Qualla: Tomb of the Eagles https://qualla.com/tomb-of-the-eagles en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:25 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/y/tomb-of-the-eagles-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Tomb of the Eagles https://qualla.com/tomb-of-the-eagles Tomb of the Eagles: Introduction https://qualla.com/tomb-of-the-eagles/ Photo credit Elliott Simpson, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1958, a South Ronaldsay farmer named Ronald Simison was digging up flagstones for a field wall on a piece of clifftop pasture he owned at Isbister. He hit a slab that did not want to come up. When he eventually levered it free he found himself looking down into a Neolithic chambered tomb that had been sealed for the better part of five thousand years. Inside lay human bones - many human bones - and mixed among them, the talons and skulls of white-tailed sea eagles. Simison took out a few bones and a few skulls, looked at what he had, and decided the rest could stay where it was. He filled the entrance back in and waited eighteen years for the experts to take an interest.

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Image: Elliott Simpson | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/y/tomb-of-the-eagles-wp/gfmy-tomb-of-the-eagles-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Tomb of the Eagles: Sixteen Thousand Bones https://qualla.com/tomb-of-the-eagles/ Photo credit Andrew Riley, CC BY-SA 2.0. The full excavation finally started in 1976 and pulled an extraordinary collection of material from the tomb. By the time it was written up in a 2002 review, the count stood at sixteen thousand individual human bones from at least 324 separate people. No intact skeletons - the bo...

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Image: Andrew Riley | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/y/tomb-of-the-eagles-wp/gfmy-tomb-of-the-eagles-sixteen-thousand-bones.mp3 0:06 2 full Tomb of the Eagles: Not Quite What We Thought https://qualla.com/tomb-of-the-eagles/ Photo credit Shirley Grant, CC BY-SA 2.0. The original interpretation was elegant: the eagle was a totem animal for the community that built and used the tomb, and the birds were buried with the dead as a sacred deposit. New dating techniques eventually challenged that reading. When the eagle bones themselves were dated,...

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Image: Shirley Grant | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/y/tomb-of-the-eagles-wp/gfmy-tomb-of-the-eagles-not-quite-what-we-thought.mp3 0:06 3 full Tomb of the Eagles: Building the Stone Room https://qualla.com/tomb-of-the-eagles/ Photo credit Otter, CC BY-SA 3.0. The tomb itself sits right on the cliff edge above the eastern shore of South Ronaldsay, a position that would have been chosen carefully. It is a chambered cairn of the Orkney type - a low rectangular mound of stones covering an interior of slab-built compartments accessed by a ...

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Image: Otter | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/y/tomb-of-the-eagles-wp/gfmy-tomb-of-the-eagles-building-the-stone-room.mp3 0:06 4 full Tomb of the Eagles: Closed, Reopened, Closed https://qualla.com/tomb-of-the-eagles/ Photo credit Alan Reid, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Simison family ran the tomb as a small private museum from the 1970s onwards. Visitors crawled in along the passageway, sometimes pulled on a trolley, and emerged into the chamber where they could examine the reconstructed setting. The site closed to the public in 2020. In Ju...

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Image: Alan Reid | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/y/tomb-of-the-eagles-wp/gfmy-tomb-of-the-eagles-closed-reopened-closed.mp3 0:06 5 full