Museums 101: An Overview of the Orkney Museum (Photo Diary)

Orkney is an archipelago off the northeast coast of Scotland. The Orkney Museum, located in Kirkwall, tells the story of Orkney from the Mesolithic and Neolithic Ages through the Picts, the Vikings, and the modern age. The museum is in the Tankerness House—the former home of the Baikie family of Tankerness. Shown below are photographs of some of the museum’s displays.

Shown above are knocking-stones which were used like large mortars for crushing grain. It is not uncommon for Orkney houses today to have knocking-stones are garden ornaments.

Shown above are rotary querns which were used for grinding grain from the Iron Age though the nineteenth century.

Shown above is a rifled barrelled canon from the Dutch East India Company.

Prehistoric artifacts

Shown above is a stone pot lid (upper left), some pottery fragments (lower left), and the base of a steatite vessel (lower right).

Shown above is an unbaked clay object and pieces of pottery.

Shown above are fragments of Bronze Age pottery.

Scotland

With the Norse (Viking) settlements in Orkney, the archipelago was ruled by Norway. Overtime the Scottish influence in Orkney grew through intermarriage and the Norse earldom passed to a series of Scottish earls. After Norway became united with Denmark under the Danish crown, Orkney and Shetland were pawned to Scotland as a part of the royal dowry in 1468. Orkney was formally annexed by Scotland in 1471. The following displays in the Orkney Museum are from the era following annexation.