Stela or stele, an upright, freestanding stone monument, often inscribed or carved in relief, and sometimes painted. These pillars or tablets of stone were often used to mark a grave or erected as a monument. Inscriptions may commemorate a victory or a major event or proclaim a formal decree. Stelae are frequently encountered in Maya and Olmec sites of Mesoamerica (often carved with calendrical and hieroglyphic inscriptions), in the Buddhist civilizations of Asia, and in early Greece. The earliest funerary stelae are from a cemetery of Ist- and 2nd-Dynasty kings at Abydos and are located in publicly accessible superstructures of the tombs. Commemorative stelae were erected in temples. Votive stelae recorded an individual's veneration of a particular deity(ies). (syn. pI. stelae)
Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology, Barbara Ann Kipfer, 2000Copied