Kurgan stelae
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Kurgan stelae (Russian: каменные бабы, "stone babas") are anthropomorphic stone stelae, images cut from stone, installed atop kurgans in the kurgan cemeteries, around kurgans, and in a double line extending from a kurgan. The kurgan stelae arranged in a double line are also called balbal. Kurgan obelisks were likely part of Central Asian and Eastern European (Pontic-Caspian steppe, Scythia) memorials, funeral sanctuaries, from the Eneolithic through to the Middle Ages. Architecturally, they were a system of stone fences, frequently surrounded by a moat, with sacrificial hearths, sometimes tiled on the inside.
Such stelae are found in large numbers in Southern Russia, Ukraine (see Ukrainian stone stela), Galicia, Prussia, South Siberia, Central Asia and Mongolia.
Spanning more than three millennia, they are clearly the product of various cultures; the earliest associated with the Kurgan culture (and, in the Kurgan hypothesis, with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, as opposed by Paleolithic Continuity Theory, which associates Pit Grave and Sredny Stog Kurgan cultures with Turkic peoples, and Anatolian hypothesis which denies Indo-European origin advocated by M. Gimbutas Chalcolithic Invasion Kurgan hypothesis, and also by Black Sea deluge theory), Iron Age specimens with the Scythians, and Medieval examples with Turkic peoples.
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[edit] Historical descriptions
European traveler William of Rubruck mentioned them for the first time in the 13th century, seeing them on kurgans in the Cuman (Kipchak) country, he reported that Cumans installed these statues on tombs of their deceased. These statues are also mentioned in the 17th century "Large Drawing Book", as markers for borders and roads, or orientation points. In the 18th century information about some kurgan stelae was collected by Pallas, Falk, Guldenshtedt, Zuev, Lepekhin, and in first half of the 19th century by Klaprot, Duboa-de-Montpere and Spassky (Siberian obelisks). Count Aleksey Uvarov, in the 1869 ‘‘Works of the 1st Archeological Congress in Moscow” (vol. 2), assembled all available at that time data about kurgan obelisks, and illustrated them with drawings of 44 statues.
Later in the 19th century, data about these statues was gathered by A.I. Kelsiev, and in Siberia, Turkestan and Mongolia by Potanin, Pettsold, Poyarkov, Vasily Radlov, Ivanov, Adrianov and Yadrintsev, in Prussia by Lissauer and Gartman.
[edit] Distribution
The Historical museum in Moscow has 30 specimens (in the halls and in the courtyard); others are in Kharkov, Odessa, Novocherkassk, etc. These are only a small part of examples dispersed in various provinces of Russia, of which multitudes were already destroyed and used as construction material for buildings, fences, etc.
In the 1850s Piskarev, summing all information about kurgan obelisks available in literature, counted 649 items, mostly in Ekaterinoslav province (428), in Taganrog (54), in Crimea province (44), in Kharkov (43), in the Don Army Land (Don Cosssak Land) (37), in Yenisei province, Siberia (12), in Poltava (5), in Stavropol (5), etc.; but many statues remained unknown to him.
The distribution of the stelae is limited in the west by the Odessa district, Podolsk province, Galicia, Kalisz province, Prussia; in the south by Kacha River , Crimea; in the south-east by Kuma River in the Stavropol province and Kuban region; in the north by Minsk province and Oboyan district of the Kursk province (in some opinions even the Ryazan province), Ahtyr district in the Kharkov province, Voronej province, Balash and Atkar districts in the Saratov province to the banks of Samara River in Buzuluk districts in the Samara province, in the east they are spread in the Kirgiz (Kazakh) steppe to the banks of Irtysh River and to Turkestan (near Issyk Kul, Tokmak district), then in upper courses of rivers Tom and Yenisei, in Sagai steppe in Mongolia (according to Potanin and Yadrintseva).
[edit] Aspect
Some kurgan obelisks are found still standing on kurgans, others were found buried in the slopes. Not always can be stated if they were contemporary with the kurgans on which they stand, existed earlier, or were carved later and lifted onto the kurgan. Kurgan obelisks are of sandstone, limestone, granite, etc. Their height is from 3.5 m to 0.7 m, but more often 1.5 - 2 m. Some of them are simple stone columns, with a rough image of a human face, on others the head (with the narrowed neck) is clearly depicted; in most cases not only the head is depicted, but also body, arms, and frequently both legs, and headdress, and dress. On more crude statues is impossible to dissern sex, but mostly it is expressed clearly: men are with moustaches (sometimes with beard, one bearded kurgan obelisk is in the courtyard of the Historical Museum in Moscow), in a costume with metal breast plates and belts, sometimes with a sword, etc.; women are with bared breasts, wearing peculiar headdresses, with girdles or necklaces on the neck, etc.
