Each day in December the setting sun moves incrementally across a narrow South Westerly doorway in the cairn in Maeshowe in Orkney. The doorway leads down an 11 metre (36 feet) long narrow passage, which opens to the large inner chamber (4.6 m/15 ft, pictured above) which it is believed was the burial chamber.

On the Winter Solstice, around the 21st/22nd, the sun drops to the point where it shines directly down the passageway, lighting up the back wall of the cairn and flooding the inner chamber with soft light.

They went on line today for this year.

Maeshowe and the Winter Solstice