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Orlat Battle Plaque\'s Importance
#31
Quote:I eat my words. I said my previous post would be my last on this subject; however, if we look at the history of art, we find similar styles within several cultures. In this instance, referring to stylized leaves ("shwubry" as Monty Python would say) and the "flying gallop," we find both in artwork west and north of Chinese artists. AND WE FIND IT EARLIER.

A western Scythian at flying gallop while killig a lion; also extremely remenicient of the non-Chinese rider killing the boar, depicted in my post above. The artist was Greek.

This does not depict the flying gallop: the horse's rear hooves are firmly planted on the ground, and are not flipped upwards while galloping.

Quote:The extended front legs of the flying gallop carved onto a piece of Altai horse tack. I don't think the artist was Chinese.

This, and a few other carved rams from Pazyryk barrow 1 do indeed show the flying gallop, but since these tombs have been re-dated to the early 3rd century BC on very solid grounds (see Source. Notes in the History of Art 10, 4 (1991), "A Special Issue on the Dating of Pazyryk," and especially in that issue Emma C. Bunker, "The Chinese Artifacts among the Pazyryk Finds," 20-24), these carved figures support the dating of the buckles with the hunting scene in the Siberian collection.

Quote:Ah! The same leaves ("shwubry") that we found on the plaque shown in my post above. The only difference from the tentitively and "expertly" identified Ordos bronzes is this plaque's ID as 6th Century BC Siberian (see Aleckseev and Barkova, p 290).

In fact, this buckle has been identified as an Ordos artifact as well. The problem with identifying all these buckles as Siberian is that they are almost entirely unprovenanced. In the past, they were dated and identified geographically based mainly on their motifs (but often without attention paid to realia), but of course many motifs were shared widely across the steppe, making such identification very difficult based on that alone; also, since the majority of them were to be found in the Siberian Collection, they were often simply thought to be from the region of Asia and dated in conjunction with the Pazyryk finds in particular based on very rough criteria.

Since Chinese archaeology has blossomed, however, huge numbers of buckles from northern China have come to light in secure archaeological contexts which have both provided very close parallels for such buckles and more precise dating. This very well could have shown that buckles were imported from the Altai into northern China, but these artifacts, as well as byproducts of their production (moulds, slag, etc.), have been found in workshops in Chinese and Xiongnu regions, and even buckles with Chinese maker's marks have come to light (see that article by Wu En I cited earlier). In particular, several almost exact copies of buckles found in the Siberian Collection have turned up in burials in northern China, and some have also been found in sites such as Yanxiadu, the capital city of the northern Chinese state of Yan, which was a major production centre for art created by Chinese craftsmen for steppe nomad consumption. Meanwhile, the buckles that have come to light from the Altai from secure contexts when examined in detail have not been nearly as similar in style and subject matter to such buckles as those from northern China. It logically follows, then, that those buckles and artifacts from the Siberian Collection which match closely the products of northern Chinese workshops came from northern China, and were actually collected or purchased outside of Siberia.

So, again, there is no reason to take that buckle depicting a scabbard slide as anything other than a product of the Ordos region from the 3rd-1st c. BC.
Ruben

He had with him the selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he\'d give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. Common enough for a man to name his gun. His is the first and only ever I seen with an inscription from the classics. - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
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#32
Gentlemen this is an import thread and too good to let drop. I too am learning a great deal so please keep the discussion going.
John Conyard

York

A member of Comitatus Late Roman
Reconstruction Group

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#33
Hello Gentlemen and MeinPanzer,

I eat my words again, this time on a platter.
First, my studies have been primarily through recent Russians-- Aleckseev, Korolkova, Iusupov, Zavitukhina, and Barkova; older material from Jettmar; and new stuff from Anthony and Kelekna. Frankly, I'm surpised the Russians haven't revised their dating of the Ordos bronzes. I thank MeinPanzer for pointing the way to Bunker and Rawlings. Unfortunately their stuff isn't showing on the internet and my local and state libraries overlook anything that refers to "Asia..."

I think we did gain headway on the Orlat plaque, simply by arguably placing it in the last century BC (my prognosis) OR the first century AD (MeinPanzer's date). At least this discounts tardy dates such as 4th or 5th century AD. And these earlier dates line up with several Chinese-forged swords found in Sarmatian graves further northwest.

