R.V. Stoyanov

Key words: Middle East, Central Anatolia, gravestones, anthropomorphic stelae and reliefs, Greek necropolises of the North Pontic region.
Anthropomorphic stelae and reliefs are a specific group of funeral monuments, schematic images of a human figure or full-face busts with flat face area. We can identify at least two regions where the tradition of anthropomorphic gravestones could have originated, and that is the Middle East and Central Anatolia. The differences in the shape and semantics of the monuments that can be observed from the 7th to the 2nd cc. in the two regions indicate that the sculpture of this type was evolving independently in each of the regions. Anthropomorphic sculptures from Phoenicia, Palestine and Lebanon are stelae with relief or incised images of heads, shoulder-length images or schematic anthropomorphic figures of deities (Fig. 6, 3). Sites of this type in North Africa and Sicily are connected with the Phoenician colonization. The monuments from South Italian necropolises, hermae with a rounded head in the upper part, could also have their origin in the Punic religion that underwent transformation in the local milieu (Figs, 4; 6; 1 – 2). The monuments from Central Anatolia are sculptured stelae and relief images (busts and hermae) (Fig. 7). They were connected with the Phrygian cult of the goddess Matar. In its Hellenized form the cult became popular in the Greek centers of the region, from which it found its way to other areas of the ancient world. The issue of the origin of the anthropomorphic gravestones in Greek necropolises of the North Pontic region (Figs. 1 – 3) remains a complex one. It appears that in our search for the origins of the tradition we should look to the milieu of Greek colonists. It is possible that the iconographic type of anthropomorph found its way to the North Pontic region with the people from other regions of the ancient world, possibly from Anatolia, who arrived together with the Greek colonists.