Stećak forms
Shapes of stećak tombstones, Bosnia and Herzegovina / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stećak forms, that is, shapes and dimensions of the megalithic tombstone known as stećak, is what make stećaks extremely attractive. Stećaks are mostly of large dimension and in rare cases smaller ones were cut. However, the very basic division of stećak is between lying or horizontal and standing or vertical ones, which was introduced by Dimitrije Sergejevski in 1952. The first group includes stećci in the form of a slab, a chest (or box), a chest with a pedestal, a gable and a gable with a pedestal, while the second group includes stećci with two forms - columns and crosses. In addition to these basic forms, which have several subtypes and variants, there are also amorphous stećci, which are simplest ones and usually without any elaborate finishing decorations or inscriptions.
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b6/Bosnian_Medieval_Tombstone_Drawing.svg/640px-Bosnian_Medieval_Tombstone_Drawing.svg.png)
Stećci are found in territories ruled by the Bosnian medieval state throughout the Middle Ages, which today corresponds with a territory that cover most of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a borderlands of Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro.
In the 13th century, the population of medieval Bosnia and Hum lived in difficult and unsettled political and economic conditions, mostly in a situation where they fiercely defended themselves against Hungarian pretensions, which had reflected in the standard of living, culture, including in the cutting and carving the stećaks. This can to some extent explain the certain poverty of the shape, decorations and inscriptions of the stećak of the 13th century compared to the situation in the 14th and 15th centuries or later.