INTRODUCTION

In April 1925, two months after James Wishart discovered the Brodgar Stone, the news finally found its way to James Marwick, Provost of Stromness. He rushed round to the farm, but the place where it had been pulled from the field was no longer visible. Propped up against the wall in the barn, he found what he had come for: the large slab with its ‘curious marks’. He requested a print of Peter Leith’s photograph of the Brodgar Stone, and used it to illustrate his report on the find for the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (J.G.