STEĆCI

Stećci have appeared in the second half of XII century, then they culminated and were made in large numbers in XIV and XV centuries, and they have stopped their production by the middle of XVI century. For the first time, stećci are mentioned in a travel book by Benedikt Kuprešić in 1530, although in that time stećci were not used anymore. Made as a work of art, as a sculpture, with an intention to make a memory of the deceased immortal, as well as an organic component of the European funerary practice, medieval tombstones - stećci represent a specific phenomenon and a specific synthesis of language and script, religion and custom, history and chronology, culture, art and aesthetics. Their primary interpretative context is Central and South-Eastern Europe as a transitional area of the European culture, marked by intertwining and blending of cultural influences of Eastern and Western Christianity, placed between the medieval West and East. Although its origins are within the Bosnian Church, all evidence points to the fact that Stećci were erected in due time by adherents of the Orthodox, Catholic and Islamic faith alike.