Lapidary (from Lat. Lapidaries - hewn stone) in the courtyard of the Rostov Regional Museum of Local Lore - a rare collection of preserved ancient stone sculpture nadkurgannoy Don narodov.V this enclosed space on the lawns are eight stone figures and fragments thereof. This Polovtsian sculptures twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Many of them were brought to the outskirts of the city and surrounding areas, where they were discovered by archaeologists on the tops of mounds or near them. One of European travelers in the early thirteenth century, wrote that the local people "... poured over the dead big hill and erected a statue to him, facing towards the east and holding hands in front of your navel cup". Today, researchers who study the Polovtsian religious sculpture, believe that the statue served as the interim seat of the soul of the deceased. Initially, these sculptures (stone or wood) to be set on the tops of mounds and stayed there until the last rite (farewell) repast, after which the soul of the deceased was sent forever in the afterlife. To release the soul from the temporary abodes - could break their statues and break (this rite suggest archaeologists, often finding their fragments and fragments), and wooden sculptures - burn.