Scotland's set of 6,000-year-old axeheads from the Italian Alps have gone on public display

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

Made out of alpine rock and extracted near prehistoric Turin and Genoa, Scotland's jade axeheads have come out of storage - along with a new sculpture

Scotland’s national collection of Stone Age jade axeheads are rarely seen in public. Farming groups created them in the Italian Alps more than 6,000 years ago, using exquisite skill and transporting them to Scotland from northern France.

Now Tim Pomeroy, an artist and stone carver based on the Isle of Arran, has made Axehead, a new stone sculpture designed to reflect the power, status and purpose of the ceremonial works.

“These axeheads are works of both immense skill and of a highly developed, visual, manual and spiritual sophistication,” he says.

“As an artist, I am inspired by these qualities. I have always been interested in notions of utility, the Sacred, and power and how these properties combine within the contexts of art and ritual.”

They were valued beyond robust functionality. Neolithic people are thought to have linked mountains with the realm of gods, giving the pieces divine powers to protect and heal.

Tellingly, the two found in the Glenjorie Burn area may have been left there when the Dumfries and Galloway site was a loch. Other axeheads across the world have been found in water-covered locations, possibly suggesting that their carriers believed they were returning them to the gods.

• Stone Age Jade from the Alps is at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh until October 30 2016. Visit National Museums Scotland’s blog for more.

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Three prehistoric sites to see in Scotland

Cairnpapple Hill, West Lothian
One of the most important prehistoric monuments on the mainland of Scotland, Cairnpapple was used as a burial and ceremonial site from about 3000 to 1400 BC.

Maeshowe Chambered Cairn, Orkney
The finest megalithic tomb in the British Isles, with a large mound covering a stone-built passage and a large burial chamber with cells in the walls. Of Neolithic date, broken into in Viking times by people who carved extensive runic inscriptions on the walls.

Stones of Stenness Circle and Henge
Standing at a maximum height of six metres (around 19 feet), the sheer scale of the megaliths that make up the Stones o' Stenness make the monument visible for miles around. Located by the south-eastern shore of the Loch o'Stenness, only four of the ring's stones remain. These are considerably larger than those found in the nearby Ring o' Brodgar, approximately a mile to the north-west.

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/archaeology/art557306-national-museums-scotland-jade-axeheads-pomeroy