Volume 2 Number 1 June 2004 “The Bridge between Eastern and Western cultures”

From the Editor In This Issue

• Bronze Age Steppe Archaeology When did the “” begin? To silk made its way to the Medi- a considerable degree, the answer terranean world by Han and Roman • The Antiquity of the depends on how we interpret the times were hardly unique. In short, archaeological evidence about Inner what we see here is a conscious • The Burial Rite in Sogdiana Asian nomads and their relations effort to argue for “globalization” with sedentary peoples. Long- before the advent of the modern • The Caravan City of accepted views about the Silk Road global economy. • The Tea and Horse Road in situate its origins in the interaction between the Han and the Xiongnu Michael Frachetti’s contribution to • Klavdiia Antipina, Ethnographer beginning in the second century BCE, this issue suggests that in learning of the Kyrgyz as related in the first instance in the about the world of nomads, we might Han histories. As the stimulating best start by thinking about local • Mongolia Today recent book by Nicola Di Cosmo networks, not migrations over long reminds us though, if we are to gain distances. Of particular interest here • The Khotan Symposium in London an Inner Asian perspective on the is the possibility that patterns of development of nomadic power we short-distance migration from need to distinguish carefully lowland winter settlements to pastures in the mountains can be Next Issue between the picture drawn from those written sources and what the documented from the archaeological 1 record for earlier millennia. The • Stride, Padwa and Kansa on archaeological evidence reveals. project described by Frachetti also the GIS Atlas of Ancient Although this is not the direct concern Bactria of Di Cosmo’s book, others with an reminds us of how much the new Inner Asian perspective argue that interpretations of archaeological • Dr. Alexander Leskov on the we really should think of the “Silk material depend on the application Maikop Treasure Road” as part of a continuum of of modern technologies ranging from nomadic movement and interaction GIS (Geographic Information • Reviews of new books on the across Eurasia dating from much Systems) mapping to microscopic Silk Road 3 earlier times.2 analysis of pollen. We have come a long way from the days of the And more.... It is possible, of course, that an pioneer of Silk Road archaeology, Inner Asian perspective risks reading Aurel Stein, who has just been back in time too much from what we celebrated in an attractively About know about the best documented produced new book by Susan and unquestionably most extensive Whitfield.4 Inner Asian empire, that of the The Silk Road is a publication of the Mongols. That is, the dramatic and When we think of nomadic culture, Silkroad Foundation. The Silk Road can rapid expansion by the Mongols in one of the first images that comes to also be viewed online at the thirteenth century, which mind is the or yurt. are http://www.silkroadfoundation.org unquestionably facilitated the ephemeral, even if their design has movement of the products of other a long history. Not surprisingly then, Please feel free to contact us with any cultures into and across Central David Stronach relies on historically questions or contributions. See the datable images of yurts to revise Guidelines for Contributors at the back Eurasia, is a tempting model to of this issue. explain how cowrie shells or Persian what we know about the earliest motifs find their way millennia earlier dates for which the yurt’s existence. The Silkroad Foundation into early nomadic tombs. Indeed we By asking new questions of evidence P.O. Box 2275 might reasonably conclude from the which has been known for some time, Saratoga, CA 95070 material evidence that there was he plausibly adds nearly a millennium perhaps regular commerce and to the documented history of the Editor: Daniel C. Waugh interaction with distant places. Thus yurt, pushing its origins back to ca. [email protected] 600 BCE. Guitty Azarpay’s reinterpre- Editorial Assistant: Lance Jenott the developments by which Chinese

