NEW FEATURE: Panoramic views of ancient and prehistoric sites
Submitted by Andy B on Saturday, 08 August 2026 Page Views: 114
Fun
We now have a browsable collection of panoramic photographs of ancient sites, and a viewer that lets you stand in the middle of them. Drag to look around. Pinch or scroll to zoom. The full 360 degree views turn gently on their own when they load, which is your cue that the picture is not a picture at all but a place you can look about in.
You will find them all here:
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/panoramas.php
A few of our favourites to start with
Tap o'Noth, Aberdeenshire. A vitrified fort, meaning its rampart was subjected to heat fierce enough to fuse the stone into glassy lumps, on a hill that commands most of Strathbogie. Photos of hillforts sometimes disappoint, as a rampart at ground level is a grassy bank and nothing more. Turn round inside this one and the argument makes itself.http://www.megalithic.co.uk/panorama.php?panoid=1
Kermario, Carnac. The alignments run away from you in both directions at once, which is precisely the thing a rectangular photograph cannot hold. Stand still and follow the rows with your eyes to where they thin out into the trees.
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/panorama.php?panoid=24
Castlerigg, Cumbria. Everyone photographs the stones. This panorama photographs the ring of fells around them, which is as important in many ways.
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/panorama.php?panoid=46
Cenobio de Valerón, Gran Canaria. Hundreds of small chambers cut into a cliff face, a communal granary of the island's pre-conquest people. Worth it for the sheer improbability of the idea.
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/panorama.php?panoid=42
Pömmelte, Saxony-Anhalt. A ring of timber posts, reconstructed on the excavated plan of an early Bronze Age enclosure, sometimes called the "German Woodhenge". To stand in the middle of a timber circle is a rare thing, almost every one we know of survives only as post-holes.
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/panorama.php?panoid=33
Silbury Hill, Wiltshire. A 270 degree sweep rather than a full circle, taken beside the largest artificial mound in prehistoric Europe. The mound refuses to look as big as it is in an ordinary photograph. Given the whole width of the valley it stops being coy.
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/panorama.php?panoid=38
Grodzisko Grzybowo, Wielkopolska. An early medieval Slavic stronghold with ramparts still standing high enough to shut out the modern world when you are inside them.
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/panorama.php?panoid=28
The British Museum. Not a landscape at all, a reminder that a panorama is simply another way of looking. This was from the party after their amazing World of Stonehenge summer solstice celebration that I was lucky enough to be a part of.
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/panorama.php?panoid=34
Who to thank
The panorama viewer on the Portal was written by Jan Herold, who posts here as Klingon http://www.megalithic.co.uk/user.php?op=userinfo&uname=Klingon , and it is his work that turns a wide photograph into somewhere you can almost stand. He has also contributed more panoramas than anybody else, including Tap o'Noth, Castlerigg, Long Meg and Her Daughters, and the whole Boitiner Steintanz group in Mecklenburg.The viewer itself is built on Pannellum, an open source panorama viewer by Matthew Petroff, released under the MIT licence. We are glad to be able to use it:
pannellum.org
Send us your Panoramas!
Panoramic photographs are the least represented kind of picture on the Portal and some of our older ones are a bit limited in size, so please send more. Try the panorama feature on your phone next time you are at an ancient site.1. Find the site page first. Search for it here:
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/search.php
If there is no page for the site yet, add one, then come back to the photograph.
2. Use Submit an Image on that site page, exactly as you would for an ordinary photograph. There is nothing special to fill in.
3. Size. Panoramas can be up to 8192 pixels across and 17.2 MB, which is a good deal more than an ordinary photograph is allowed. Send the full width if you have it. Detail matters more here than anywhere else on the site, because the viewer is always showing you a zoomed portion of the image rather than the whole thing at once.
4. What works. Anything stitched from a sweep, whether it turns the full circle or covers a quarter of it. As mentioned, your phone's panorama mode is perfectly good. A full 360 that joins back on itself is the best of all. If the software gives you the option, keep turning until you are looking at where you started. Our panorama processor can adjust the stray ends if need be so don't worry too much about that.
Looking forward to seeing some more!
Andy B
We would like to know more about this location. Please feel free to add a brief description and any relevant information in your own language.
Wir möchten mehr über diese Stätte erfahren. Bitte zögern Sie nicht, eine kurze Beschreibung und relevante Informationen in Deutsch hinzuzufügen.
Nous aimerions en savoir encore un peu sur les lieux. S'il vous plaît n'hesitez pas à ajouter une courte description et tous les renseignements pertinents dans votre propre langue.
Quisieramos informarnos un poco más de las lugares. No dude en añadir una breve descripción y otros datos relevantes en su propio idioma.