Vandals have scarred an ancient settlement with graffiti.
Police in Orkney are looking for those responsible for defacing the neolithic village of Skara Brae above Bay of Skaill on Orkney's west coast.
The culprits may have left an important clue in their daubings. They wrote: "Brian Finlay slept here 13-8-2007" and "scouse celts". Police say that this suggests the damage may have been caused by visitors who spent the night at the 5000-year-old site.
Skara Brae is seen as one of the archaeological treasures of the world, attracting thousands of visitors every year. Radiocarbon dating in the early 1970s showed the settlement was inhabited between 3200 BC and 2200 BC.
On Tuesday, Historic Scotland staff found the graffiti in house one in the settlement.
A spokeswoman said yesterday: "Historic Scotland is both saddened and disappointed that such an act has occurred, as I am sure is the local community. Our visitors have reacted with surprise and sympathy to the damage caused. We have around 650 visitors a day to Skara Brae at this time of year who travel there from all over the world. Skara Brae is a hugely significant site. It is one of Scotland's national treasures and forms part of a World Heritage Site."
A specialist team at Historic Scotland's conservation centre in Edinburgh are looking at the most appropriate method of removing the graffiti at the earliest possible opportunity.
A CID spokesman in Orkney said police were looking for the six occupants of a Silver Hyundai Matrix, registration number LT56 CZJ.
Skara Brae was discovered in a winter storm in 1850. Gale force winds and extremely high tides stripped the grass from the mound known as Skerrabra. This partially revealed the outline of some of the stone buildings.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article