What the Ordos bronzes do show is a lively cultural interaction in Inner Mongolia and northwest China, exactly as expected. And the dates line up with the introduction of cavalry and steppe tack and clothing by Lord Wuling (Zhou) just before 300BC, laying a foundation that helped Shi-huang consolidate the warring states into the first dynasty. (According to Kalenka, Shi-huang carried Europoid features, likely indicating he descended from one of the steppe tribes. Personally, I always thought he looked like Jet Li. Confusedhock: )

The late Zhou period is also the time (I think) when steppe barbarians were invited into the Ganzu corridor as a buffer, probably the Yue-zhi. This tribe and the Wusun then supplied steppe-bred horses to the Han Dynasty.

I have been long fascinated by this "Chinese connection," first to the Sarmatians, then the Roman cavalry, and finally late Roman Britain. This is what the Orlat plaque points out simply by existing. :grin:
Alan J. Campbell

member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians

Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)

"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
             Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
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#34
Quote:What the Ordos bronzes do show is a lively cultural interaction in Inner Mongolia and northwest China, exactly as expected. And the dates line up with the introduction of cavalry and steppe tack and clothing by Lord Wuling (Zhou) just before 300BC, laying a foundation that helped Shi-huang consolidate the warring states into the first dynasty

I'm glad we can come to an agreement, and I think you're spot on here - we find a mass shift in Chinese-steppe nomad interaction beginning in the second half of the 4th c. BC which culminated in the ultimate expansion of Qin at the expense of its neighbours. Another good source on Chinese-steppe nomad interaction during this time is Sophia-Karin Psarras' article "Exploring the North: non-Chinese Cultures of the Late Warring States and Han," in Monumenta Serica 42 (1994): 1-125. In this respect, it is interesting to note that the perfectly preserved saddle from Subeixi in eastern Xinjiang which dates to between the 5th and 3rd c. BC matches almost exactly the kind of saddle depicted on cavalrymen's horses from the terracotta army - that's about as clear a piece of evidence supporting the literary tradition as one could hope for.

Quote:(According to Kalenka, Shi-huang carried Europoid features, likely indicating he descended from one of the steppe tribes.)

I'm not familiar with Kelekna's reference to the First Emperor, but does she mention what sources depict or refer to him as having Europoid features? That seems like an awfully bold claim.

Quote:I have been long fascinated by this "Chinese connection," first to the Sarmatians, then the Roman cavalry, and finally late Roman Britain. This is what the Orlat plaque points out simply by existing.

With respect to this point, you should have a look at Veronica Schiltz's article, "Les Sarmates entre Rome et la Chine. Nouvelles perspectives," in Comptes Rendus des Seances - Academie des Inscriptions & Belles-Lettres 3 (2002): 845-87, if you are not already familiar with it. It includes a fairly extensive discussion of daggers carried in multi-lobed scabbards between the Altai and the northern Black Sea, and gives an up-to-date overview of the Sarmatians between East and West more generally.
Ruben

He had with him the selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he\'d give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. Common enough for a man to name his gun. His is the first and only ever I seen with an inscription from the classics. - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
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#35
Back to MeinPanzer,

Frankly it sounds a lot like Ripley's Believe it or Not. Kelenka also mentions Emeror Wen, who probably was of steppe origin, and Gao-zu, plus the first Han emperor, Guang-wudi. She then talks about shaving off supposedly Europoid beards as a Qin form of corporal punishment (which means nothing, since most men have beards, plus a few women I know). And the paragraph ends with a citation to Mair, 2005;70-73.

It might be noted that Kelenka also mentions Lucius Artorius Castus, using Malone as a reference and unaware that Castus was keeper of the castle, not a cavalry leader. Yet she doesn't push any of this stuff too hard, perhaps trying to appeal to a wider reading audience. Part of her book makes sense, and other statements verge on speculation. But it's an interesting companion piece to Dr. Anthony's dry (but well-thought-out) tome.

I'll check out the stuff on the multi-lobed akinakes sheaths, the earliest I think found in the Altai kurgans. A fairly handy item that founds it way into several other cultures, Phrygian, Sassanian, and even down to Arabia.
Alan J. Campbell

member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians

Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)

"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
             Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
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