My trip to the past
One day I woke up and got out of my bed getting ready for school. I got up brushed my teeth, had
breakfast and practiced my clarinet. I text tom to meet me at the broche of gurness for the
revealing of a new found bone. I put the radio on and an archaeologist was talking about an open
day at the Broche of Gurness, for anyone that wanted to come along and have a go at digging in
an archaeological site. I thought it sounded fun so I phoned tom again and asked him if he still
wanted to go and he said he would love to. We agreed to meet at the entrance to the Broche at
about one o’clock. After lunch I made my way to the Broche and when I got there tom was
waiting by the entrance, ready for me to go in with him. When we went in there were about five
people in there already listening to the archaeologist talking about what we might find? He
showed us the bone that was mentioned on the radio that was just found and things like arrow
heads and stone toys that would have been used during the Bronze Age.
After the talk on the Broche we were taken around the area to have a look at the buildings. The
Pictish shamrock house was where the bone was found. The archaeologist believe there to be
artefacts nearby in the Broche and decided to give young people a chance to take part in an
archaeological dig at an important site in Orkney.
All of the people at the site were excited and interested about the site and if letting kids try
digging at the site would find anything new and undiscovered at the site. After the tour of
Gurness we were told how to use the tools and where to use them. Afterwards we were to taken to
the place where we would be digging and were given each a spot to start work on, Toms was
write next to mine so we decided to show each other anything we found. Having found nothing
yet we were told by the archaeologist that we should now use a special tool he had just given us
for digging deeper. I started using this new tool and after about fifteen minutes of digging a
smooth material was shown to us and we were told to look for this special piece of material
because it was very rare and precious for studying. The expert said that now we have started to
dig deeper we will be getting nearer the depth that it is usually found at.
We kept digging and as I was brushing some dirt away I thought I saw this piece of material so I
kept brushing around it and eventually I could see the whole shape. The shape of the object was
shaped like a ball with bumps around it I reached for the ball and suddenly I felt dizzy and fell
unconscious.
After about three minutes I woke in a very enclosed place between two walls. The walls and
storage in-between the walls seemed familiar to me and only after about five minutes I suddenly
realised that I was between the walls of the brough of gurness. I must have time travelled, but
how. Was it by touching the object I found or was I just dreaming. I saw that there were lots of
things and household items here. I then decided that I must be back in the past and not dreaming.
I quickly grabbed one of the shirts and trousers and put them on to try and blend in. I made my
way out and was trying not to draw attention but within ten seconds somebody was pulling me
over to a quern stone and assumed that I would start to work so to blend in I started to work and
would try to get away later.
After about five minutes of grinding I made my way out hoping no one would see me. I ran out of
the brough thinking no-one had seen me. When I got out I ran as far away as possible eventually I
got away and realised that the landscape of Orkney was so changed. I rested for a while. I made
my way down to the shore and sat there thinking of ways to get back to the 21st century and
wonder how I got here. I could remember finding the spiky ball in the sand and reaching out for
the spiky ball and after that I think I fell unconscious and seeing a bright light, After that all I
remember is seeing a bright light then waking up between the walls of the Broche. Although I had
Bronze Age clothes on I still had 21st century shoes on but I didn’t plan to meet any one. Out of
nowhere I saw a family coming with a fishing rod and basket. I thought I would approach them
and see if they understood me. As I walked up they seemed to notice my shoes because they were
obvious and stood out compared to the rest of my clothes and seemed very confused. I walked
closer they, started to back away; I stopped and took my shoe of as I could see it was confusing
them and passed it to them. They started to look at my shoe in a very odd way. They came
towards me and grabbed my arm, I wasn’t sure about what they were going to do, the pulled my
arm and pointed back to there house. I started walking back to there house, we went inside and
the family shouted to everyone to look. They all looked at me and after a few moments the pulled
me forward and gave me a drink of water. They started talking to each other and eventually
finished there conversation.
I looked around the room and one object caught my eye. It was the object that I found at the dig, I
went over to the object and suddenly they were all shouting and pointing spears at me. It was
obvious that it was a very sacred object and highly praised. Due to the panic caused by me nearly
touching the object I walked away from it and saw that there were fishing poles against the wall. I
walked over to the fishing poles and picked the up. The family members looked at me and took
me outside, they pointed to the shore and then to the poles. I started to understand that if I
contributed to the family I could touch the sacred object to possibly take me home.
I walked down to the shore and started to fish and the other family members started as well. It
had been two hours and I had caught a reasonable amount of fish and the other family members
seemed to agree. As I walked back up to the house I wondered if touching the stone would take
me back home, it was worth a try I thought. We got up to the house and I walked towards the
stone and reached my hand out. Suddenly my fingers made contact with the stone and a flash of
bright light appeared…...
The next thing I knew I was laying on the ground with tom looking down on me asking if I was
alright. Tom passed me a glass of water. I sat up and looked down on my digging spot and saw
the object which had taken me through time. I stared at it for a minute and quickly covered it back
up for someone else to discover. I looked over to tom and asked how long I was unconscious for
and he said about five minutes. The archaeologist announced that the dig was over and hoped that
we enjoyed our time at the Broche of Gurness. After we had all finished Tom asked me if I had
found anything but I said no. I then asked Tom if he had found anything and Tom had found a
piece if pottery and some piece if a quernstone.
By Kristopher