Kezer-tash: a stone thread that connects eras (8 photos)

At the burial place of the deceased relatives, people from ancient times erected memorial structures - steles, mounds, later - obelisks, crosses, monuments, monuments.





If the deceased was a great warrior or a wise ruler, then the tribute memory was made especially luxurious. Every nation and every ethnic group different eras had their own unique ways to preserve the memory of departed. The Egyptians, for example, are pyramids. And the peoples of Asia poured mounds and erected stone statues, which today are called stone women.



The inhabitants of Altai call such sculptures Kezer-tash. Stone giants of this territory survived wars, cataclysms, natural disasters and careless attitude on the part of people.





Outwardly, such statues look like sketchy people, only huge. But some look much more realistic than others. At stone statues expressed facial features, clothes, weapons, jewelry.



On the best-preserved idols, even belts with set plaques. Their number and material (metal) during life determined the status of a person in society. You can distinguish slanting eyes, corners of the lips, down, pointed beard. The Turks tried to provide the maximum similarity of the statue with the deceased, believing that in this way can provide the soul with eternal life.



A large number of stone sculptures in the Altai Mountains testifies to their mass production. For the basis, they often took boulders, which nature itself has prepared, running in and giving a suitable shape - the shape of the human body.



People only corrected the errors, trimmed, polished, carved the facial features of the deceased.



Stone sculptures of the Altai Mountains can tell a lot about life, life and culture of long-gone tribes. "Stone" ancestors for a long time stood in secluded corners, hidden from prying eyes. But only relatively recently they began to find and carefully study.



Why are these stone sculptures preserved for so long? Kezer-tash - it is memory. Memory in stone and a thread between eras and generations. Which helps people remember who they are, and that such a thread cannot be broken. For a people without a past has no future.