Stony Abstracts

Stones - Soil and ground, forming hills, cliffs and rocks - stones are the solid base, and the material for mystic sites, for menhirs, megaliths, pyramids, castles and churches. Stones in different forms and sizes, crystals and gemstones, - their structure, form and colour always have impressed and inspired men and especially artists.Cave carvings, sculptures, columns, buildings, constructions and jewelry bear witness to this.

Also nature has created phantastic forms out of stones: cliffs and caves, rock towers, colourful pigment stone walls, deeply incised valleys, gorges and cannions, reefs, polished boulders and river pebbles.

I found most of the stones photographed in Kyrgistan near the lake Issyk Kul. Above the lake, in the mountains, there is a vast field covered with slip rocks and boulders, some of them showing incised drawings of animals - supposedly of Skythian origin. Other stones are covered by mosses, algae and lichen of incredible colours looking like brocade or velvet, prints of flowers or abstract paintings. Also, hard crystalline structures with sculptural character can be found.

Most likley, the stones and boulders were carried down by glaciers and rivers from the Kungej Alatoe mountains; the majority of them are granite.