Column: Full moons and ancient runes

Late last week, as the harvest moon rose clear and bright in the southern sky, I was at the beach in East Hampton with my daughter and I snapped pictures of her silhouetted against the shining waves illuminated by its brightness.

The scene immediately took me back to last month’s full moon, which I witnessed from the distant and remote shores of the Orkney Islands off Scotland.

My husband, daughter and I had been traveling around the U.K. for several weeks prior and we found ourselves on Orkneys’ main island off the northern tip of Scotland on the night of August’s full moon. The timing was accidental, but extremely propitious, as was the weather, which, like last week, was clear and still.

Perfect for full moon viewing.

We hadn’t given it much thought, but after dinner we realized the timing was right and thought we should find a good vantage point to take it all in. We were just up the road from the Standing Stones of Stenness, a Neolithic monument consisting of four massive stones set upright at some point in history by human hands. How they did it no one knows, but the structure dates back to 3300 B.C., making it older than Stonehenge.

It’s hard not to be impressed by history like that. But even more impressive on this night in August was the fact we had the place to ourselves, and between the long shadows of the looming stones created by the brightness of the moon, the surrounding fields, and the utter stillness of the night punctuated only by the bells of sheep, it was hard not to feel a connection to the ancient civilizations that once populated the place.

Archaeology is like that, I was reminded this week in talking with Stephen Harvey, an Egyptologist who will speak at the Historical Society this weekend about the Colonial-era items he’s found in his Shelter Island backyard.

People can’t help but leave their mark on their world and history is often layered. Those layers tell stories and just like the bits of broken pottery and stone tools that Mr. Harvey has found here on Shelter Island, largely by accident, the islands of Orkney still have plenty of secrets to reveal.

And accidents are often an archaeologist’s best friend.

That was certainly the case with Skara Brae, the 5,000-year-old seaside-village on Orkney that no one even knew existed until 1850. That’s when a storm blew the sand dune off the top of the settlement revealing an entirely intact prehistoric village beneath, complete with sidewalks and stone furniture like beds and dressers.

But it’s another accidental find just up the road from the Standing Stones of Stenness that is turning out to be the most impressive Neolithic site in all of Europe. The Ness of Brodgar, a massive settlement and temple complex, was discovered under a farmer’s field in the early 2000s, and for the last decade or so has been the site of a massive archeological dig.

We had the great fortune of coming upon the Ness of Brodgar during the very last week of excavation work for the summer of 2016 and the site was buzzing with activity as archaeology students from around the world worked on various parts of the site. The BBC was there filming, and the resident border collie, Bryn, greeted visitors who came to view the site. Scaffolding erected near the dig allows visitors to watch the work in progress and while we were there, one of the archaeologists gave us a tour of the place.

He reminded us that while Orkney today feels like a remote and lonely outpost of the British Isles, that wasn’t the case in Neolithic times. He explained that the current dig site covers six acres and contains the remnants of 14 buildings. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He said the settlement extends a great distance in both directions away from the site, and now sits under farm fields, houses and roads that have been built by more recent Orkney residents.

The notion of successive generations occupying the same place stayed with me later that evening as we crawled through the claustrophobic tunnel access to enter Maes Howe, a stone age tomb nearby. If Skara Brae and the Ness of Brodgar represent the center of Neolithic community life on ancient Orkney, then this place represented its death.

The tunnel leads to a cavernous space with deep recesses that once held human remains. Our guide explained that on the winter solstice, the setting sun shines between the two highest peaks on nearby Hoy Island and shoots light down the tunnel to shine on the back wall of the tomb. Due to a shift in the axis of the earth over millennia, the spot is now slightly off center, but it’s a spectacular site nonetheless, she assured us.

But for me, the most impressive aspect of the tomb was made by a subsequent group of people who came here around 1100 A.D. Using her flashlight, our guide pointed out a series of symbols scratched into the stone on various parts of the tomb.

These were, in fact, runes left by Vikings who broke into the structure to escape a winter storm.

The unfamiliar markings captured my imagination and I was intrigued by what a group of Vikings would want to tell the rest of the world.

Then the guide filled us in.

“Ottarfila carved these runes,” “Ingigerth is the most beautiful of all women,” and “Thorni bedded Helga.”

Yes, it seems no matter what era we live in, we humans can’t resist leaving our mark on the world.