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

near to nature, and at times even ancient motives reappeared. It is impossible
to attribute varied yet contemporaneous styles to specific peoples; they appear,
so to speak, in contradiction to each other; but this merely helps to prove
the diversity of the artistic tendencies in our region.
c) The horse and the ass.
Draught and saddle animals are found in Scythian and Sarmatian art in combat
with an enemy, and with some ornament used as decoration or as part of the
animal. But only at Minussinsk, where we find both the wild and the domestic
species, do they play an important part alone.
Plate X no. 1 is probably of a wild ass, particularly valued as a game-
animal by the northern barbarians (27). This fairly large applique has a parallel
in the Jenissei valley (28), which is surpassed from an artistic point of view by
the object from the Chinese frontier. The ringed eye-holes, nostrils and mouth,
bring it into close relationship with Minussinsk. A fresh and natural reproduc-
tion such as this may be placed about the year 500 A.D. A Han date would
appear improbable, as the Siberian model was only created after the beginning
of the millennium. Horses, usually small, but often very well drawn (Pl. X
no. 2), were made a little later, probably at the beginning of the T'ang
dynasty. This type, saddled or unsaddled, is often found at Minussinsk (29).
The animal of Plate X no. 3 seems to be of no definite species, and is
therefore a later piece (about 1000). It is alone here, but on Plat X no. 4 we
find it doubled with some undeterminable vegetable growth where the two
bodies meet. This plant decoration seems to be only a group of the same
comma-shaped ornamentation which serves also to embellish the hooves,
nostrils, ears and manes.
Plate X nos. 5 & 6 are characterised by the deterioration in technical skill
and creative faculty found at the beginning of the II millennium. Between the
chest and lower jaw of the galoping horse (Pl. X no. 5) there is a bird's head,
a well known motive of early times, used to fill empty spaces. The modeling
is without movement, the casting very careless. The latest of all the types is
that of Plate X no. 6, specimens of which are frequently found. Any resemblance
to nature has completely disappeared along with the modeling. Two animals
have again been connected, but as always in this type, the smaller one is above
the larger, and may perhaps be supposed to represent the colt. The distinctive
tuft on each animal contrasts with the otherwise bad proportions and mono-
tonous details. This group of horses of a primitive style yet of a late period has
a curious parallel in the west, where, however, the same artistic deterioration
took place in a much shorter lapse of time. A horse, or another animal with
its young, is often found in the Caucasus on square openwork belt buckles (30).
There again the composition is one of piling up, but the latter pieces must be
placed at the beginning of our era. Probably our specimens from the Chinese