Axehead carvings Stone 53, Stonehenge

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Richard Atkinson first spotted the Bronze Age axehead carvings on Stone 53 at Stonehenge back in 1953. Between 2002 and 2003, a groundbreaking project used a cutting-edge technology to scan three carved sarsen stones, including Stone 53, in high detail. Wessex Archaeology teamed up with Archaeoptics Ltd of Glasgow to take advantage of the Minolta VI-900 scanner's capabilities. The stone surfaces were meticulously scanned at a sub-millimetre resolution, and detailed meshes were created from the resulting point cloud data. The mesh of Stone 53 showcased here uncovered previously unseen details of the carvings at that time. For optimal viewing, switch to Matcap rendering mode.