© 2004 Silkroad Foundation tation of a well-known mural from of the region that embraces the history and culture which is so lacking Panjikent nicely complements upper Yangtze valley.6 As in the case in those who guide both domestic Stronach’s article by reinforcing for us of so many other regions, the routes and international politics. Alas, at the the importance of examining images of trade and cultural exchange which beginning of the twenty-first century, for the information they may contain Yang can document from written the prognosis for any number of about the interaction between evidence only at some late stage in countries along the historic Silk Road nomadic and sedentary cultures. their existence in fact have a much is far from sanguine. Azarpay and Stronach exercise longer history. Mountainous terrain admirable caution in drawing and swiftly flowing rivers did not Daniel Waugh conclusions about cultural exchange necessarily isolate people. As Department of History involving the nomads. Would that students of the Silk Road and its University of Washington (Seattle) anthropologist Jack Weatherford, many feeder routes, we should be [email protected] who advances ahistorical general- as interested in their recent history izations about the impact of the as in the question of when they Notes Mongols on world history in his began, if for no other reason than to recently published self-indulgent gain some appreciation for what 1. Nicola Di Cosmo, Ancient China and popularization, had shown even a travel along those routes may have Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic fraction of their good judgment.5 been like in an earlier era. A case in Power in East Asian History (Cam- Stronach’s article, in which key point is the Tea and Horse Road, bridge, etc.: Cambridge University evidence comes from Iran, and Albert which arguably experienced in World Press, 2002). Dien’s article on the Syrian caravan War II the peak period of its traffic city of Palmyra, underscore the fact thanks to the exigencies of the war. 2. A good summary of such argu- that any history of the Silk Road ments is in David Christian, “Silk The tragic events of the twentieth Roads or Steppe Roads: The Silk needs to give Western Asia equal century have, of course, affected time with Eastern and Central Asia. Roads in World History,” Journal of directly the lives of scholars who work World History, 11/1 (2000): 1-26. Given the paucity of concrete on the areas of Inner Asia that documentation about the individuals interest us, as the history of Klavdiia 3. Another project illuminating early involved in the Eurasian trade, the Antipina, movingly recounted by John inscriptions at Palmyra offer at least Inner Asian nomadic culture and Sommer, attests. This is certainly not using GIS technology is “Altay: Joint a good start for reconstructing the the first instance where exile created organization of the caravan trade Mongolian/American/Russian Project” the circumstances in which a scholar (http://www.uoregon.edu/~altay), which shaped the city’s fate. Yet the could contribute substantially to limits of that evidence are also quite which is carefully mapping petro- knowledge of a region and culture glyphs, ritual sites and other surface apparent. We learn about only one that she otherwise would likely never of what must have been many evidence over a very large territory have studied. Yet the constraints on the Altai Mountains. routes converging on the city. Much imposed by Soviet system seriously about the social history of the limited the degree to which most caravan leaders is conjectural. At 4. Susan Whitfield, Aurel Stein on the scholars could interact with their Silk Road (Chicago: Serindia, 2004). very least we can appreciate that the foreign colleagues or even become Silk Road was not just a line con- acquainted with their work. While 5. Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan necting two great cities, Chang’an scholarship today is still not free from and Rome, but a path with multiple and the Making of the Modern World constraints imposed by politics, at (New York: Crown, 2004). branches involving many intermediary least the mechanisms for com- centers and local networks. munication across international 6. I have in mind the material It is only by discarding pre- boundaries now make possible the exhibited in Ancient : Trea- conceptions about levels of culture kind of cutting-edge scholarly sures from a Lost Civilization, ed. which tend to privilege a few centers exchange such as the Khotan Robert Bagley (Seattle: Seattle Art that we will be able to appreciate the Symposium in London on which Museum; Princeton: Princeton Uni- complexity of our subject. The Richard Salomon reports for this versity Press, 2001). importance of a very different set of issue. regional networks is clear fromYang Whether the twenty-first century * * * Fuquan’s article on the “Tea and will be as kind to the countries of the Horse Road” in southwest China and Silk Road as to scholarship on its Special thanks to Ruth and Frank Tibet, the story of which is absent ancient history is quite another Harold for providing their excellent from histories of the Silk Road. matter. One cannot but be alarmed photographs of Palmyra. Other pho- Spectacular archaeological discov- by Morris Rossabi’s report about the tos of theirs from travels along the eries in Sichuan in recent years have current situation in Mongolia, Silk Road may be viewed at http:// forced scholars to reassess the observations informed by the kind of www.depts.washington.edu/uwch/ “remoteness” and “backwardness” deep understanding of that country’s silkroad/cities/cities.html.

2 and evolution of Indo-Iranian and ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS OF BRONZE Indo-European languages across the Eurasian Steppes (Mallory and Mair AGE PASTORAL SOCIETIES IN THE 2000); and 3) the widespread transfer of metallurgical and other MOUNTAINS OF EASTERN EURASIA material culture across the Eurasian Steppe Zone (Chernykh 1992). Each of these processes is documented by archaeological and/or historical Michael D. Frachetti linguistic evidence, and debates University of Pennsylvania concerning these materials have produced an extensive and detailed literature, which cannot be fully Throughout history, nomadic (Fig. 1). Academically, as a result of addressed here. Commonly, how- societies of the Eurasian steppes are its huge geographic expanse and its ever, all of these innovations of the known to have played a major role geo-political role in the historical second millennium BCE have been in the transfer of technology, developments of the region, the connected with the widespread commodities, language, and culture Eurasian steppe zone is commonly development of “nomadic pas- between , the Near East, considered a key part of the broader toralism” in the steppe zone, and and Europe (e.g. The Silk Road). territory of Central Asia (present day framed in relation to the evolution of However, the organization of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Bronze Age steppe societies Eurasian steppe societies in Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and (Kuz’mina 1994) — collectively known prehistory is still poorly understood. ). as the “Andronovo Cultural Com- The problem lies in the lack of The Bronze Age of the Eurasian munity”. scientifically analyzed archaeological steppe zone (c. 2500-1000 BCE) is The “Andronovo Cultural Com- data from the region, and in the considered by archaeologists and munity” is the name used to describe ineffectiveness of previous archae- linguists to be a time in prehistory a cultural phenomenon that became ological approaches to provide a when a number of major tech- widespread across the Eurasian dynamic model of social interactions nological, linguistic, and cultural steppes during the second mil- between pastoral societies during innovations changed the way lennium BCE (Sorokin 1966). the Bronze Age (c. 2500-1000 BCE). societies of Eastern Europe, Asia, Specifically, the Andronovo Culture is Geographically, the Eurasian and the Near East interacted. Among a general term that describes a steppe zone spans from the grassy these innovations are: 1) the widely distributed set of archaeo- plains north of the Black Sea to the proliferation of horse riding tech- logically documented materials steppes of Mongolia, and from the nology and the development of including: 1) open form ceramic jars forest steppes of southern Siberia to wheeled transport in the form of with incised geometric decorations; the deserts and arid grasslands of horse drawn chariots (Anthony and 2) stone-lined burials located under Semirech’e, in southern Kazakhstan Brown 2000); 2) the transmission round mounds of earth or within rectangular stone structures; and 3) specific bronze objects such as axes, weapons, and jewelry (Fig. 2, next page). These are the main elements used in the general classification of the Andronovo Culture, and there are “cultural” sub-groups that are based on variations in the decoration and attributes of this material package. Furthermore, the sub- cultures of the Andronovo are associated with different regions of the steppe zone as well as different time periods in the culture history of the region. This framework is commonly used to define the movements of people and artifacts in the region and over time (Zdanovich 1988). It is important to recognize that the basis for the traditional Andronovo classification is rooted in comparative material culture, which only in the past 5-7 years has come under serious Modified from: neespi.gsfc.nasa.gov/maps.html Fig. 1 - Eurasian Steppe Zone and Study Zone

3 associations be- scientific methods, e.g. recent tween ceramics (or projects by David Anthony; Claudia metals) as evi- Chang, Natalia Shishlina, and others dence for inter- (e.g. Miller-Rosen et al. 2000; active conditions Parzinger et al. 2003). between mobile Although these new projects are populations of the beginning to improve our picture of second millennium Eurasian Bronze Age systems, the BCE (also Potem- main problem remains that tradi- kina and Shilov tional claims concerning the role that 1985; Mej 2000). the Andronovo Culture played in the Critics of this innovations and developments that stance have noted occurred across the Eurasian steppe that the overriding zone in prehistory are not based in image of the scientific reconstructions of the “nomadic pastor- economic and socio-political charac- alists” that occu- teristics of Bronze Age nomadic pied the steppe pastoral society. Therefore, the goal region during pre- of my research is to contribute new

After Kuz’mina 1994 and Kadyrbaev and Kurmankulov 1992 Kurmankulov and Kadyrbaev and 1994 Kuz’mina After history is primarily scientific data and approaches to based on an his- modeling systems of mobile pas- Fig. 2. Archaeological Material of the Andronovo Culture torical under- toralism in Eurasia during prehistory, scrutiny by world scientists as to its standing of nomadic migration and in order to develop an archaeo- effectiveness in helping us to explain interaction, rather than on detailed logically based explanation of dynamic processes that occurred archaeological reconstructions (for interaction and communication during the Bronze Age (Lamberg- discussion see Renfrew 2002). In between regional populations during Karlovsky 2002; Renfrew 2002). fact, to date there are few archae- the Bronze Age. Only then can we ological approaches specifically begin to have a more detailed under- More precisely, the problem with designed to explain local systems of standing of how language, tech- the traditional classification is that pastoralism in the steppe zone nology, and culture may have spread similarities in the material artifacts during the Bronze Age, and even across the region in prehistory. from different regions are used as fewer that illustrate how economic THE DZHUNGAR MOUNTAINS evidence for interactions, migrations, and social interactions between ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT: METHODS, and regional relationships, yet there regional populations may have been RESULTS, AND QUESTIONS is little scientific research that generated by actual nomadic or semi- explains how those interactions may nomadic practices in prehistory. The problem of Bronze Age mobile have taken place. The most Notable research within the past 5- pastoralism in Eurasia is the main prominent explanation of the way 7 years has shown that the archae- focus of my ongoing research and is materials, technology, and language ological data have more to tell us the focus of the “Dzhungar “spread” across the steppe is when approached with modern Mountains Archaeology Project” provided by Elena Kuz’mina (Kuz’mina 1994), who models interaction as a result of migration, with “waves” of steppe societies slowing moving from the Ural region of south to the southeastern boundaries of the steppe zone. According to Kuz’mina, migration to the southeast was a response to environmental change and popu- lation pressure during the second millennium BCE, and was made possible by increased mobility that was part of the pastoral economy of the Bronze Age, specifically through horse riding and wagon technology (Kuz’mina 1998). Although else- where migration models are widely questioned, Kuz’mina’s model is echoed in the work of many other

scholars (Kosarev 1984; Mallory and Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=4435 Mair 2000) — all of whom cite formal http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ from: Adapted Fig. 3. Semirech’e and the Dzhungar Mountains

4 (DMAP). The goal of the DMAP is to New collaborative archaeological in May 2002, the surface survey develop theoretical and analytical studies in the Koksu Valley began in accounted for more than 1500 km2 approaches to the study of pre- 2002, within the structure of the of total landscape analysis, and historic pastoral societies of the Dzhungar Mountains Archaeology 106.7 km2 (10,671 hectares) of field- steppe through new archaeological Project. The goal of the field research walked polygons. For archaeological studies in the Semirech’e region of was to reconstruct the paleo- recovery, the Koksu River valley and southeastern Kazakhstan. Specif- environment and archaeology of the floodplain was divided into ten ically, the study zone is located in the study region, so that scientifically topographic landscape polygons: Koksu River Valley, and includes the collected data could be used to test two lowland polygons, five mid- surrounding steppe meadows of the hypotheses about the mobility elevation polygons, and three upland Dzhungar Mountains (Fig. 3, p.4). To patterns and areas of interaction of elevation polygons. Prehistoric sites date, archaeological studies have mobile pastoralists in prehistory. The were recorded in all of these areas. been carried out in the form of an primary focus of our archaeological Excavations: In order to have more extensive landscape survey and four excavations was at the site of scientific details concerning Bronze small-scale excavations (one Bronze Begash, which includes a Bronze Age Age social and economic ways of life, Age settlement and three Bronze Age settlement and two large Bronze Age cemeteries. The field research was excavations were conducted of a burials). 1 carried out together with Dr. Alexei Bronze Age (2200-1000 cal BC ) The study region was selected for Mar’iashev from the Institute of settlement site and burial complex a number of reasons. First, the Archaeology in Almaty (Kazakhstan), discovered near the village of environment of southeast Kazakh- geologist Dr. Bulat Aubekerov, and Begash, during the archaeological stan varies drastically from sandy botanist Dr. Saida Nigmatova, from survey phase. For the settlement deserts, grassy steppe-lands, to the Kazakh National Academy of site, the excavation strategy was alpine conditions, within a Science (also in Almaty). In addition designed to recover both ecological geographic extent of less than 100 to collaborative studies, each of data as well as cultural material. kilometers (west to east). This these scholars has been able to With paleo-climatologists, botanists, variation enables concise investi- develop their own research interests and geomorphologists, our strategy gation of various environmental within the scope of the project also included botanical and soil contexts within a logistically (Mar’iashev and Frachetti in press; sampling and the collection of reasonable territory, and allows for Aubekerov et al. 2003). archaeo-fauna and organic material the correlation between archaeo- suitable for radiocarbon dating. logical materials and different Field methods: In addition to the settlement environmental niches. Second, excavation, three Bronze Age burials The overall project methodology substantial ethno-historical docu- were excavated, revealing (Fig. 4) builds on a number of archaeological mentation as well as previous human remains as well as rare approaches. These include: 1) archaeological research suggests bronze and gold earrings. With the surface survey and mapping; 2) that the river valleys of the Dzhungar permission of the Kazakh authorities, archaeological excavation; 3) paleo- Mountains had been host to pastoral the human remains were brought to environmental sampling; and 4) societies since at least the Bronze the University of Pennsylvania for computer assisted spatial modeling Age. studies of DNA and physical anthro- using Geographic Information pology. This is one of the few Recent research by Alexei Systems (GIS). The project was instances since the demise of the Mar’iashev (among others) of the equipped with state of the art Soviet Union that a collection of Institute of Archaeology in Almaty technology for archaeological Central Asian human remains is (Kazakhstan) reopened interest in reconnaissance, mapping, and in- being studied within the United the archaeology of Dzhungaria in the the-field analysis — including Global States. 1990’s, suggesting that the glacially Positioning Systems, digital carved valley of the Koksu River might photography, dynamic satellite be host to hundreds of prehistoric imaging, and GIS. These tools sites and thousands of rock-art enabled the quick and accurate panels — likely dating to the Bronze recording of archaeological sites and Age or earlier (Mar’iashev and features, as well as timely sum- Goriachev 1993). His excavations of maries and trend analysis of our the burials at Talapty and Kuigan findings. demonstrated a regional variant of the Andronovo Culture, based on Archaeological survey: The main common ceramics and simple metal objective of the archaeological grave goods (Goryachev and survey was to make a detailed Mar’yashev 1998). Of great interest database and digital map of the is the abundant rock-art in the Koksu archaeological monuments (burials, Valley, studies of which have recently settlements, rock-art, megaliths, intensified (Mar’iashev and Goriachev etc.) based on field walking and 1998). surface reconnaissance. Conducted Photo © Michael D. Frachetti Fig. 4. Excavated skull and bronze earring

5 teries, rock-art, scientific analysis of particular places ritual construc- in the Bronze Age landscape. tions, and stone monuments. For example, geographic and From excavations spatial analysis of the survey data, at the settlement in conjunction with detailed en- site “Begash” we vironmental reconstructions from collected Bronze paleo-botanical studies, has led to Age ceramic frag- some compelling models for pastoral ments, as well as mobility patterns and social in- spinning and teraction within the study zone weaving artfacts, (Frachetti in press). These models grindstones, and suggest that during the Bronze Age bone implments. pastoralists did not migrate beyond In addition to 50 km in mountain zones (Fig. 6), artifacts, over 50 which contradicts ideas that kg of archaeo- pastoralists of this time were faunal remains, engaged in long distance migrations. soil samples, bo- In addition, I have used archaeo- Fig. 5. Computer generated viewshed of the Koksu Valley tanical samples, faunal data from our excavations to and the study zone using GIS. and radiocarbon argue for patterns of local man- samples were agement of specific herd animals Computer Modeling and Scientific collected for scientific analysis. From such as sheep and cattle. More Analysis: Synthesis of the project the burial excavations, soil samples comprehensive discussions of herd database and computer modeling is and skeletal material were collected. dynamics and herd management still underway, which entails using These samples enable a preliminary strategies are in preparation, while GIS to understand the distribution of reconstruction of the domestic more complete analysis of the animal archaeological features and eco- economy, trade practices, and bones and more details concerning logical conditions within the study practices of Bronze Age populations the formation of the settlement site zone. Computer simulations allow for in the valley, and expose dynamic are also underway. Furthermore, a the reconstruction of past landscapes relationships through trade networks major analytical priority of the DMAP (Fig. 5), as well as an understanding across the wider region. These was radiocarbon dating, which of how sites are statistically situated networks are being modeled using revealed that the settlement at in the valley, by correlating the actual computer simulations tied to the Begash is the oldest dated Bronze monument types with various factors such as the environ- mental zones.

Preliminary results

The preliminary results of the field work and initial stages of analysis have been useful for new models of the Bronze Age system of pastoralism, and for reconstructions of the nature of social interaction in the study zone. Within the scope of the archaeological survey, over 380 new archaeological sites were recorded in the study region. The sites included prehistoric set- tlements, ceme-

