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

The Steppes made willing use of the boar's head on appliques (34). But they emphasized that it was the wild, hunted animal that interested them, for the tusks are never missing. The barbarians of the northern frontier are more apt to depict the domestic pig which was familiar to them through their asso-ciation with China (Pl. XI no. 9). The surface is often smooth or ornamented with stylized nets of lines. These two summary ways of dealing with the surface are far enough away from nature to justify a date corresponding to the beginning of the II millennium. When compared with the preceding pieces the doubling of the motive (Pl. XI no. 10) agrees very well both as to date and as to design.
The dog is but rarely found before the period admitted for the latest pieces, nor do we see it very much later on. Its appearance (Pl. XI no. 11) is so com-pletely transformed by ornamentation, that a designation would be very difficult were it not for the collar and tufted tail. The hair has been represented by little spiral or parallel lines. The dog, therefore, easily joins the late period to which are relegated the majority of small appliques.
c) Bird-heads.
While the Scythians as well as the inhabitants of the centre of the Eurasiatic Steppes, the Ural, and countries influenced by this region, often used in some heraldic way the whole figure of a bird, the barbarians from the Chinese frontier only favoured a use of the bird's head. There are few motives in the art of the extreme sections of the Steppes where the accord is so pronounced. Borovka has grouped together the separate and most ancient representions of the west. (37). Until now these bird profiles were thought to be eagle-heads, a dangerous robber-bird to the Steppe people, often found on gold and bronze objects, where it has all the characteristics of the species, particularly the feathered head (36). But at other times they probably intended to represent the vulture, no less familiar in Eurasia, since occasionally there are no feathers, but instead, the chara-cteristic beak with large cirrus and hooked-shaped end (37). When we come to objects from the Chinese frontier derived from the west, the distinction between the eagle and the vulture has been either erased or forgotten, but there is however nearly always some means of distinguishing them.
The most ancient example of the vulture is probably of the Han dynasty or immediately after (Pl. XI no. 12) It repeats the pole-top from Ulski Aul of the first Scythian period (38). All the details have been adopted, even the beak curved into a loop and the double drawing of the lines. This type, already transformed into an ornament in the vicinity of the Black Sea, lives on in the east until the end there of all artistic production. With Plate XI. no. 13 we approach 500 A.D. We recognise the ringed eye of Scythian art, and the hollowed ear is now a pointed oval, a motive that has also been placed between beak and ear, and again behind the ear. There are prototypes towards the end of Scythian art that show hybrid combinations of eyes and beak (Pl. XI no. 14) as for example