Skara Brae – Discovery and Excavation of Orkney's finest Neolithic Settlement | Hacker News Reader

Skara Brae – Discovery and Excavation of Orkney's finest Neolithic Settlement

orkneyjar.com

46 pointsDoreenMichele25 comments

I spent a lot of time in the guild hall there recruiting members to my party between trips to the dungeon[1] :-).

Definitely on a list of interesting places to visit, and it amazes me that places like this were occupied for 600 years and then abandoned long before what I think of as ancient times. How did folks develop the techniques for building these sorts of structures? Some sort of stone age think tank? It is really amazing when you think about it.

[1] This was the city in The Bards Tale which I played all the way to the end, back in the day.

yes! the mention of skara brae jumps my brain back to the many hours spent in bard's tail.

Tarjan! I remember being stuck for months and not being able to get into the catacombs under the Mad God's temple. I also remember the triumph of actually living through the night for the first time.

Skara Brae also features in some of the Ultima games. Supposedly both companies hired the same consultant who provided some of the same naming ideas to both customers - oops!

Yup, my long history of playing Ultima and in particular UO was what made me go 'oh, so THAT'S where they got the name!'. It's nice to see how these fantasy worlds tie back to our own in inspiration.

I was playing The Bard's Tale 1 remastered[1] just recently (using Wine+dxvk, since Linux version is not out yet) since I got it as a backer reward for The Bard's Tale IV.

Quite a pity inXile was bought by Microsoft.

1. https://www.gog.com/game/the_bards_tale_trilogy

I loved Bard's Tale up until I completely ruined it for myself by opening my saves up with a hex editor (the DEBUG command in DOS). The format was really simple, and I quickly figured out how to max out everything. I never finished the game, it wasn't fun after that, but I went on to learn x86 assembly language. So not a total loss.

Another really amazing spot on Orkney is Maeshowe, it's a neolithic cairn (from ~3000 BC) but Vikings in the 12th century looted and desecrated it with a bunch of runic graffiti [1]. It's really cool to experience two facets of history in the same location but millennia apart.

[1] http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/maeshowe/maeshrunes.htm

There's some wonderful prehistory in the Orkneys. When I was a little kid (1950) Skara Brae was just open to run around; my sis played house.

A story more interesting than the title might first suggest.

"On the far curving shore of the bay lies Skara Brae, hazy through the sea-haar." George Mackay Brown - Rockpools and Daffodils

As part of our work in deploying the Natick datacenter to the Orkneys, we had the opportunity to visit Skara Brae, as well as the other Neolithic sites. It is a truly amazing place and the size of the civilization in the Orkneys at that early stage is really incredible.

Visited it a couple of years ago, really nice to see. Bit of a Flintstones feeling, with stone beds and cupboards.

I was impressed by it, but one should not forget that at the same time this was built the Great Pyramid was already 300 years old.

Wikipedia disagrees. Skara Brae was occupied about 3190 BC. Earliest Egyptian pyramids were started about 2630. The Great Pyramid was built about 2560 BC.

...and I just learned that Richard Garriott named his island city after something real.

Funny how that name takes me back to memories of a game...

Lived in orkney since I was born, 19 years ago, it's amazing how much we don't appreciate what's outside our doors around Orkney all the time :-)

I've been visiting my in-laws (who live just outside of Kirkwall in St Ola) almost twice a year for 20 years now, and I still haven't become used to how lovely Orkney is. Even got married in Kirkwall. There's a high possibility we'll retire back there when the time comes.

Recently visited Lepenski Vir, oldest urban setlement known in Europe. http://www.serbia.com/visit-serbia/cultural-attractions/arch... Highly recommended for anybody interested into dawn of civilisation

I was really really hoping this post would be something Bard's Tale related.

That's what I thought too - I mean this is interesting, but dang -- BT was the bee's knees.

In case you aren't aware, the full original trilogy was recently remastered (that is, I and II thus far, they're still working on III), and they released a 'Part IV' with a whole new game engine. I haven't played the new one yet, but have heard it's good-- just a bit buggy, which they've already made some progress on rectifying.

Or Ultima!

Oh man, we make ourselves so obvious. I was here for the Ultima Online reference as well. There's something Baudrillardian here about the simulation and the simulacra.

Meanwhile, it's time to go fight 4 groups of 99 berserkers again.

Warstrike: WAST!

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