The lower left part of the outer face of Stone 3 contains the carvings of three axe heads. These can be seen with the naked eye when close to the stone, and were easily picked up by the scanner.
This image is a raw display of the triangulated point cloud (the points collected by the scanner).
Detail of the axes.
Many will remain faint and hard to see until further work is done.
Looking along the scanned area from the left.
The 'modern' graffiti reads: "H Bridger 1866..".
The scanned area of Stone 4
Looking along the scanned area from the right. Note the axe heads in the foreground.
The section between the dashed line on the image to the left indicates the scanned area of Stone 53. The carvings marked in orange represent those recorded by Newall in his 1953-4 survey.
The carvings marked in blue are the first discovered from our research, using a Minolta VI-900 laser scanner. The data was processed using Demon, a dedicated piece of software developed by Archaeoptics.
Stone 53 - the laser scan
This is a surfaced model of the data collected from Stone 53. The famous dagger and axe are clearly visible in the centre of the scan, and many of the other carvings shown on the plan are visible.
It is tinted to provide a clearer image. Click on the scan to view an enlargement.
Stone 53: The "New" carvings
An animation of the scanned area of Stone 53 was created. This consisted of a stationary model of the surface encircled by a light at an angle of about 30 degrees. The light rotates a full 360 degrees, thus highlighting every feature on the surface of the stone in stages.
The animation revealed some axe-like shapes in the area where there are no known carvings, according to previous studies. Attention was shifted to this area, and over the period of a few months, the images of two axes were extracted. The image below shows them both with interpretations of their shape.
