These pictures are from Calanais, Isle of Lewis part of the
Scottish Hebrides.
Calanais has 12 sites
of Standing Stones and Ruins.
The main
site is known as Calanais and it is a stone circle which contains a small
chambered tomb and has five rows of massive stones emanating out from it--one
for East, South, and West, but two for North, which form an avenue.
It is about 5000 years old and, like the rest
of the standing stones, people can only speculate as to it’s purpose for being
built.
As a New Englander, the Land is
both familiar for it’s pastoral nature but also starkly foreign and melancholic
as it is treeless, rocky, and surrounded by tidal lochs.
Together the Land and the Stones elicited in
me a profound emotional response, the feeling of connection to those ancient
people and, understanding that although they are a mystery, the feeling that
the Stones make sense.
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| Calanais Stones (Site 1), Calanais, Scotland 2011 © Hannah Bemelmans | | |
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| Cnoc Ceann a' Gharraidh (Site 2), Calanais Scotland 2011 © Hannah Bemelmans |
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| Loch, Calanais, Scotland 2011 © Hannah Bemelmans |
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| Loch Water, Calanais, Scotland 2011 © Hannah Bemelmans |
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