Origin of the Alans

[Alanus]

The Argali Charioteers: Part 2

Thus we find a Europoid presence in 1,250 BC Anyang. Obviously, these foreigners were employed as horse tenders, chariot makers, and occasionally as drivers. They were mercenaries from afar. The Shang Chinese were totally unfamiliar with horse husbandry; horses were exotic, and chariots were strange-- and dangerous-- vehicles. In the Bronze Age, the idea of riding astraddle a horse was far-fetched. With one exception.

Her name was Fu Hao, the favored wife of King Wu Ding and a woman from "the western tribes." Her tomb contained a horse's bridle, not chariot gear. She was buried with over 100 weapons, including this knife:

   
The knife falls into the Karasuk category, and it's also a link to the Argali Clan. Fu Hao can be included in a rare breed-- she was a female general. Usually, female generals were revengeful Saka or outrageous Celts, not Chinese women. But we'll never know. Her skull was irreparably damaged, and the most skilled archaeologists couldn't put her back together again. Today, she stands proudly in Anyang, the Shang Dynasty's one-and-only horse-riding general.

   
I'll bet she didn't wear a long skirt while riding.

So, where did these Argali Clan mercenaries (and perhaps Fu Hao, herself) come from? Fortunately we have pictorial clues. One of the world's largest concentrations of petroglyphic art can be found in the western Mongolian areas of Tsagaan Salaa ("feeder river"), and Tsagaan Gol ("river"), in Baga Oigor ("valley"). By strange coincidence (or not) they're located about 50 kilometers west of the Ukok kurgans, and about 75 kilometers from Pazyryk.

   
The petroglyph complex in Baga Oigor (hundreds of artworks from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age) lies in a favored hunting ground of a seemingly proto-Scythian culture... and right next to the Altai.

   
A petroglyph of a Bronze Age chariot in Baga Oigor III. We can forgive the artist, but the chariot is the closest known example to those in the Anyang burials.

   
We're still in the Bronze Age, and here we have a hunter (dismounted from his chariot) taking aim at a nice fat argali. (He's eating well tonight!) This petroglyph, and the previous one, have been dated by Esther Jacobson-Tepfer, an authority on the subject who spent months in western Mongolia. From the curl of the argali's horns, we see the same curve found on the Anyang knives.

I place this Bronze Age hunter, and the charioteer above, as members of the Argali Clan. The argali was one of two animals worshiped and honored by the inhabitants of Pazyryk and Ukok... whom Aristeas recorded as the "Arimaspi," and potentially identified by us as the Yuezhi. All we have to do is stay where we are-- in the middle of Baga Oigor-- until we reach the Iron Age.

   
The Altai argali, today considered one of the world's great trophies, just as it was in the Bronze and Iron Ages. A pair of argali horns can weigh up to 75 pounds. Argali are members of the goat-antelope family. The Altai subspecies is the largest, with males weighing upward to 725 pounds. The ewes also have horns, which are much smaller than the males'. It's easy to see why these magnificent animals were considered sacred by Altai peoples.