Ed B. reviewed The Mystery of Skara Brae: Neolithic Scotland and the Origins of Ancient Egypt on + 2 more book reviews
There's nothing here!
No question about it, there are a lot of mysteries around Skara Brae as there are around the paleolithic people who inhabited the Orkney Islands 5,000 years ago. I've been there, traipsed around Skara Brae as well as the other well known and nearby Stones of Stenness, Ness of Brodgar, the Ring of Brodga, the Maes Howe tomb and others. I really wish this book delved into them. Instead of serious reflection it offers only a very confused stream of consciousness-like tale purporting to link Skara Brae with an obscure ethnic group in Africa and something in pre-historic Egypt. To say this makes no sense whatsoever is to understate the obvious. The added footnotes and bibliography imply this is a serious academic study. It is not. It is a fraud. Writing a lot of nonsense words in a sentence does not make it worthy. Putting a whole bunch of this in one place makes even less sense. I guess in this day when we hear and accept so much nonsense through the internet and news media that it follows our literature should also indulge in fantasy. I was conned into buying the book, by the title alone. Please, do yourself a favor and do not follow my lead. Let my experience save you some money. Just Google Orkney Archaeology and you will be amazed by the mysteries of this most glorious place. It's absolutely fascinating which is more than I can say for this book. By the way, this is not cosmology as the word is understood in the scientific world. I am a cosmologist and the study described in the book is nothing even closely related.
No question about it, there are a lot of mysteries around Skara Brae as there are around the paleolithic people who inhabited the Orkney Islands 5,000 years ago. I've been there, traipsed around Skara Brae as well as the other well known and nearby Stones of Stenness, Ness of Brodgar, the Ring of Brodga, the Maes Howe tomb and others. I really wish this book delved into them. Instead of serious reflection it offers only a very confused stream of consciousness-like tale purporting to link Skara Brae with an obscure ethnic group in Africa and something in pre-historic Egypt. To say this makes no sense whatsoever is to understate the obvious. The added footnotes and bibliography imply this is a serious academic study. It is not. It is a fraud. Writing a lot of nonsense words in a sentence does not make it worthy. Putting a whole bunch of this in one place makes even less sense. I guess in this day when we hear and accept so much nonsense through the internet and news media that it follows our literature should also indulge in fantasy. I was conned into buying the book, by the title alone. Please, do yourself a favor and do not follow my lead. Let my experience save you some money. Just Google Orkney Archaeology and you will be amazed by the mysteries of this most glorious place. It's absolutely fascinating which is more than I can say for this book. By the way, this is not cosmology as the word is understood in the scientific world. I am a cosmologist and the study described in the book is nothing even closely related.
