[Tagging] Stećci - Bosnian medieval tombstones

Michal Fabík michal.fabik at gmail.com
Wed Mar 29 20:33:55 UTC 2017


On 29.3.2017 01:11, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
>
>
> sent from a phone
>
>> On 28 Mar 2017, at 23:28, Michal Fabík <michal.fabik at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> historic=tombstone + tombstone=stećak
>>
>> + probably the most accurate
>> - not well established (just one occurrence of historic=tombstone according to taginfo.osm.org)
>> - not sure whether all of them are tombstones
>
>
> I would probably use this one together with historic:civilization

I got in touch with an archaeologist in Bosnia and he confirmed that all 
the stećci were made as tombstones, so it looks like this approach could 
work. He also said that there's been a documented centuries-old practice 
of moving the stećaks away from their original site (i.e. the grave), 
often to be used as "architectural elements" (he didn't elaborate on 
what exactly that means). It would probably make sense to use something 
like "moved=yes", "original_location=no", "grave=no" etc. to account for 
this. As for historic:civilization=*, there's no general consensus among 
historians as to what the civilization in question should be called. In 
any case, as long as the tombstone is specifically tagged as stećak (or 
stecak?), I think the tag isn't really necessary because all the stećci 
were made by the same civilization.

> Just to mention it: there is also a tomb key, but maybe the Stećci aren't tombs.

I certainly wouldn't call them tombs, they're just graves (i.e. holes in 
the ground) with very large gravestones covering them. There is no built 
structure (like a burial chamber or similar) underneath the stećak.

> for necropolis there is a site_type for archaeological_site

I know this, only I was a little worried about the accuracy of such 
tagging. A typical stećak "necropolis" looks like this: 
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Stecci_-_na_Blidinji_je_nekolik_skupin_techto_nahrobku_z_14..jpg 
- quite different from what the Wiki says about site_type=necropolis 
(and from the picutre there). I was thinking about something along the 
lines of site_type=burial_ground.

Regards,

-- 
Michal



More information about the Tagging mailing list