Laser scanners are being employed on Orkney to 3D-scan some of the islands historical landmarks.

The Heart of Neolithic Orkney is made up of the tomb of Maeshowe, the Stones of Stenness, the Barnhouse Stone, the Watch Stone, the Ring of Brodgar and Skara Brae.

The recording process will involve a laser being fired millions of times a second at each of the monuments.

The end result will be a precise record of the sites, accurate down to just millimetres.

The data will be used to assess the physical condition of the structures and provide a foundation for future conservation, site management and aid archaeological understanding.

Project leader Dr Lyn Wilson said: “Though we have already scanned New Lanark, the scale and nature of the monuments will be an entirely different challenge.

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The mystery surrounding the ancient Pictish language is deepening as linguits examine the Pict stones in Scotland.

They used a mathematical method to quantify patterns contained within the symbols, in an effort to find out if they conveyed meaning.

Professor Lee described the basis of this method.

“If I told you the first letter of a word in English was ‘Q’ and asked you to predict the next letter, you would probably say ‘U’ and you would probably be right,” he explained.

“But if I told you the first letter was ‘T’ you would probably take many more guesses to get it right – that’s a measure of uncertainty.”

Using the symbols, or characters, from the stones, Prof Lee and his colleagues measured this feature of so-called “character to character uncertainty”.

They concluded that the Pictish carvings were “symbolic markings that communicated information” – that these were words rather than pictures.

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Stones painted during the Neolithic period have been found on the Orkney Islands in Scotland.

The latest discovery, made late yesterday afternoon, is a stone with a zigzag chevron pattern in red pigment.

It is thought the painted and decorated stones may have been used to enhance important buildings and may have been found in entranceways or areas of the building which had particular significance.

Nick Card, of the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology (Orca), said: “I think the Neolithic people were no different from ourselves in that these were probably special structures which they felt should be adorned in different colours.

“There has been evidence at some other Neolithic sites where paint pots have been found with remains of pigment but they were considered to be for personal adornment rather than being used on a wider scale for the decoration of buildings.

“This is a first for the UK, if not for northern Europe.

“The use of colour in this particular way was always suspected but this is the first concrete evidence we have of it.”

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A second Venus figurine has been found at Orkney in Scotland, at the same site where a 5,000-year-old Venus was found last summer.

The Orkney Venus, a 5,000-year-old female carving which was found last summer, was just 4cm tall and composed of sandstone.

The new find is the same size and shape as the original Venus but is made of clay and is missing its head.

The older Venus is one of three finds which have been shortlisted for Best Discovery at the 2010 British Archaeological Awards.

Both pieces were found at a Historic Scotland dig at the Links of Noltland on the island of Westray.

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Archaeologists in Scotland are hunting for a lost monastery referenced in the margins of the old-surviving manuscript in the country which dates back to the 10th century.

The book contains seven handwritten passages of Gaelic text, written in the margins.

These describe – among other things – how a monastery was founded by St Columba and St Drostan at Deer, near Mintlaw.

It has never been established exactly how big the building was, how long it survived or how many monks lived there.

Archaeologists from Glasgow University were yesterday drafted in by the friends of the Book of Deer group to try to trace any remains of the building.

Their meticulous search, which has so far failed to yield any clues, is taking place inside the old church at Old Deer and in the church graveyard.

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