Plate XXVI no. I, I think this may be of the end of the Han period or but shortly after.
We have already noticed on Plate XXIII nos. 1-4 that an unperforated background is usually a Chinese phenomenon. It also appears on plaques showing animals of the same species which are closely allied with the animal plaques just mentioned. On Plate XXVII no. 2 four animals are grouped in pairs. The curl of the upper lips is closely related to Altai forms of which we have already spoken. Their contorted bodies connect them with Sarmatian art, but the linear drawing is rather derived from the barbarians of the Chinese frontier. Typical of a non-organic composition is the fact that only one foreleg can be seen but both of the hindlegs. The border differs from the usual plaque frame, as here it is made up of spiral ribbons. This piece may also be of the T'ang period but very close to i000.
We place a little later the two horses framed in a border composed of oblique stripes (Plate XXVII no. 3). The contorsion of the bodies and the linear decoration connect it with the preceding example. But the separate motives show once again a tendency to break up and combine with other motives to form new ornamentations. Thus, between the hindlegs, we find two roe-heads face to face, and on the other side an owl-head seen from the front but upside down. With Plate XXVII no. 4 we have once more gone beyond i000. The two horses have become but a play of lines, but little connected with nature. Of the contorted hindlegs only scrolls above the backs remain. The section between the two animals is filled with two pairs of double spirals. This plaque typifies once more the weakening of form under the Mongols.
An exact duplicate of a pair of Minussinsk animals (17) is upon a very openwork plaque composed of two opposed browsing camels (Plate XXVIII no. 1). As with all plaques common to the two extremes of the Steppes it should be placed in the III-IV century A.D. The frame is made up of unusually short leaf decorations. Between the two animals are two intertwined trees. The hair on the humps is drawn with vertical stripes. In reality two-humped camels are not indigenous to the Jenissei valley. Their appearence in the art of this region must be an importation from the south as Czaplicka has already mentioned (18). The frame is simplified on the plaque decorated with camels with raised heads (Plate XXVIII no. 2). The leaves are connected neither with the border nor with the tree at the centre, they are below the muzzles and at the backs of the animals. So simplified a form would at Minussinsk already belong to the middle of the I millennium and in China should date, at the earliest, at the beginning of the T'ang period.
We find a pair of camels completely lacking in modeling (Plate XXVIII no. 3) created at a period around i000. The motive of intertwined trees has become a double rope which continues the braid of the frame, rests on the backs of the
IIIFカラー高解像度
