Maeshowe

A grass mound 35 metres across and 7.3 high on Orkney, raised about 2800 BC out of slabs weighing up to 30 tonnes, at a cost somebody has estimated at 39,000 to 100,000 hours of work. An eleven-metre passage runs in to a nearly square chamber, and it is aligned so that at the winter solstice the sun comes up the passage and lands on the back wall, for several days around midwinter. Then there is the graffiti. In the twelfth century Norsemen broke in through the roof and carved over thirty runic inscriptions on the walls, which are now the largest collection of runes outside Scandinavia. One says these runes were carved by the man most skilled in runes west of the ocean. Another says Ingigerth is the most beautiful of women. UNESCO listed it in 1999 with Skara Brae as the Heart of Neolithic Orkney. Guided tour only, from the Stenness visitor centre.