A very striking feature of the culture of the Polovtsian tribes are the so-called “stone babas”. These statues were erected on ancient mounds, hills, or elevations. They depicted both men and women. Some of the statues are remarkable examples of stone sculpture, capturing not only the human figure but also details of clothing, adornments, hairstyles, and facial features. It is believed that these statues reflected the cult of ancestors, heroic predecessors. A statue could depict a warrior in a helmet (as seen in our statue) or a noble woman holding a vessel at her abdomen.
It is known that sacrifices were made by nomads before these statues. The great medieval poet Nizami, whose wife was a Polovtsian, left us an interesting poetic description of this ritual: “…And the Kipchak tribes come here, and the Kipchak’s back bends before the idol… every shepherd driving the flock knows that a sheep must be left before the idol”.
The stone statue was found near the village of Kremenskaya in the Kletsky District of the Volgograd Region by an expedition led by V.P. Shilov in 1960. Several statues were found in the mound. The presented statue is the best preserved.
