Ring of Brodgar

The Ring of Brodgar is a Neolithic henge and stone circle on Mainland, the largest island in Orkney, Scotland. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Heart of Neolithic Orkney.

The stone circle is 104 metres (341 ft) in diameter, and the third largest in the British Isles. The ring originally comprised 60 stones, of which only 27 remained standing at the end of the 20th century. The tallest stones stand at the south and west of the ring.

The stones are set in a circular ditch up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) deep, 9 metres (30 ft) wide and 380 metres (1,250 ft) in circumference that was carved out of the solid sandstone bedrock by the ancient residents. Technically, this ditch does not constitute a true henge as there is no sign of an encircling bank of earth and rock. However, many archaeologists refer to this structure as a henge. Aubrey Burl classifies the ditch as a Class II henge; one that has two opposing entrances, in this case on the north-west and south-east.

The Ring is in a significant ritual landscape. Within 2 square miles (5.2 km2) there are the two circle-henges, four chambered tombs, groups of standing stones, single stones, barrows, cairns, and mounds. A number of flint arrowheads and broken stone mace-heads were found nearby. They seem to date from the Bronze Age. The nearby Standing Stones of Stenness and its Maeshowe tomb help to make the Ring of Brodgar a site of major importance.

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Maggie MacG
21 August 2015
This place was amazing! Unfortunately T11 only stops here for 30 minutes. Could have used more time to hike all around and see the ring from ALL of the beautiful vantage points.
Dave Lepkowski
18 March 2018
This is a super awesome and informative place to visit. The tour guides that we had were pretty awesome By The Way.
Slynky Cat
1 January 2012
Can get very windy and muddy, so wrap up warm and bring Wellies. Views can be spectacular though
Carl Griffin
22 December 2015
Huge and impressive stone circle.
Jakub Dospiva
27 August 2017
Unbelivably strong place.
Dagmar Doležalová
12 August 2019
The atmosphere of of this place
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Kinofdc Wilder and 2,372 more people have been here
Thu 9:00 AM–6:00 PM
Fri 10:00 AM–5:00 PM
Sat 10:00 AM–5:00 PM
Sun 10:00 AM–7:00 PM
Mon 9:00 AM–7:00 PM
Tue 10:00 AM–6:00 PM

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