Other obelisks show completely naked and usually only their head is covered, and legs are shoed. Kurgan statues are sitting (frequently females), and standing (mostly males); in both cases the legs are not depicted. If the legs are depicted, they are either barefoot, or more often shoed, in high or low ) boots ('bashmaks', sometimes are distinguishable trousers with ornaments. Many female kurgan obelisks (and some male) are naked above the belt, but below a belt and dress are visible, sometimes two dresses, one longer underneath, and another on the top, as a semi-'kaftan' or a short furcoat, with appliques and inserts (the ornaments of inserts consist of geometrical lines, double spirals, etc., or even cuirass). Others have stripes on the shoulders, many have two stripes (seldom three, or one wide across), plates (apparently, metal) on the breast attached to a belt or, more often, to two belts. On the belt sometimes is possible to distinguish a buckle in the middle or thongs hanging from it with sometimes attached bag, a round metal pocket mirror, knife, comb, sometimes also is shown (male statues) a dagger or a straight sword, a bow, a ‘kolchan’ (quiver), a hook, an axe. On the neck the men wear a metal band, women wear a necklace of beads or scales, sometimes even 2 or 3 are visible, some have a wide tape or a belt dropping from the necklace, ending with a 4-corner cloth. On the hands, wrists and shoulders (especially for nude figures) are bracelets (rings) and cuffs, in the ears, for women and men, are earrings, on the head (forehead) sometimes is an ornametal bandage or a diadem. The female braids can not always be distinguished from ribbons or bandages, they also are depicted for men. In some cases the male hat undoubtedly represents a small helmet (‘misyurka’), sometimes with crossing metal strips. The female headdress is more diverse, like a hat with curved brims, ‘bashlyk’, Kirgiz (Kazakh) hat, etc.
The type of the face is not always depicted clearly: sometimes the face is flat, as though wigh prominent cheek-bones, but more often it is oval shape and more likely depict Turkic, rather than sharply Mongolian features. The vast majority of women join hands on the navel or at the bottom of the stomach, and hold a vessel, frequently cylindrical, like a cup or a glass. Sometimes it is so blurred that it can be taken for a folded scarf. One male figurine holds a bowl in the left hand, and a sword in the right; and another has hands simply joined together, without a bowl, one female figurine holds a ring, some hold rhyton (drinking horn).
[edit] Dating and attribution
Rubruk attributed kurgan obelisks to Cumans; Klaprot and Spassky - to the Huns; Guldenshtedt - to the Nogais; Pallas attributed the most ancient to the Huns, later to the Nogai Tatars or Kirghiz-Kaisaks; Gentselman - to the Goths; Fligie - to the Alans (attribution of kurgan obelisks to Goths and Alans was suggested because in Spain were also found kurgan statues holding a bowl in hands, but the type of the clothes, the dress of these statues are completely original [1]); Tereshchenko attributed kurgan obelisks to the Scythians; Count Uvarov pointed to testimony that some kurgan obelisks stood on the kurgans that after excavation turned out to be Scythian, with Greek goods of the 4th-3rd centuries BC. In the opinion of Count Uvarov, kurgan obelisks belong to various epochs: some of them were erected prior to the Iron Age, others in the Early Iron Age, the third already in the beginning of the Christian era, for example an obelisk found by Guldenshtedt on the bank of Etaka River, tributary of Kuma River in the Stavropol province had a cross on the neck, probably pointing to the Christian era which in the Caucasus began not earlier then the 4th century AD. The opinion about attribution of the some kurgan obelisks to the epoch preceding the Iron Age is supported by belt knifes, mirrors and so forth which resemble respective goods of the Siberian Eneolithic.
In Mongolia and Turkestan, the kurgan obelisks are generally poorly trimmed and are rude carvings, with barely indicated face or head. Therefore it is plausible that kurgan obelisks were erected beginning in Copper Age by people spread from Central Asia to present European Russia. They were, probably, gravestone monuments, judging by the similar grave statues (only larger and better trimmed) later also erected by Mongols (in the remains of Karakorum are found many, mostly without head or fragmented) and Chinese. Ivanovovsky ("Congres internat. d'Archeologie prehistorique", Moscow, 1892, vol. 1) reported that Tarbagatai Torgouts (Kalmyks) revered kurgan obelisks in their country as images of their ancestors, and that the bowl held by the statues were to deposit of a part of the ashes after the cremation of the deceased (another part was laid under the base of the statue). Still sometimes unil now after cremations, practised between Torgouts, a lama collects ashes into a small copper vessel, and the ash taken to a monastery, where from it, mixed with clay, is moulded a small statue of the deceased, a ‘kosha-chulu’. Torgouts call the kurgan obelisks by this same name, and they have a legend explaining why they switched from erection of kurgan obelisks to clay figurines. Torgouts also have explanations for various details of the dress, weaponry, and ornaments of stone sculptures in their steppes.
[edit] References
Material in this article is taken directly from the Brockhaus-Efron Small Encyclopaedic Dictionary (1890 - 1916) [2], which is in the public domain; parts refer to Imperial Russian geography and should be updated to reflect current states and boundaries.
- Count Aleksey Uvarov, Сведения о К. бабах ("overview of stone babas") in Трудах I Моск. арх. съезда (Proceedings of the 1st Moskow Archaeological Congress) (1869) with 2 tables)
- Hartman, "Becherstatuen in Ostpreussen und die Literatur der Becherstatuen", in ‘‘Archiv fur Anthropologie" (vol. 21, 1892).
- Brockhaus-Efron Small Encyclopaedic Dictionary (1890 - 1916) [3]
