LITMIR.BIZ

      FIGURE 3. The design on the belt plaque from grave M2.

      MIRRORS AND BELT PLAQUES: TRADE AND EXCHANGE

      The state of scholarship in the field of interactions between and identities of the cultures of the steppe and China is well illustrated by a brief consideration of two types of object found in tombs across the ecological divide—the mirror and the belt plaque. The former has long been associated with the Chinese and the latter with the steppe, but this has recently been challenged, and more complex models have been proposed.

      Mirrors were long assumed by most to have arisen independently in the central China Shang (Yin) culture. This assumption has been subjected to careful research, and many scholars now argue that the mirror came to China from Central Asia.⁴⁶ In this revised scenario, Li Zhang (Jaang) has proposed two early and consecutive routes of influence between the steppe and central China.⁴⁷ The first had its intermediary in the Qijia culture (ca. 2200–1700 BC) of the Hexi corridor in present-day Northwest China—an important section on the later “Silk Road.” Mirrors arrived here from the Bactrian-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) in northern Central Asia, going north to the Altai and then south along the Ejin River or Etsingol to its source in the Qilian Mountains, which form the southern border of the Hexi corridor. From here the fashion and technology were transferred to the Erlitou culture (ca. 1900–1500 BC), which thrived around present-day Luoyang, just south of the Yellow River in central China.

      A new route of influence emerged around the middle or end of the Erlitou culture, which, Li argues, was to supplant the Ejin River route and is called the Northern Zone. This comprised the Ordos region and surrounding areas to the east and south. It was separated from the Ejin River route by a mountain range, the Helan, and Li Zhang further argues that connections between central China and the Hexi corridor, home of the cultures that later gave rise to the Zhou (1046–256 BC), were not very active at this time.⁴⁸ She sees interaction with central China from across the length of the steppe through the Northern Zone. This interaction is shown by objects that appeared in tombs in this area but also by objects found in central China—namely the bronzes of the Shang. Shang burials, meanwhile, also held objects from the steppe. Mirrors, however, disappeared from central China, only reappearing—but in a different style and again probably introduced from the steppe—in the eleventh century in the Zhou culture that was to succeed the Shang. So we see, not a single transmission, or one route, but changing spheres of influence and diffusion. If we accept this, we also see clear cultural importation from the steppe into central China.

      The belt plaque found in tomb M2 is a typical accouterment found in graves across the steppe from the Black Sea to the Ordos and the subject of much continuing scholarly debate (figure 3). The belt made of plaques was particular to no one people of the steppe and, as well as being a practical item of clothing, was widely used as an indicator of social status and much more besides.⁴⁹ The plaque in M2 is gold and shows a design of a beast of prey attacking another animal, in this case a tiger attacking a wild boar. This theme of animal predation is found in the Scythic-Siberian culture, which spread across the steppe and thrived into the first millennium AD.⁵⁰ It is usually wrought in gold belt plaques, sword scabbards, buckles, and other portable objects.⁵¹ But animal predation is not a theme unique to the steppe. It appears in Egypt in the late fourth millennium BC and then in West Asia a millennium later; the lid of a silver cosmetic box from the Royal Cemetery at Ur (ca. 2650–2550 BC) (present-day southern Iraq) shows a lion savaging a ram.⁵² From the first millennium BC it is depicted by the empires bordering the steppe in a variety of settings and media: for example, shown in the ninth century BC on an obelisk at the Assyrian city of Nimrud; in gold and silver among the Ziwiye treasure from around 700 BC, on the border of present-day Iran and Iraq; in stone reliefs at the Achaemenid capital of Persepolis from the sixth century BC; and in the fourth century BC on a mosaic at the House of Dionysus, in Pella, Greece, painted in Macedonian tombs, and carved on an Etruscan sarcophagus.⁵³ To see a simple line of transmission is all too tempting. As Ada Cohen notes in her discussion of this theme in the art of Alexander the Great (r. 336–323 BC), “There is an unavoidable impulse to postulate intercultural influence in order to explain its presence in the Greek world.”⁵⁴ But as Cohen also notes, writers from the time of the French essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) have noticed the universality of the appeal of this theme in human societies, and it could be argued with equal force that it emerged in different places at different times.⁵⁵ What might be more interesting, she suggests, would be to explore the meanings and depictions of the theme in different cultures and see if and how they overlapped.⁵⁶

      How much the Xiongnu were influenced by the Scythic-Siberian culture that stretched across the steppe to their west is uncertain. Some scholars see the Xiongnu as the continuation of this culture, while others see the Xiongnu as distinct, albeit having absorbed some influences.⁵⁷ Whatever the case, the Xiongnu also used belt plaques, as shown by those in the Xigoupan and many other tombs. They were part of steppe attire, used both to hold the short upper tunic of the horseman—or woman—in place and as portable storage, to hold daggers and other essential implements. In classical China, the traditional dress was a long gown, unsuitable for riding and not needing such a belt.⁵⁸ Yet we see steppe-style belt plaques in central China from this time, as in the grave of the king of the Chu state, Liu Wu (r. 174–154 BC), at Shizhishan near Xuzhou in eastern China, and in the tomb of King Zhao Mo of Nan Yue in southern China (see chapter 2). Those in the tomb of Liu Wu are in gold. They are identical to gilded bronze pieces found in a burial in Pokrovka 2 cemetery on the Ural River, north of the Caspian in Russia; to belt plaques from a Han-period tomb outside Xian in central China; and to two others in gilded bronze now in a New York collection.⁵⁹ Emma Bunker discusses these and suggests a possible origin in North China. She further argues that the design has been adapted to fit Chinese taste in that “the vigor of the attack scene is almost lost in the manipulation of shapes into pleasing patterns.”⁶⁰

      The belt plaques found in Liu Wu’s tomb near Xuzhou and those from Xigoupan have Chinese characters engraved on the back, giving their weight and details of their subject matter. This supports the argument that they were produced in Chinese workshops or at least by Chinese craftsmen.⁶¹ In addition, the reverse of a Xigoupan M2 plaque shows the impression of a textile, suggesting that it was made by the lost-wax lost-textile technique.⁶² In her study of these objects, Katheryn Linduff suggests that this “was a Chinese invention that was aimed particularly at the efficient production of objects for the foreign [steppe] market.”⁶³ Other items from these tombs of the Xiongnu period show mercury gilding, and Bunker concludes that these were also made in Chinese workshops.⁶⁴ If this is indeed the case, then we see a steppe object and motif—the belt plaque with the motif of animal predation—being adopted within central China and also adapted for production for a market outside China. Evidence suggests that the production of artifacts for the steppe market probably began in the kingdoms of fourth- to third-century China, before its unification.⁶⁵ Other finds demonstrate the further movement of these items, whether by trade, gift, or plunder.

      The discovery of these belt plaques shows not only that artisans in the kingdoms of China were producing items for the steppe market but that some Chinese had also acquired a taste for these items, even if in some cases the theme was modified.⁶⁶ Their lavishness and their presence in elite tombs, as instanced by the gold and glass plaques of the king of Nan Yue (see chapter 2) and the massive gold plaques of the king of Chu, suggests they were a mark of wealth and power. Military leadership undoubtedly remained a mark of the Xiongnu elite, but this elite was now also involved in trade as an alternative form of wealth and status.⁶⁷ In Di Cosmo’s words:

      The

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