国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

but slight patina are more likely to belong to a later period than those whose
surfaces are decomposed. Such patina is to be found on all the objects of a
group published by Pelliot. Thanks to his careful analysis we are spared a detailed
study. They are amulet-seals from the region of the Ordos (3). Pelliot connects
them with the Öngüts of the XII-XIII centuries because of their Nestorian
ornamentation. We only remark on the relatively late date for bronzes with
surfaces in this condition. If there is little or no decomposition, this condition
of the bronzes still makes a late creation possible.

The method of casting also deserves to be considered. It is certainly not
again necessary to mention the fact that the most ancient bronzes, both in China
and in the circle of the Steppes, are technical masterpieces. In the majority of
cases the method was that of casting by the " lost wax " process. Besides this
method, there is in Siberia an infinitely more primitive process, that of casting
in an open mold. In this case the underside is exposed to the air and is therefore
covered with characteristic blisters. This technical process often demands a
cleaning of the edges over which the molten metal easily overflows, that is to
say, it demands a retouching which artists from our region often abandoned.
This careless method is never found in Siberian articles of an early period, but
only in later pieces, especially those from the vicinity of Tomsk. They are dated
by Tallgren of the middle of the I millennium A.D. (4). I am inclined to make
this period even later. Such a technical flaw would not have been possible at
the northern Chinese frontier, except at a period where people of the same stock
and of the same social status were undergoing conditions that brought about a
weakening in technical skill.

2) Parallels in the Eurasiatic Steppes.

A comparison of sure materials should undoubtedly be considered as the
best support for dating the art with which we are concerned. Since both use
and ornamentation lasted over a long period at the Chinese frontier, a comparison
does not permit us to place derived objects in the same period as their models,
but later, sometimes very much later.

a) Minussinsk. There is no Siberian site of discoveries of which we shall
speak so much in the following pages as the southern section of the Jenissei
valley. In Chapter IX we shall deal with the uses peculiar to this region. But
even when these uses have been noticed elsewhere, and earlier than at Mi-
nussinsk, one must often turn to this region in order to derive from there the
decorations and the way in which they are treated. This is not at all surprising
when one remembers that of all Siberian centres Minussinsk is nearest to the Chi-
nese frontier. It is fortunate that S. Teplouchoff, the greatest expert in the art
of the Jenissei, has built up a relative chronology of this region and has published
explanatory drawings (5). We have reproduced on Plate III and IV the designs
that deal with the metal ages.