, only two stones remain erect, but one of these is 17 feet 4 inches high, while another lying prostrate measures 19 feet × 5 feet × 1 ft. 8 inches, and has been calculated to weigh 10.71 tons.

In a valley in Hoy, between the Ward Hill and the precipitous ridge known as the Dwarfie Hammers, lies the celebrated Dwarfie Stone, most puzzling perhaps of all the antiquities of the Islands. This is a huge block of sandstone measuring about 28 feet in length, and varying in breadth from 11 to 14½ feet. Its height falls from 6½ feet at the southern to 2 feet at the northern end. On the west side of the stone is an entrance giving access to two couches or berths, the southern and larger of which has a stone pillow. When first mentioned in writing by Jo Ben in his Descriptio Insularum Orchadiarum, in 1529, the Dwarfie Stone was as great a puzzle as it is to-day, and no suggested explanation of its origin or raison d’Être appears to carry much probability.

Important discoveries of antique jewelry, coins, and other articles of the precious metals have been made in Orkney from time to time. Perhaps the greatest find was that made at the Bay of Skaill, in the parish of Sandwick, in March 1858, which consisted of 16 lbs. weight of silver articles, including heavy mantle brooches, torques, bars of silver, and coins, some of the last being Cufic, of the Samanian and Abbasside Kalifs, dating from 887 to 945 A.D., and others Anglo-Saxon.