Mediaeval Gravestones from the Crimean Steppe
There are late eighteenth-century maps of the town of Eski-Krym (Solkhat, Krym, Staryi Krym) which Muslim commune shaped by the last third of the thirteenth century showing a number of significant architectural objects and gravestones with stone-carved decorations. The system of Muslim gravestones developed by O.-N. A. Akchokrakly and A. S. Bashkirov is based on the study of forms and the location of ornamental and epigraphic parts of monuments from the cemeteries of Staryi Krym. Carved decorations of medieval grave monuments of Solkhat show by the high artistic level of carving, the quality of technical execution, and original ornamentation. Their connection of stone carving of the Crimea in the Golden Horde Period with the Asia Minor appeared simultaneously with the development of Muslim architecture. Photographs and drawings made by an academic expedition in 1925 that surveyed ancient Tatar settlements and cemeteries in the Crimean steppe (its western areas close to Yevpatoria, as well as the north of the Crimean Peninsula and its east close to the town of Staryi Krym) show a wide range of gravestones, mostly of geometrical forms like pillars topped with turbans. There is a small group of grave monuments, or the so-called two-horned gravestones, representing a rough form of similar tombstones originating from the Muslim cemeteries of Solkhat as the capital of the Crimea in the Golden Horde Period and other large settlements, such as Eski-Iurt. The two-horned gravestones from the cemeteries of large settlements present elaborate forms and inscriptions; they are covered with ornaments featuring the Seljuk style of the Asia Minor. The two-horned gravestones from the cemeteries in the steppe have a high base, with their pillars following the shape of vertical tombstones with turban-like finials and rounded tops; no inscription or decoration is present.