ring of brodgar

Isn't this beautiful!
It's stone/s, maybe tiles, found on the recent excavations at the Ring Of Brodgar on Orkney. They have incised patterns on them, which are particularly noticeable on the stone on the right hand side. A 'butterfly' design, of 2 triangles, attached by their points, can be seen.
My initial response to this photo when I saw it, was to think that it had painterly qualities; texture, colour, form, composition. It's like an abstract painting. Wish I could make paintings with such power.
They also found one of those mysterious carves stone balls in the dig. I've come across many of these carved balls during my visits to Scotland.
The website has a photo of the carved ball, with the following text;
'hardly anyone has ever found a carved stone ball in a modern archaeological context.'
So a very important find indeed! 

You can find out more about the archaeological dig here, which is where I got this photo.


And here's a photo from the twitter feed of the orkneyjar.com website. The carved stone ball, rediscovered after thousands of years hidden away.