Xiongnu horse decorations 1st C. BCE

September 01, 2023

Xiongnu horse decorations 1st C. BCE - 1st C. CE

"Unlike the other depictions of the unicorn, the beast on the round ornaments has winglets on its chest and hips. Of the eight discovered round silver ornaments, four of the beasts are depicted facing right and four are depicted facing left. Clouds are also shown on either side of the beast, beside the horn and beneath the legs, perhaps with the purpose of conveying the other-worldly, celestial nature of this creature.

The decorated silver ornaments unearthed from numerous Xiongnu noble tombs are of two shapes: elongated and rounded. Some are plated with gold, and one was discovered as a single piece crafted from bronze.

Silver ornaments identical to those found at Gol Mod were discovered in large quantities from the tombs of Xiongnu nobility across Mongolia and Buriatiia (Fig. 3), including tomb 6 (Rudenko 1962, Pl. 36,3; 37,1.3.) and tomb 20 at Noyon Uul (Tseveendorzh et al. 2007a, 300; 2008) necropolis as well as tomb 7 in the Tsaram necropolis (Miniaev/Sakharovskaia 2007b, 162 Fig. 3,5.6). Similar artifacts have also been unearthed from tombs other than the royal Xiongnu burials (Fig. 4). Chalcedony-inserted elongated artifacts discovered in graves tombs of Nangnang culture in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea were identified by Korean scholars as decorations of horse crupper (Nangnang 2001, 39; 55; 57; 61). In addition, Han dynasty tombs have yielded similar fan-shaped decorative pieces, often called “silver petals”, which Chinese scholars have identified as the items of a horse harness. These were found in princely tombs of far south China in Shizhaishan, Yunnan province and Putuo, Guangxi as well as a tomb in central China at Xiaomintun, Henan (Sun 2001, 103–104).

These items were unearthed from tombs which also contained lacquer-plated chariots, further evidencing their utility as equestrian decoration. The positioning of these ornaments inside tombs, namely to the left or right of the inner chamber, is also not coincidental. In order for a horse to pull a carriage, wagon, or sleigh, a reliable and practical harness is needed. With the advent of saddles emerged a need for broad strappings to firmly hold the saddle under the horse’s barrel, and thus emerged the breast-strap and crupper (Bünchin 1978, 81; Songino 1991, 121). From the above mentioned information, we may assess that the rounded shaped decorative silver ornaments were attached to breast-straps and the elongated-shaped ones were attached to cruppers (Fig. 5).

Stylized depictions of various beasts are present not only on silver ornaments but also in many occasions sewn onto felt rugs or carved onto bone decorations of the Xiongnu. The presence of decoration with mythical beasts in the noble tombs of the Xiongnu might be connected to their revered position in society. On the other hand, the presence of such beasts within tombs could also be related to perceptions of the afterlife among the Xiongnu (see Martin, this volume). Some scholars believe that these depictions can be interpreted by the cosmological myths of the Xiongnu (Sükhbaatar 1980, 145)."

-Ursula Brosseder, Belt Plaques as indicator of East West relations