TAP Field Report No. 5 A survey of Shetland's gallow hills Joris ...

TAP Field Report No. 5direct surroundings, since this may indicateif the sites were potentially meant to be seenfrom afar and may hence have a more symboliccharacter, or if they would have been effectivelocations to impress the local passers-by.Although we do not know what the gallowsin Shetland may have looked like, they areunlikely to have been monumental enoughto be clearly discernible from more than 3kmdistance. Hence, the total visible area andthe visible land and sea surface within a radiusof 3km were calculated for each site (Fig.41). This corresponds to a maximum area of28.3km². It must be stressed that the inaccuracyof the viewshed caused by the resolutionof the DTM plays a larger role at this scale.The total visible area within 3km from eachsite varies from 17.3 to 6.6km². The largestarea can be seen from Muckle Heog in Unst,while the Gallow Hill of Brae has the mostlimited view of the surrounding area. Again,Scalloway is at the bottom of the list, directlyafter Brae, the visible area covering 6.9km².The viewshed analysis within a limitedcircle gives a clearer impression of the importanceof the visibility from the sea. The visiblesea surface (including inlets) in the directsurroundings varies greatly. From the GallowHill of Tingwall, the sea cannot be spottedwithin a radius of 3km at all. On the opposite,the sea represents 70 % of the area visiblewithin this circle from the Knowe of Wilga.Putting it the other way round, there are onlyfour sites, which are more widely visible fromthe sea in the direct surroundings than fromland. These are the Knowe o Wilga, the GallowHills of Fetlar and Unst and the Watch Hill inNorthmavine.Summarising the above results, we can concludethat the gallows sites were potentiallyhighly visible indeed (taking into account thatwe do not know the exact spot of any of the gallows,except perhaps those of Fetlar, and thatthe above results are a best-case scenario).More importantly, most locations seem not tohave been chosen to be primarily visible forthe advancing sailors, but rather seem to forma compromise: while being visible from afar Figure 40 Diagram of the total land and seaarea visible from the discussed sites. The doubtfuland poorly localised sites in Mid-Yell andWhalsay are not included in the diagram. Figure 41 Diagram of the total visible landand sea area within a radius of 3km fromthe discussed sites. The doubtful and poorlylocalised site in Mid-Yell is not included in thediagram.26