Особое место среди памятников материальной культуры, оставленных древними тюркоязычными степными народами, занимают каменные изваяния, изображающие людей. Обычай воздвигать статуи, связанный с особым культом почитания предков, возник в VI-VII вв. в тюркской среде в Монголии и на Алтае. Этот обряд, в котором статуи и оградки служили лишь необходимым атрибутом для поминания предков и не были непосредственно связаны с их погребениями, заимствовался восточнокипчакскими племенами и в дальнейшем трансформировался половцами в культ вождей-покровителей орды, племени, рода.
15 stone Polovtsian statues are stored in the collection of the Azov culture preserve. 9 of them are early monuments dating back to the 11th-12th centuries, 6 are later finds dating to the late 12th - early 13th century. There are 6 male (3 “sitting”, 2 with uncertain posture (dug in the ground by the breast level) and 1 probably stela-like) and 6 female statues (3 “standing”, 2 probably “sitting” and 1 halffinished). A sex of the other 2 statues is uncertain because of their bad (fragmented) condition. The statues are made of soft rock: shell rock (7 pieces), sandstone (7 pieces) and limestone (1 piece). All Polovtsian “babas” come from the territory of Rostov province. More exact location of the finds of 9 statues exhibited in the court yard of the “Powder cellar” (a branch of the Azov culture preserve) is unknown (they were given to the preserve by local inhabitants as well as researchers in 1960s-80s). Two stone “babas” (from the “Novosokolovskii-IV” and “Potainoi-II” barrow burial grounds) were found in the Polovtsian sanctuaries of different types: the first one at the top of a barrow in a foundation pit on a platform paved with stone, the second - in an oval pit in NE sector of a barrow covered by a mound. These sanctuaries with stone statues are dated back to the 12th - early 13th centuries.
