Deer Stone Monuments and Related Bronze Age Sites World Heritage Site

Official name

Deer Stone Monuments and Related Bronze Age Sites | UNESCO

Country

Mongolia | Map

Continent

Asia

Location

47.7427° Lat, 101.2258° Lon | Map

Code

1621

Time Zone

Asia/Ulaanbaatar (+08, +0800)

Current Time

Category

Cultural

Description

Inscribed 2023. Located on the slopes of the Khangai Ridge in central Mongolia, these deer stones were used for ceremonial and funerary practices. Dating from about 1200 to 600 BCE, they stand up to four metres tall and are set directly in the ground as single standing stones or in groups, and are almost always located in complexes that include large burial mounds called khirgisüürs and sacrificial altars. Covered with highly stylized or representational engravings of stags, deer stones are the most important surviving structures belonging to the culture of Eurasian Bronze Age nomads that evolved and then slowly disappeared between the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE.