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Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

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Britain's Ancient Capital: Secrets Of Orkney
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tjj
tjj
3606 posts

Re: The Outrun
Jan 22, 2017, 09:52
Enjoying this little book very much as the writer wanders about her childhood home of Orkney coming to terms with her first year of sobriety - her fear of 'losing her edge' her 'cool'. She scrambles down the rocks to investigate the carcass of a beached whale and ruminates about what whales have meant to the people of Orkney over the centuries ...

"In different ways, whales have been used by people in Orkney for millennia. A whalebone hammer was excavated from the 5000 year-old settlement at Knap of Howar on Papa Westray. One theory about the coverings of the now roofless Neolithic houses at Skara Brae suggests that, in the absence of much wood the inhabitants used whale ribs as rafters, stretching animal skins between them, perhaps turfed on the top. Bones twice the height of a man made a warm home, like a heart inside a ribcage."
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