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

It is possible to add considerably to the number of parallels between China
and Eurasia. But until now we have not been able to show any resemblance
between the artistic forms of pre-Han China and those of Siberia. We have no
right, however, to affirm a complete absence of style connection. There are
forms in Chou art that are also found in the north, but an insufficient knowledge
of small Chinese bronzes of an early date still prevents a definite statement.
We shall confine ourselves to enumerating briefly some resemblances still too
isolated. There are those we might choose which support the theory of an influence
from Siberia upon China, others which seem rather to show the contrary.
1) The Museum of Far Eastern Art in Cologne owns a bronze (unpublished)
with animals along its narrow edge. This is a typical arrangement on boilers
from the circle of the Steppes.
2) We find on pierced bronze plaques (belonging to a Paris dealer, unpub-
lished) the recumbent body in low relief of a tiger, the neck and head of which
are in the round. We shall speak later on of Eurasiatic parallels. (Cf. Pl. XIII,
no. 1).
3) The Cauri shell appears in China as well as in Siberia imitated in metal.
It may be found realistically represented on a Chou bell that otherwise has only
strictly stylised ornamentation (35). This motive may be the survival of a
more ancient tradition, but it may also be connected in some way with the north.
4) Although no other geometrically stylised animals are known from Siberia,
there has been found near Krasnojarsk a grasshopper in stone so treated. This
insect, by the way, is unknown in the art of northern Asia. Perhaps this tiny
object was imported from China (36).
5) Among the jade objects unexplained until now, there is a slightly flattened
cylinder, open at both sides, one side overlapping the other, and the wider side
sometimes covered with a monster-masque (37). This object astonishingly
resembles the hoes of the bronze age in the Eurasiatic Steppes. We know of
(38). Tallgren refers to Finders Petrie who finds this type in the Mediterranean
Basin of about the year 1300 B.C. (39). Similar implements from Minnussinsk
carry us towards the socketed axe (40).
6) There is in the G.L. Winthrop collection (New York), a jade pole-top
(unpublished). It is in the form of a human bust, negroid type, usually of the
Chou period. This bust has a full face monster-masque on the breast, arms in
the shape of animals in profile, all stylised in the Chou manner. The same compo-
sition of human and animal motives appears towards the end of the I millen-
nium A.D. in the region of Tomsk (41).