Memorials of Kazakh architects and stonemasons in the context of social anthropology of sacred places
Babadjanov B. Nurmanova A.
31 March 2025Margulan Institute of Archaeology
Kazakhstan Archeology
2025#27Issue 1270 - 292 pp.
The article presents the results of research on previously unstudied and mostly unpublished artifacts of funerary memorials (mausoleums, tombstone steles-qulpytases), which were created by once outstanding Kazakh craftsmen, including those whose names remain unknown or little known. The collective memory sites studied so far, as part of the sacred geography of the Kazakhs, rarely contain detailed personal information or are examined separately from the architects and craftsmen who created these visual sacred spaces. This approach alienates the objects and subjects of memorial artifacts, that is, the preserved examples of memorial architecture and tombstones from their creators. Even more rarely do academic scholars (architects, ethnologists, sociologists, philosophers, etc.) incorporate the results of epigraphic studies, whose scope and limited interpretation also pose challenges. Epigraphers tend to focus primarily on texts, often isolating them from essential contexts of memorial, social, and historical anthropology, as well as from living ritual practices and the phenomena of ancestral memory. Meanwhile, the inscriptions on mausoleums and tombstones have always served, and continue to serve, as an unambiguous (and sometimes the only) means of communication between generations, with their connection literally carved in stone. Recognizing the importance of overcoming these limitations in contemporary research, we attempt to present a comprehensive assessment of the “sacred artifacts” of the Daud-Ata mausoleum (Republic of Karakalpakstan), while also drawing on tombstone inscriptions from other sacred sites in modern Kazakhstan.
Daud-ata mazar , epitaphs , mausoleum (mazar, tam-zhay) , qulpytas , steles , stonemasons
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National Center for Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
R.B. Suleimenov Institute of Oriental Studies of the Committee of Science of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan
National Center for Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan
R.B. Suleimenov Institute of Oriental Studies of the Committee of Science of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan
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