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

V: 2; Salmony, Pl. 38: 8; Inner Mongolia and
the Region of the Great Wall, Pl. V: 8. All
these are bronze knives. Of special interest is a
bronze tube in the last mentioned publication,
Pl. XI: 2, and here reproduced as Fig. 15, be-
cause of its combined decoration of cowries
and triangle-bands, i. e. two different elements
possibly denoting fertility.

In the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in
Stockholm there are several unpublished Ordos
knives with elaborate triangle-band designs,
two of them being reproduced, with kind per-
mission, as Fig. 16.

From the Minusinsk region reference may be
made to Martin's publications (1893 Pl. 11: 3
—6, Pl. 15: 8—9, and 1897, Pl. 24: 4).

The relief designs on these bronzes, whether geometrical
patterns or elaborate animal representations, originally imi-
tated wood-carvings. Grave finds from Siberia and Altai
have proved this beyond doubt in the case of the animal fig-
ures. We may be quite sure that geometric carvings simi-
lar to those on the pegs and arrows from our cemetery were
the prototypes for the bronze pattern referred to above. In
wood, this pattern has remained in use up to modern times
(Martin 1897, Pl. 13: 5—7, some cutting-boards from the
Ostyaks), and on Swedish Lap carvings in bone.

One of the famous Noyan-ola textiles has a pattern of rows of pointed triangles
alternating with geometrical scrolls (Trever, Pl. 19: 3), no doubt a Chinese silk
fabric but with an unusual "barbaric" design.

Certain Chinese bronze mirrors of the Han period have one or more borders of
small triangles, the so-called saw-tooth pattern, usually near the outer rim (for
instance Sirén 1930, Vol. 2, Pl. 66—68) but it is uncertain whether this pattern has
anything in common with our triangle-rows.

The well-made arrow-shaft No. 5: 112 is a little different in the ornamentation,
as seen on the drawing Fig. 14: 5. It has five single rows of triangles with the points
turned in the same direction. There are four such groups.

Beside these symbolic arrows there are also some real ones. 5. D: 3 is a fragment
of a reed arrow with three feathers lashed to the butt. This type is well known from
the Han ruins along the Tun-huang limes (Stein 1921, Pl. LIII, T. XV. a. vi. 001)
and at Edsen-gol in the still unpublished material found by me in 1931.

5: 113—114 (Pl. 7: 10) are two stout arrows with a marked notch for the bow-

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