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

a return to primitiveness (Plate XXII no. 5). An undefinable wild animal
fights a tiger, jumps on him with one paw under the belly, the other gripping a
fore-leg. The tiger is characterised by line-drawn fur. The dots on the cork-
screw tail show that nature is being sacrificed to a desire for ornamentation.
Of all the treasure of Sarmatian forms, leaf drawn frame, emphasised joints,
contorted bodies, nothing is left. A reminder of Minussinsk art, however, is
felt in the round perforations. It was at about the beginning or towards the
middle of the II millennium that the Mongols worked in such a primitive way,
while still making use of their ancient subjects.

A distinct variation of the type is furnished by the rectangular plaque with
an unperforated flat background (Plate XXIII no. 1). Here we see a ram over-
powered by some wild animal that is biting its victim behind the shoulder. The
animals are contorted in the Sarmatian manner as each pair of legs may be seen
directly behind the head of the other animal. The Maikop plaque has already
made the plain background and the twisted forms familar to us. Such a com-
position is possible at the Han period, but details in the drawing do not fit so
early a date. The very natural ridges of the backward-turned horns are also
to be found on the spirals at neck and joints. It is clear that the artist was more
interested in his ornamentation than in the realism of his scene. The pathos
so often mentioned in groups of this type has been sacrificed to a rhythm of lines.
So exaggerated a transformation in the animal-combat scene can with difficulty
be dated before the middle of the I millennium. The development in the trans-
formation and obliteration of motives may be followed on unperforated plaques.
The hole for the hook is the only perforation that remains. The subject may
borrow the most varied elements from the rich repertory of the animal-combat
scene. Plate XXIII no. 2 shows us two horses in profile with birdlike heads,
their backs gripped in the jaws of wild animals of which we only see the heads
turned full-face. The two animal-heads above the hole are inexplicable. A
decoration of spiral stripes entirely obliterates the bodies of the solipeds. They
begin at the hind legs and go to the necks, and are derived from the ridges on
ram-horns. This transformation of the animal-combat into an interlacing of
animal figures has no parallel in the circle of the Steppes. It appears at about the
middle of the I millennium in the region of the Steppes that is in contact with
China.

Besides the ram and the horse we also find the antilope in this group
(Plate XXIII no. 3). Four antilope are so arranged that we only see the fore-
quarters of one pair. The legs follow a horizontal line across the middle of the
rectangle. In the part destroyed by the largerhole, the hind hooves have wild
animal-claws. Only above the other pair of antilope, and close to the edge, do
we find tiger-heads biting the necks of the solipeds. Their legs and paws are
necessarily forshortened. Between their contorted bodies and the ringed hole