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

mentioned harness-ornaments, while the second, already weak in form, should
be placed at the end of our art.
3) Weapons.
We have shown that northern Chinese frontier objects are derived from
various regions of the Eurasiatic Steppes. As far as use and ornamentation
are concerned, only weapons may all be connected with one locality alone. They
always go back to Minussinsk art. There is but little information concerning
the intercourse of these neighbours of China with their hinterland until the
middle of the I millennium, and this intercourse is therefore not easy to explain.
Probably in ancient times the upper valley of the Jenissei was a centre of export-
ation, which would be the reason for their playing so important a role as promoter
of forms. Moreover, this region was so favoured by natural conditions, that it,
more than any other, was fitted to be the home of art.
This branch of our study will have to be incomplete, due partly to lack of
space. We shall first deal with hacking, cutting and stabbing weapons. Axes,
mattocks and other weapons will be dealt with in another work.
a) Daggers with thorns.
M. P. Grjasnoff has pointed out that the dagger with thorns is the oldest
type in the art of metals (7). It is characterised by the two projections at either
side of the guard, by its long rugged handle crowned with an animal-head,
usually that of a stag the antlers of which form arcs, and finally by the loop
which serves as a means of attaching the weapon. Grjasnoff accepts the date of
1000 B.C., first established by Teplouchoff for daggers of a Jenissei origin (8),
that is to say of the Minussinsk bronze era, which Teplouchoff calls Kara-suk.
Grjasnoff's example from Verkhne-udinsk belongs to this group. It should first
be mentioned that the succession established by these two Russian authors for
this type deserves complete confidence, but they are inclined to give too early a
date. It seems advisable, as we have already pointed out in Chapter V, to
make the Kurgan period continue until the middle of the I millennium A.D.
and to admit the possibility of a slow degeneration in Siberia proper. Grjasnoff
lays stress on the somewhat stylised character of the example of which he speaks.
But another specimen from Tchita, crowned with a ram-head, deserves even
more than this piece to represent the typical art of Kara-suk (Plate XXXVI
no. 1) because of its style. It is characterised by a combination of naturalistic
and stylised elements typical of the conventional art of the Steppes and from which
degenerated, confused, and badly proportioned forms presumably descend.
The type of the two-edged dagger is probably older than the knives of which
we shall speak later on. The Loo collection owns a repliqua of the dagger
with thorns that comes from the north of China (Plate XXXVI no. 2). If we
compare it with the Tchita weapon, which is certainly earlier than the beginning
of our era, the resemblance as a whole, as well as the slight differences are