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

Plate XXVI no. 1, I think this may be of the end of the Han period or but shortly
after.
We have already noticed on Plate XXIII nos. 1-4 that an unperforated back-
ground is usually a Chinese phenomenon. It also appears on plaques showing
animals of the same species which are closely allied with the animal plaques just
mentioned. On Plate XXVII no. 2 four animals are grouped in pairs. The
curl of the upper lips is closely related to Altai forms of which we have already
spoken. Their contorted bodies connect them with Sarmatian art, but the linear
drawing is rather derived from the barbarians of the Chinese frontier. Typical
of a non-organic composition is the fact that only one foreleg can be seen but
both of the hindlegs. The border differs from the usual plaque frame, as here
it is made up of spiral ribbons. This piece may also be of the T'ang period but
very close to 1000.
We place a little later the two horses framed in a border composed of oblique
stripes (Plate XXVII no. 3). The contorsion of the bodies and the linear decor-
ation connect it with the preceding example. But the separate motives show
once again a tendency to break up and combine with other motives to form
new ornamentations. Thus, between the hindlegs, we find two roe-heads face
to face, and on the other side an owl-head seen from the front but upside down.
With Plate XXVII no. 4 we have once more gone beyond 1000. The two horses
have become but a play of lines, but little connected with nature. Of the contorted
hindlegs only scrolls above the backs remain. The section between the two
animals is filled with two pairs of double spirals. This plaque typifies once more
the weakening of form under the Mongols.
An exact duplicate of a pair of Minussinks animals (17) is upon a very open-
work plaque composed of two opposed browsing camels (Plate XXVIII no. 1).
As with all plaques common to the two extremes of the Steppes it should be placed
in the III-IV century A.D. The frame is made up of unusually short leaf decor-
ations. Between the two animals are two intertwined trees. The hair on the
humps is drawn with vertical stripes. In reality two-humped camels are not
indigenous to the Jenissei valley. Their appearence in the art of this region must
be an importation from the south as Czaplicka has already mentioned (18). The
frame is simplified on the plaque decorated with camels with raised heads (Plate
XXVIII no. 2). The leaves are connected neither with the border nor with the
tree at the centre, they are below the muzzles and at the backs of the animals.
So simplified a form would at Minussinsk already belong to the middle of the I
millennium and in China should date, at the earliest, at the beginning of the
T'ang period.
We find a pair of camels completely lacking in modeling (Plate XXVIII no. 3)
created at a period around 1000. The motive of intertwined trees has become
a double rope which continues the braid of the frame, rests on the backs of the