Origin of the Alans

[Alanus]

~ Last Ride of The Hu Warrior: Part 1 ~

Thanks, Michael. It's amazing what archaeology can tell us-- how a warrior was wounded and what era he lived in.
I've just acquired 13 bronze artifacts from the Northern Zone, sold to me by a dealer in Singapore, and described as originating in the Spring and Autumn Period (770BC to 476BC)... a very accurate assessment. Like the arrowhead you posted, these bronze artifacts tell a story. Two bridle pieces are "Ordos bronzes," another piece is a snaffle bit, and eight are bridle links, all from a Hu warrior's horse. Additionally, two more pieces are bone cowries (the warrior's personal possessions).

What is most important, the combined collection gives us some insight into the "Clan of the White Ram," and a direct link to the tribe of Fu Hao-- "woman of the Hao tribe." They also give us a clue to the initial migration of the Andronovo people into the Tarim Basin, then eastward to finally reach the steppe zone above Anyang and Beijing, specifically the Xi-hu (Tarim tribes), Loufan (Ordos tribes), and the Lin-hu (Mountain tribes). These Indo-Iranian groups (when we look at them through an anthropologist's eye) arose from the Andronovo culture, and all can be tentatively assigned to the Yuezhi group. A fourth and unrelated tribe of Hu-- the Dong-hu (Tunghu)-- were easternmost and appear to be predecessors of the Manchurians.


   
Here is the Northern Zone during the Spring and Autumn Period, the various Hu living just north of the states of Qin, Jin, and Yan. The bronze remnants of the Hu warrior and his horse come from this area, possibly narrowed down to the Ordos (the "hump" in the Yellow River north of Qin) or eastward into the State of Yan.


   
   
Upper photo, the horse's snaffle bit showing comparative size by the fingers of my hand. The age of this bit is ambiguous, made anytime from 800 BC to modern times. Precise examples, almost exactly the same, have been found in Bactria, the Altai, and at Arzhan. Second photo, Bactrian examples.


   
   
We now turn to the bridle links. First photo, the dealer's picture since the links are still in transit from Singapore; only four of the eight examples are shown. Second photo, two bridle links (left and right) in the assemblage of the c. 500 BC Pazyryk warrior mistakenly identified as a "young woman," then corrected by the Siberian Times to male gender. The Hu warrior's links are identical to the Pazyryk example.


   
Now to the warrior's bronze cowrie money. (Correction!!-- these are bone, stained green due to proximity of the bronze artifacts) Cowrie shells were used in China from the Neolithic to the Zhou Period. Cowries (specifically Cypraea moneta) came from a single location-- the Maldive Islands south of India-- and document trade routes back to the Stone Age.) In the Shang period, over 6,700 cowrie shells were buried with Fu Hao. Starting in the late Shang and culminating in the Western Zhou period, bronze and bone cowries were popular substitutes for the real thing. By the Spring and Autumn period, styles of money changed into bronze knife and spade forms. So, these bone cowries were either the warrior's personal collectibles or they were antiquated money still in use.

The other items (the two bridle plaques) define the warrior's specific culture. Both are "Ordos style" and akin to Pazyryk animal art. I'll discuss and show each of them separately in my next two posts.
Thank you for following this thread.