Talk:Kurgan stelae

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[edit] Merging this article with "Ukrainian stone stela"

Article addresses kurgan obelisks located only in a part of the geographical zone where kurgan obelisks are found, which is from Germany to Mongolia. Merging this article with "Ukrainian stone stela" would far exceed the scope of the "Ukrainian stone stela". Barefact 04:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

  • I strongly agree. "Kurgan Obelisks" article is certainly general. E104421 10:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • yes, the Ukrainian article should possibly be merged here. dab (𒁳) 10:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Merging Ukrainian article into "Kurgan Obelisks" makes more sense, but would not this offend Ukrainians? I mean, can't these articles coexist, and maybe also be complemented by eventual Central Asian Obelisks article? The Ukrainian article is not really limited to the present political borders, but includes Galicia, Dobrudja, Moldova, Hungary etc in the west, and Russian N.Pontic and part of Kazakhstan in the west, these nomadic cultures transcended the present political borders. Barefact 01:25, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kypchaks

Actually, we have an image illustrating these artifacts at Kypchaks.
Actually, we have an image illustrating these artifacts at Kypchaks.

The title of the article is misleading. In particular, the photograph seems to represent a Kypchak stela, similar to the ones I have seen in the special museum in Dnepropetrovsk. For details, see Svetlana Pletneva's Polovtsy (1990). --Ghirla -трёп- 13:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I repeat my request to provide evidence that these artifacts are specifically associated with kurgans. From what I have heard, many have been found in level steppe.
Furthermore, it would be nice to see references to modern scholars who connect them with nomadic civilizations other than the Kipchaks.
The article needs some pretty obvious copyediting: "Balash" -> Balashov, "Ahtyr" -> Akhtyrka, "Voronej" -> Voronezh, etc, etc. --Ghirla -трёп- 23:36, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] For the editor who removed the term "menhir"

Reference to menhirs was taken from the encyclopedic articles http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/058/201.htm (it has a link to "menhir" article), which lists Siberian kurgan obelisks as menhirs, and http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/075/446.htm , which lists Siberian and Caucasian kurgan obelisks as menhirs. Kurgan obelisks are frequently called menhirs interchangeably with other terms in the literature. Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen also called them "eidola" (The World Of The Huns, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1973). S.Pletneva pointedly does not use the vulgar and unenlightened Russian folk term "Stone Babas" Barefact 18:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kurgans and Proto-Indo-Europeans

I have moved the phrase "Spanning more than three millennia, they are clearly the product of various cultures. The earliest are associated with the Kurgan culture and therefore in the Kurgan hypothesis with the Proto-Indo-Europeans." to the discussion page to discuss the controvercial subject. While the part "of various cultures" is true depending on the definition of the "cultures", the association with Indo-Europeans is highly controversial and rests on a mostly discarded hypothesis, reflecting the particular ideas of the by-gone eras. None of the known Indo-Europeans used kurgans as their common funerary monuments, and their use by the ruling elite only underlines the fact that they used a prestigious foreign ritual to accentuate their difference from their own people. Barefact (talk) 11:58, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "...found in large numbers in Prussia"

I sense a need for a chronological addendum to clarify in what present-day country the stelae can be seen. The Prussian State was dissolved in February, 1947 by Law #46 of the Allied Control Council. Musicwriter (talk) 03:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)