Bosnian Medieval Tombstones Stećci September 7, 2014 in Culture and History, Travel and Tourism. Stećci (singular: Stećak), are monumental medieval tombstones that lie scattered across the landscape of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are the country’s most legendary symbol. These are the tombstones of those who lived between the 11th and 15th centuries and refused to swear allegiance to any kingdom but their own or to be swayed by any influence. Instead they stayed true to themselves and to what they could find only within themselves and in Bosnia. Their most remarkable feature is their decorative motifs, many of which remain enigmatic to this day. These motifs depict knights in armor, hunters hunting, farmers in the fields, warriors competing in tournaments, rearing horses, dancers, ladies in dresses, flowers, wolves, bears, wild boars and dogs. Among favored ornaments were the crescent moon, stars, cross and swastika. The images celebrate life, joy, physical strength, and merriment. Questioning of death and oblivion appears in some of the inscriptions but is absent in the carved images. They are around 80 primary and 320 secondary motifs found on about 7 500 Stećci. These stone slabs are sometimes as heavy as 30,000 kilograms and vary in shape. Sometimes they take the shape of a roofed sarcophagus, sometimes of a high pillar, an ordinary flat slab, a chest in the shape of a elongated cube with flat surfaces, or simply an irregular roughly hewn monolith. On average they are two meters long and one meter wide. The slates are between 30 and 50 centimeters high and the sarcophagi and tombs are approximately 1.5 meters in height. The height of the pillars ranges from two to three meters. Stećci are gruped in what is known as Nekropola which is a graveyard, and almost all of the Nekropola (graveyards) are located on hills overlooking the surrounding country-side where those who truly loved this country with their hearts and souls trace their roots.Today there are about 69 356 known Stećci in existence found at 3162 locations, among all recorded Stećci, relief motifs were found on fewer than 6,000 and the inscriptions on fewer than 400. Most of the Stećci are located with in the borders of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina, however they can also be found in the places where people of Bosnia an Herzegovina settled or with in the borders where Kingdom of Bosnia extended to. To put this in to perspective the number of Stećci found in Bosnia and Herzegovina is 59 593 or 85.92%, followed by parts of Croatia mainly in Dalmatia 4 447 or 6.41%, Montenegro 3 049 or 4.4% and Serbia 2 267 or 3.27%.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 21:47:31 +0000
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