National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

> > > >
Color New!IIIF Color HighRes Gray HighRes PDF   Japanese English
0184 Archaeological Researches in Sinkiang : vol.1
Archaeological Researches in Sinkiang : vol.1 / Page 184 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

New!Citation Information

doi: 10.20676/00000195
Citation Format: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

OCR Text

 

found in the tomb of Yu WANG at Shouchou dating from that year (Karlbeck 1938, p. 36) . It probably existed long before that, though we lack definite proofs (Wilbur, p. 428 f.).

The four bronze arrow-heads Pl. 3o: 12-15, all with triangular section and of well-known Han types, are cross-bow points. The two larger specimens, Pl. 30 : 12 and 15, have unusually blunt tips.

The iron arrow-point Pl. 30 : 16, of the three-winged tanged type, has been used with an ordinary bow, and so has the three-winged, socketed bronze point No. 44 : 2, which is of the same type as Bergman 1935c Pl. X : 2. It was found somewhere along the northern side of the delta.

The bow is an offensive weapon, and especially the composite bow invented by the Central Asian horse nomads was highly effective.

Of the cross-bows we know only the mechanism and the stock (a complete Han specimen excavated at Lo-lang in Korea, Oba and Kayamoto 1935, Pl. 82) but we are still ignorant as to the appearance of the cross-bow bow, which must have been of the composite type.

K. 13368 : 33 is a fragmentary and much corroded dagger blade (or spear head) of iron, about 15 cm. long.

It is possible that the bronze tube Pl. 31 : 10 has served as the socket of the lower end of a Ko-handle. I found it together with five coins of Wu-ch'u type to the south of Qum-darya a little above Yardang-bulaq (at point 26 on the map Fig. 36). I found a quite similar socket together with Han objects at Edsen-gol in Mongolia.

The leaf-shaped bronze plate Pl. 29 : 7 is of unknown use. It is not absolutely oùt of the question, though, that it has been riveted to a coat of mail. LAUFER depicts similarly shaped armour plates (Laufer 1914, Fig. 34), but they appear to have several perforations and ours has only one.

Knives.

The three bronze knives Pl. 3o: 22, Pl. 31: 2 and 12 may be of non-Chinese origin, as they closely correspond to the nomad style knives (Ordos and Siberia). The long one, of uniform breadth, Pl. 31 : 2, has close parallels among the Minusinsk knives (Martin 1893, Pl. 20: 28 and Merhart 1926, Taf. IV/V: 2), and in MFEA there are three iron knives of this primitive shape which were found in graves at Belotsarsk on the Yenisei (K. 4089 : 3).

The blade of Pl. 31 : 12 is slightly curved and only 7.5 cm. long. This knife could as well have been found in the Minusinsk region or in the Sino-Mongolian border land.

Pl. 30 : 22, only the blade, is of the slightly curved type with concave cutting edge.

164