Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards

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Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards: A Unique Cultural Legacy in Southeastern Europe

The Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016, constitute a remarkable cultural legacy in southeastern Europe. Spanning across Bosnia and Herzegovina, western Serbia, western Montenegro, and central and southern Croatia, this serial property encompasses 28 sites, each featuring regionally distinctive medieval tombstones, or stećci.

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UNESCO Description of the World Heritage Site

This serial property combines 28 sites, located in Bosnia and Herzegovina, western Serbia, western Montenegro and central and southern Croatia, representing these cemeteries and regionally distinctive medieval tombstones, or stećci. The cemeteries, which date from the 12th to 16th centuries CE, are laid out in rows, as was the common custom in Europe from the Middle Ages. The stećci are mostly carved from limestone. They feature a wide range of decorative motifs and inscriptions that represent iconographic continuities within medieval Europe as well as locally distinctive traditions.

UNESCO Justification of the World Heritage Site

Criterion (iii): A remarkable number of stećci, of diversified form, are found in this part of southeast Europe, conveying an exceptional testimony to medieval European artistic and archaeological heritage, with traces of earlier influences (prehistoric, roman and early medieval). The extremely large number of preserved stećci (estimated to be more than 70,000) and variety of their forms (slabs, chests, gabled roof tombstones, pillars and monumental crosses) are well represented. Their reliefs, including decorative, symbolic, and religious motives as well as scenes from everyday life, are an extraordinary testimony of medieval culture. Inscriptions in the selected graveyards offer an exceptional historical resource, and are associated with the cultures and histories of the medieval states in this region.

Criterion (vi): The stećci have been deeply embedded in historical and continual cultural traditions and beliefs and toponyms demonstrate the historical meanings and significance of the stećci. The stećci are associated with local folk and fairy tales, superstitions and customs; and their epigraphy and reliefs have significantly influenced the contemporary literature and other forms of art in all four countries, but also wider in the region.

Encyclopedia Record: Stećak

Stećak is the name for monumental medieval tombstones that lie scattered across Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the border parts of Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia. An estimated 60,000 are found within the borders of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina and the rest of 10,000 are found in what are today Croatia (4,400), Montenegro (3,500), and Serbia (2,100), at more than 3,300 odd sites with over 90% in poor condition. They are cut in a variety of recognizable stećak forms, with a certain percentage being richly decorated and some individual stećci also containing inscriptions in form of epitaphs.

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