Stela

::This article is about the stone structure. Stele is also a concept in plant biology.

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A stela (or stele) is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerary or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased, or living, inscribed, carved in relief or painted onto the slab. The word derives from the Greek stele, "standing block". The word can be pronounced // or //, and the plural is stelae, pronounced //.

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Stelae were also used as territorial markers, as the boundary stelae of Akhenaton at Amarna, or commemorated military victories. They were widely used in the Ancient Near East, Greece and Egypt, and, quite independently, in China and some Buddhist cultures (see the Nestorian Stele), and, more surely independently, by Mesoamerican civilisations, notably the Maya. The huge number of stelae surviving from ancient Egypt and in Central America constitute one of the largest and most significant sources of information on those civilisations. An informative stela of Tiglath-Pileser III is preserved in the British Museum. Two stelae built into the walls of a church are major documents relating to the Etruscan language.

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Unfinished standing stones, set up without inscriptions from Libya in North Africa to Scotland were monuments of pre-literate Megalithic cultures in the Late Stone Age.

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An obelisk is a specialized kind of stela. The High crosses of Ireland and Celtic areas of Britain are specialized stelae. A modern gravestone with its inscribed epitaph is also a kind of stela.

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Stele: :Stele or stela also means an inscribed stone slab. See stela....

Plant: Land plants (embryophytes)Non-vascular plants (bryophytes)Hepaticophyta - liverwortsAnthocerotophyta - hornwortsBryophyta - mossesVascular plants (tracheophytes)Lycopodiophyta - clubmossesEquisetophyta - horsetailsPteridophyta - "true" fernsPsilotophyta - whisk fernsOphioglossophyta - adderstonguesS...

Amarna: Amarna (commonly known as el-Amarna) is the name given to an extensive archaeological site that represents the remains of the capital city built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty (c. 1353 BC). The name for the city used by the ancient Egyptians was Akhetaten (or Akhetaton - tra...

Stela related Images and Photos (experimental)

Funerary Stela from Yemen (Alabaster)	Stela Depicting Tachenes Praying Before the God Re-Horakhty 900 BC	Stela Depicting a Woman Presenting a Jaguar Mask to a Priest from Yaxchilan	Funerary Stela of the Hoplite Aristion from Velanideza Attica circa 510 BC
Mayan Stela J Dating from 756 AD Quirigua Unesco World Heritage Site Guatemala Central America	Votive Stela with an Elephant from Carthage 3rd-2nd Century BC