'Fascinating enigma' boosts rival claimant to Edinburgh's title of 'Athens of the North'
Discovery of a carved stone head suggests small island was once home to a building of ‘some splendour’
You may think that Edinburgh is the ‘Athens of the North’, and you might be right. However, there is a rival – Rousay in the Orkney Isles – and its claim just got a little bit better.
Archaeologists working on Skaill Farm in Westness – once home to a Viking chieftain called Sigurd, who is mentioned in Orkneyinga Saga – have discovered a carved stone head with “beautifully carved locks of hair”.
The head, similar to stonework found at Kirkwall’s 12th-century St Magnus Cathedral, suggests a “building of some splendour” once stood nearby. Could this be Orkney’s lost ‘Parthenon’?
The head has a slight smile and asymmetric eyebrows that the archaeologists said expressed “real character”. So who could it be?
When Heinrich Schliemann excavated the ancient Greek city of Mycenae and discovered a golden mask, he declared dramatically, and probably incorrectly, “I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon”.
Alas, Dr Sarah Jane Gibbon jumped to no such conclusions about the stone head, which she said must remain a “fascinating enigma” for now. So, Sigurd may or may not have been a cheery chap with nice hair. We just can’t say.
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