|
Kurgan stelae (Mongolian: ; Russian: ; Ukrainian: "stone babas"; (キルギス語:балбал) (:bɑlbɑl)) or Balbals ( ''balbal'', most probably from a Turkic word ' meaning "ancestor" or "grandfather"〔O. D. Forostyuk, Луганщина релігійна, Lugansk, Світлиця, 2004.〕 or the Mongolic word "barimal" which means "handmade statue") are anthropomorphic stone stelae, images cut from stone, installed atop, within or around kurgans (i.e. tumuli), in kurgan cemeteries, or in a double line extending from a kurgan. The stelae are also described as "obelisks" or "statue menhirs". Spanning more than three millennia, they are clearly the product of various cultures. The earliest are associated with the Pit Grave culture of the Pontic-Caspian steppe (and therefore with the Proto-Indo-Europeans according to the mainstream Kurgan hypothesis〔David W. Anthony, ''The Horse, The Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World'' (2007).〕). There are Iron Age specimens are identified with the Scythians and medieval examples with Turkic peoples. Such stelae are found in large numbers in Southern Russia, Ukraine, Prussia, southern Siberia, Central Asia and Mongolia. ==Purpose== Anthropomorphic stelae were probably memorials to the honoured dead.〔W.Radloff: "stone obelisk in honour of deceased." Leonid Kyzlasov: "a vertically anchored stone near a memorial structure, symbolizing a killed enemy" (Kyzlasov, 1966, 207, 208) (cited after Shipova E.N., 'Dictionary of Turkisms In Russian', p. 55).〕 They are found in the context of burials and funeral sanctuaries from the Eneolithic through to the Middle Ages. Ivanovovsky reported that Tarbagatai Torgouts (Kalmyks) revered kurgan obelisks in their country as images of their ancestors, and that when a bowl was held by the statue, it was to deposit a part of the ashes after the cremation of the deceased, and another part was laid under the base of the statue.〔Ivanovovsky, ''Congres internationale d'Archeologie prehistorique'', (Moscow, 1892), vol. 1.〕 When used architecturally, stelae could act as a system of stone fences, frequently surrounded by a moat, with sacrificial hearths, sometimes tiled on the inside. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kurgan stelae」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|