Museum complex

Statues – “Deer stones”

Kuban Oblast, Maykop section, Zubov farmstead; Ecaterinodar section, Ust-Labinsk stanitsa
VIII – VII centuries BC
the Pre-Scythian time
Sandstone
Length - 228 cm; 170 cm
From: excavations by N.I. Veselovsky, 1899-1900, 1903; donated by Imperial Archaeological committee (IAC)
Open storage

Stones-obelisks of oval or subrectangular section with bevel-edged upper flat ends, with deepened and relief images of different objects, animals, mostly deers, on the surface. An obelisk is usually divided into three zones horizontally girding it with lines of belt and necklace. Above the necklace a “face” and earrings were depicted. Items of military munitions: a dagger, a chisel, a gorytos with a bow, an axe, a shield, a knife, a mirror, a sharpening stone, a hook, were hanged on the belt at the lower zone. The middle zone was filled with figures of different animals: deers, horses, goats, boars, panthers and others. Symbolically shown deers with elongated beakshaped muzzles and branching horns were depicted more often. The stones kept in the State Historical museum probably were used twice as they have the upper and the lower ending decorated analogously. Images of animals on these stones are put in a circle and their figures are shown strictly in profile with legs and heads low.
Exhibits' purpose of use. Deer stones were put on tops of burial barrows, on places where warriors were buried or some sacrifices took place and were some kind of memorials to the buried.
Uniqueness - “Deer Stones” are found on wide territories from Mongolia (where the most of them were found) to the Caucasus and Germany.

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