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Click on carvings above for enlargements.
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This face of Long Meg seems to be the
only one to bear decoration, and this surface is the source of much
confusion.
Firstly there is the notion that the decorated surface does not face the
circle, this is not true, in fact this is the only surface wholly visible from
much of the circle interior. What is true is that this face is not
aligned exactly at right angles to the circle centre, it is about 20
degrees off. Meg is about 20m from the circle, which is about 100m in
diameter, so this surface has to face the circle, it is not even
tangential to any of the circle circumference.
Then there is the rock art itself. Meg has quite extensive decoration as
can be seen in our photo on the left. Some of the decoration is obvious,
but when we compared published drawings of the rock art with actual
viewing of the surface, we just could not see a large amount of the
claimed detail. Bear in mind that we used low angle illumination from
all directions to view the carvings, not just daylight. The carved face is
very weathered in some areas and it is very easy to imagine circular
features in this "noise", it's a bit like making shapes out of
clouds. You can try this for yourself by viewing our detail photos of
sections of the carved face. Perhaps if more use was made of photography
to record rock art instead of necessarily subjective drawing, there
would be a much better correspondence between the record and reality.
The rock art cannot be conclusively dated, and it has been
suggested that the stone may have been decorated in its original
location before quarrying, or immediately afterwards when lying
horizontal. We felt that the fact that there is no decoration on what is
presently the upper section of the stone argues against both of these
ideas.
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