Stele facts for kids
A stele is a stone or wooden slab, mostly taller than it is wide, that is erected for commemorative purposes. Mostly it is decorated with the names and titles of the person that shall remind of. This is inscribed, carved in relief or painted onto the slab.
History and function
Stelae were also used as territorial markers, as the boundary stelae of Akhenaten at Amarna, or to commemorate military victories. They were widely used in the Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt, Ethiopia, and, quite independently, in China and some Buddhist cultures, and, more surely independently, by Mesoamerican civilisations, especially the Olmec and Maya. The huge number of stelae that survive from ancient Egypt and in Central America are one of the largest and most significant sources of information on those civilisations.
Unfinished standing stones, set up without inscriptions from Libya in North Africa to Scotland were monuments of pre-literate Megalithic cultures in the Late Stone Age.
An obelisk is a specialized kind of stele. The Celtic high crosses of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales are specialized stelae. Likewise, the totem pole of North and South America is a type of stelae. Gravestones are also kinds of stelae.
In 2004 the architect Peter Eisenman created a field of some 2,700 blank stelae, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin to memory of the Holocaust.
Notable individual stelae
Related pages
Images for kids
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Stele to the French 8th Infantry Regiment. One of more than half a dozen steles located on the Waterloo battlefield.
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The funerary stele of Thrasea and Euandria, c. 365 BC
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Stela of Iddi-Sin, King of Simurrum. It dates back to the Old Babylonian Period. From Qarachatan Village, Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan. The Sulaymaniyah Museum, Iraq.
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Egyptian hieroglyphs on an Egyptian funerary stela in Manchester Museum
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Stele of Arniadas at the Archaeological Museum of Corfu
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A bixi-born Yan Temple Renovation Stele dated Year 9 of Zhizheng era in Yuan Dynasty (AD 1349), in Qufu, Shandong, China
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Chinese ink rubbings of the 1489 (left) and 1512 (right) steles left by the Kaifeng Jews.
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Ogham stone in Ratass Church, Ireland
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A sword symbol on a stele at Tiya
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A victory stele of Naram-Sin, a 23rd-century BC Mesopotamian king.
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Princess Nefertiabet's funerary slab stele (c. 2575 BC) from Egypt's 4th dynasty
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Egyptian grave stela of Nehemes-Ra-tawy, c. 760–656 BC
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Stele #25 (c. 2500 BC) from the Petit Chasseur in Sion, Switzerland
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A neolithic Sardinian menhir (c. 2500 BC) recovered at Laconi and assigned to the Abealzu-Filigosa culture
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The lunette of the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1750 BC), depicting the king receiving his law from the sun god Shamash
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The Merneptah Stele (c. 1200 BC), engraved on the back of a reused stele of Amenhotep III's, with the earliest mention of the name Israel
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A votive stela honoring the Thracian goddess Bendis (c. 400 BC), carved at Athens
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A herm of Demosthenes, a c. 1520 recreation of the c. 280 BC original located in the Athenian market
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The Rosetta Stone (196 BC), establishing the divine cult of Ptolemy V
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A Buddhist Stele from China, Northern Wei period, built sometime after 583
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A rubbing of the Yamanoue Stele (681) in Takasaki, one of three protected steles in Japan
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Stele 35 from Yaxchilan (8th century), depicting Lady Eveningstar, the consort of king Shield Jaguar II
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Rodney's Stone, a slab cross from Early Medieval Scotland
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Sueno's Stone (c. 9th century) in Forres, Scotland, displaying efforts at modern preservation of the Pictish stones
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Tombstones (funerary stelae) at the Common Burying Ground and Island Cemetery, Newport, Rhode Island. Typical inscriptions include the names of the deceased interred under the stones. Ca. 18th century and later.
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A disc shaped gravestone or hilarri in Bidarray, western Pyrenees, Basque Country, featuring typical geometric and solar forms, as it was the custom since the period previous to Roman times
See also
In Spanish: Estela (monumento) para niños
