A couple more images to illustrate my earlier post....

Hope these help to illustrate the church apse...

As regular readers will be aware I often visit churches, abbeys and the like; I find the places fascinating on so many levels.

No matter how many different churches I visit, I continue to be surprised by the things I see.

This is decoration from the apse of a medieval church.

I can't remember ever seeing decoration quite like this in a church before... within each square is what appears to be scorpion. I'm not aware of scorpions having any religious significance...

Look closely and you'll note the artist seems to have made an error.

We know a scorpion has eight legs (they are members of the arachnoid family) and a pair of forward pointing pincers. Those represented here have ten legs... perhaps the artist had never seen a scorpion and was working from an inaccurate description?

Whatever the truth I'd love to know the history behind this decoration, wouldn't you?

Click the images for larger views.

Somehow Shakespeare's famous words seem apt, though the context isn't of course; these three could hardly be described as crones after all.

Is the figure on the left is whispering to her sister, while the girl on the right looks on?

Or are we witnessing lesbian love?

The figure on the right is cupping her sister's breast and gazing adoringly, while the girl on the left kisses here sister's eye. The figure in the centre holds both her sisters in a loving embrace...

They could be The Fates, The Muses or even Faith, Hope & Charity... it really matters not because whoever they are and whatever they are doing, the beauty of this piece is outstanding. How wonderful it must be to work marble into such beautiful shapes.