Fascinating. As a complete amateur, it does seem to me that the impetus for such labours must have been largely or substantially religious. But I'm also (painfully) aware of the dangers of imposing our own ideas on the past.
I think some kind of conquest might have accord. Force population displacements, just like in the Hittite and Babylonian Empires. It would explain why Orkney was thriving while the rest of Britain was in decline, if populations were being force up north.
Through a glass darkly. The past of our islands keeps astonishing... and we will never, can never perhaps, know most of the answers.
Fascinating. As a complete amateur, it does seem to me that the impetus for such labours must have been largely or substantially religious. But I'm also (painfully) aware of the dangers of imposing our own ideas on the past.
I think some kind of conquest might have accord. Force population displacements, just like in the Hittite and Babylonian Empires. It would explain why Orkney was thriving while the rest of Britain was in decline, if populations were being force up north.