Broch of Mousa

The Broch of Moussa is one of the 500 or so brochs in Scotland, that occur most commonly on the Shetland and Orkney Islands, the Hebrides, and Caithness, Sutherland,  and dabs of the West Highland coast. There are some though that stretch all the way in smaller numbers to as far as Galashiels and the borders, though on a much denuded scale compared to their more common northern fellows. Some even wonder if Edinburgh Castle had a broch atop it, as a hillfort. 

The Broch of Moussa is one of the best surviving examples, and here are my arrowpoint facts on it. 

 

> The term is The Broch of Mousa, or Broch of Mousa, and Mousa Broch.

> It was likely built around 100 BC, so before Rome ventured into the British archipelago. 

> It sits on the Shetland Islands, and is the greatest vestige of Proto Pictish heritage if you can use that term, surviving on the isles. Of course Shetland and Orkney, like much of Northern Scotland have that strong Viking heritage but they also have this Pictish heritage which always to some extent carried on in ways on the isles, in some senses. 

> It is termed the broch of Mousa, as it sits upon the so named isle. This means Moss Island in old Norse, which was from the Dark Ages, to the Medieval era the main language here. This Norn Language was spoken as the main language here, but from Scotland's 15th Century acquiring of Orkney and Shetland, by 1703, Lowland Scots English was the main language on both island chains, with the last Native speaker dying in 1850. Before Norn, it was certainly some kind of Pictish language, but it is uncertain if that Celtic language was Gaelic or Brythonic or a mix of both, most say it was more Brythonic, so more Welsh or Cumbric. There is no doubt the Vikings did not toitally replace the people here, and the people were descendents of Vikings and Picts. So they can claim noth heritages even today. 

* If you look at a map of Shetland, its is almost like a island chain shaped like a T or a Y, I say that as well Moussa sits right near the bottom and to the right, and is only 180 hectares in area, so the same as about 180 football pitches, and today unlike the past as of centralising of populations, and depopulation of rural lands in many ways, it is a population of o. This compares to a population of the island chain of 22,900, and land area about 1000 times that of this islet. A islet that Norse felt was 2 isles, as they could transverse the central part by carrying their boat over the land. This of course explains why this broch, survived so well. The smallness of the isle, vis a vis other broch sites, meant there were few people to take away building material, and the relative remoteness, it being 21 miles from Lerwick, which is more in the centre if the chain, so Mousa is on the edge of the islands, which meant it was less so that somebody would come along and take away this prize asset of building material. Cases of great historical structures being destroyed occur from Scotland to North Wales, to Cheshire to the whole world, and most of all, the fact Colosseum was partly a victim of that activity as well. We have to be grateful for what has survived when you see what vandalous behaviour thewre has been in the past, then again, we do need buildimng material so I should not be too hard. 

> It's greatest claim to fame is it is the tallest broch still standing. 

> It reaches 13.3 metres in height. 

> It can be entered into by a doorway on the ground floor. 

> There is a internal staircase, that can or would be used to reach the top. 

> The astonishing level of preservation means there is still a central hearth and floor tank visible today. 

> It sits on 

> It is fifteen metres in diameter, but in a reverse Tardis, that inside space is just 6 metres in diameter. There are chambers maybe used for storage, while at higher levels go run between inner and outer skins of wall. Plus a ledge and higher floor area. 

* Possibly more brochs would have been this notable but the effects of time, and stone robbers would have reduced it over time. 

> When the Vikings arrived they colonised the island chain, as they did to many parts of Britain. They were to use this broch though. There is no doubt there was a lot of colonisation in this chain, some very brutal, as occurred in many lands, but also some carrying on of Pictish people as well (DNA evidence proves this), so it could have been likely Viking Shetlanders, or less likely Vikingised Pictish Shetlandsers. 

> A antiqurian George Low, visited this Scottish equivalent of Dun Aengus, in the 18th Century and Walter Scott later. 

* 19th Century antiquarians found bone, clay pots and stone lids.  By this time the site had lost occupation years before.

> Mousa is told of in the Viking's Orkneyinga Saga as  a for of defence in invasions, plus a place for lovers to hide. 

* The brich of mossa, moss broch, broch and broch, the brooch of Moussa, and the broch of Moussa and the Mossa broch are miss spellings. As is the Brouch of Moussa, 

) If there were  a Guinnes book of Records in 100 BC to Rome's conquest, of  Southern Britain, there is no doubt these brochs would be the tallest inhabiated structures in the British and Isles and much of Europe. Though there were some similar not related sized towers on Sardinia in the Bronze Age, the nuraghe, though they were not related. Sometimes we all have a psuedo archaeologist thought, and I wondered if they are connected but they were centuries and thousands of miles apart, so no connection here. You may wonder if there were some in south Britain, maybe destroyed by stone robbers, but nothing like that has been found, so they were a stunning North Scottish Pictish tradition. 

* In the 19th Century the Scots and English both very politically incorrectly gloried in their tradition of being Dark Ages conquerors, who took their lands. More modern evidence indicates that 19th Century Scottish people were mostly Picts and North Britons, far less so the "Scots" who came over from Ulster after the Romans, not that there was anything bad about being that either. As I am half Scottish, I like that as I can pride in ancient Pictish heritage though, as it is so amazing. Also even the Victorian English were descended more from the Ancient Britons, than the Saxons, which means the English can pride in Celtic heritage as well, even people descended from later groups. So maybe the Shetland and Orkney islands are the same, not just Norse, and their amazing Viking sagas, but also Pictish as well, which is great as they can have more ownership of that Pictish Prehistoric era. Not just see it as a group of buildings of people, their ancestors did mean things to, as they can accept they were as much their ancestors as the Vikings were. Not that I am having a go at the Norse cultural heritage, there, those Viking ships and all that are amazing.

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: There are brochs across the water on the mainland, and there is a debate were these broch dwellers, rivals, or allies. 

: It is a circular dry-stone tower from the Celtic Iron Age. You could say it resembles a cone-shaped industrial type  chimney.

: This broch sits not far from the islet's coastline. A lot of brochs were coastal, indeed on Time Team, Scots broth, I think that was the name a pun on the famous Scottish soup, an the buildings,  they said a broch they found was maybe there partly to look over the coast. In another pun, you can know, that a Viking woman was buried near the broch of Gurness, and had 2 fine broaches, so that was like the broach of Gurness.  Or Broaches of Gurness. That Gurness one was constructed between 500 BC and 200 BC. Apparently most broths, not spelt brofs,  in Orkney had villages around them, but most in the rest of Scotland it seems, were not like that so much. Of the 500 across all Scotland. Gurness used barley, cattle and sheep and shellfish as some food sources. 

Back to Moussa, & In 1774 Mousa still had a population of 74. 

@ Apparently the Aberdeen Lerwick ferry sees the broch, sometimes. 

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* I have never been to the Shetland or Orkney Islands but did live in a Brora as a baby, so have lived in Broch lands. As as well as Caithness the broch lands main, extend into Sutherland. 

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* Brochs were found right up to the northern tips of the Shetland Islands. 

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* I have 2 terrible drawings by myself below. The starter is of Urquhart Castle Hillfort, and the events of Nessie being forced back by Saint Columba, best I can do. 

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* I also have made a not at all professional, drawing of a broch below, by the sea, with some guys coming out of it with swords. Well you could say it is Moussa I mean Mousa,  if you ignore mountains, and a fort like in somewhere else on the Highland county, maybe the West Highlands, if you pay attention to the mountains. 

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