Back after a couple of weeks off! I got a voice message from my friend with whom I did a vision quest in Ecuador in 2023. It was a powerful experience that all started in this temazcal (sweat lodge). 4 days and nights in isolation in the mountains with no food or water changes your perspective on life!

#Temazcal #sweatLodge #visionQuest #busqueda #ritual #ceremony #passage #selfGrowth #personalGrowth #SouthEcuador #Ecuador #Andes #SouthAmerica #mountain #mountains #landscapePhotography #wildEcuador #photography #photo #fotografia #foto #nature #natureza #naturaleza #naturePhotography #pixelfed #travel #landscape

At Barnhouse, the largest structure on the site, Structure 8, has the hallmarks of being a communal structure, and contained evidence that it was in fact a sweat Lodge.
The clearest identification for this can be found in the entrance passage, in which can be found a fire hearth external to the building. The excavation plan indicates clearly that not only was there an external hearth, but that there was a lobby from which that fire could be supplied and serviced, and that there were two entrances into that lobby, from either side of the hearth.
Further evidence for the use of the structure as a sweat Lodge is found in the group of stones found in a pit very close to the entrance through from the entrance lobby. These I suggest were the heated rocks in the pit where they were placed to be sprinkled with water to raise the steam for the sweat Lodge ceremony.
A complete Grooved Ware pot set into the ground against the North East interior wall of the structure contained the water for the stones, and a small pottery vessel, found in the drain that runs out of the room would have been used to carry the water from the Grooved ware pot to the heated rocks.
The structure is pyramid shaped.  Long timbers rest on an outer row of stones, and are supported on a king post in the centre of room within. Participants in the sweat lodge ceremony sat on a low wall around the room, and two operatives sat with their backs against the central king post. One of these people tended the external fire and supplied the hot stones into the pit where they were wetted, and the other used the pinch pot to label water from the Grooved Ware vessel to the Stones.
A wall surrounding structure 8 protected participants before and after the ceremony proper, but also protected the fire from the ever-present wind
Barnhouse was abandoned at around 3000BC,  and all the structures there remained unmolested, to fall into disuse.
#Barnhouse #Neolithic #archaeology #sweatlodge #prehistory #Orkney