Deer Stone - Modern Studies

Modern Studies

In 1892, V.V. Radlov published a collection of drawings of deer stones in Mongolia. Radlov's drawings showed the highly stylized images of deer on the stones, as well as the settings in which they were placed. Radlov showed that in some instances the stones were set in patterns suggesting the walls of a grave, and in other instances, the deer stones were set in elaborate circular patterns, suggesting use in rituals of unknown significance.

In 1954 A.P. Okladnikov published a study of a deer stone found in 1856 by D.P. Davydov near modern Ulan-Ude now known as the Ivolga stone, displayed in the Irkutsk State Historical Museum. Okladinkov identified the deer images as reindeer, dated the stone's carving to the 6th-7th Centuries BC, and concluded from its placement and other images that it was associated with funerary rituals, and was a monument to a warrior leader of high social prominence.

A 1981 study by V.V. Volkov is the most extensive study of deer stones to date. It identified two cultural conditions behind the deer stones. The eastern deer stones appear to be associated with cemeteries composed of above-ground slab graves. The other cultural tradition is associated with the circular structures suggesting use as the center of rituals.

In 2006, the Deer Stone Project of the Smithsonian Institution and Mongolian Academy of Sciences began to record the stones digitally with 3-D laser scanning.