Fig. 6 - Calculated herding routes from BA settlements to summer pastures 6 Age settlement in the region (c. 2600 widely. By reorienting our under- (GIS) For Predicting Site Locations – 1000 cal BC). standing of prehistoric steppe and For Modeling Ancient Settlement Questions pastoralism, such archaeological Patterns in Talgar,” Izvestiia Instituta initiatives can make an important arkheologii Kazakhstana [News of the There are many questions that contribution in re-writing the long- Institute of Archaeology of Ka- remain unanswered after the initial term history of Eurasia. zakhstan], 1998/1: 95-105. stages of field research in Kazakh- stan. These include: About the author Chernykh 1992 1) What is the structure of Michael Frachetti has an M.Phil. from E. N. Chernykh. Ancient Metallurgy in domesticated herds during the Cambridge University and is about to the USSR: The Early Metal Age. Bronze Age, and how do herd finish his Ph.D. in the Department of Cambridge: Cambridge University statistics relate to patterns of Anthropology, University of Penn- Press, 1992. mobility in the Dzhungar Mountains? sylvania. He has directed the Dzhun- 2) What was the role of exotic gar Mountain Archaeology Project Frachetti in press material culture in the formation of since 1999. He has also engaged in social and cultural identities, and archaeological projects in Finland, the M. Frachetti.”Digital Archaeology and does the model indicated here, of Italian Alps and Tunisia. the Scalar Structure of Space and localized interaction, provide an Time: Modeling Mobile Societies of explanation for contacts at a wider References Prehistoric Central Asia.” In P. Daly scale? and T. Evans, eds., Digital Archaeology. 3) What was the density of Anthony and Brown 2000 London: Routledge. population and settlement in a region like the Koksu Valley, and how did D.W. Anthony and D.R. Brown. Frachetti in press such a local system articulate with a “Eneolithic horse exploitation in the wider network of interactions in a Eurasian steppes: diet, ritual and M. Frachetti. “The Dzhungar practical and geographic manner? riding,” Antiquity, 74 (283) (2000): Mountains Archaeology Project: 75-86. 4) How does the model of mobile reconstructing Bronze Age life in the pastoralism proposed for the Koksu Aubekerov et al. 2003 mountains of Eastern Kazakhstan.” Valley compare with other steppe In T. Peterson, ed., Beyond the Steppe regions? Can we apply the same B.Zh. Aubekerov, S.A. Nigmatova, and the Sown: Integrating Local and modeling methods to other data and M.D. Frachetti. “Geomorfologi- Global Visions, Conference Pro- sets? cheskie osobennosti raiona arkhe- ceedings. Boston: Brill. The archaeo-fauna, paleo-botany, ologicheskogo pamiatnika Begash and skeletal data are still under Severnoi Zhongarii” (Geomorpho- Goryachev and Mar’yashev 1998 continuing analysis, and the answers logical Particulars in the Region of the to these detailed questions remain Archaeological Monument Begash of A. A. Goryachev and A. N. Mar’yashev. to be established by ongoing and Northern Dzhungaria). In Aktual’nye “Nouveaux sites du Bronze Recent au future scientific studies. problemy geosistem aridnykh territorii Semirech’e (Kazakhstan).” Paleorient, (Actual Geosystemic Problems of Arid 24/1 (1998): 71-80. FUTURE DIRECTION OF RESEARCH Terrritories). Almaty: Kazakhskii Recent archaeological studies of the gosudarstvennyi natsional’nyi Kadyrbaev and Kurmankulov 1992 steppe zone (east and west) Universitet, 2003: 287-289. represent the necessary step toward M. K. Kadyrbaev and Zh. Kurman- a scientifically grounded under- Bader et al. 1987 kulov. Kul’tura drevnikh skotovodov i standing of the movement patterns, metallurgov Sary-Arki (The Culture of social organization, and economy of O.N. Bader, D.A. Krainov, M.F. Kosarev, the Ancient Herders and Metallurgists prehistoric societies of eastern and Institut arkheologii (Akademiia of the Sary-Arki). Alma-Ata: Gylym, Eurasia, and will enable us to make nauk SSSR) Epokha bronzy lesnoi 1992. reliable reconstructions of processes polosy SSSR (The Bronze Age of the of social interaction, exchange, and Forest Zone of the USSR). : Kosarev 1984 communication among regional Izd-vo “Nauka,” 1987 (Arkheologiia societies of the second millennium SSSR [Izdanie v 20 tomakh]). M.F. Kosarev. Zapadnaia Sibir’ v BCE. The Dzhungar Mountains drevnosti (Western Siberia in Ancient Archaeology Project represents one Chang et al. 1998 Times). Moscow: Izd’vo. “Nauka,” such project focusing on the ecology 1984. and social organization of Bronze Age C. Chang, K.M. Baipakov, F. Grigoriev, pastoral society in eastern Kazakh- and P.Tourtellotte. “The Kazakh- Kuz’mina 1986 stan, placing attention on how mobile American Talgar Project: Archae- groups form social and political ological Survey and the Use of E. E. Kuz’mina. Drevneishie skotovody landscapes across the region more Geographic Information Systems ot Urala do Tian’-Shania (The Most

7 Ancient Herders from the Urals to the pamiatnikov Epokhi Bronzy Eurasian Steppes: Questions of Time Tian-Shan). Frunze: “Ilim,” 1986. Semirech’ia” (Typological and Depth.” In K. Jones-Bley and D. G. Chronological Questions of Bronze Zdanovich, eds., Complex Societies of Kuz’mina 1994 Age Sites of Semirech’e). Rossiiskaia Central Eurasia from the 3rd to the 1st arkheologiia [Russian Archeology], Millennium BC, Vol. 1. Washington, D. E. E. Kuz’mina. Otkuda prishli indoarii? 1993/1: 5-20. C.: Inst. for the Study of Man, 2002: Material’naia kul’tura plemen an- 3-20. dronovskoi obshchnosti i prois- Mar’iashev and Goriachev 1998 khozhdenie indoirantsev. (Whence Shishlina 1999 Came the Indo-Arians? The Material A.N. Mar’iashev and A.A. Goriachev. Culture of the Tribes of the Andronov Naskal’nye izobrazheniia Semirech’ia N. I. Shishlina. Tekstil’ Epokhi bronzy Cultural Community and the Origins (Rock-Art of Semirech’ia). vol. 1. Evraziiskikh stepei (A Bronze-Age of the Indo-Arians). Moscow: MGP Almaty: Izd’vo. Akademii nauk Textile of the Eurasian Steppes). “Kalina,” 1994. Kazakhstana, 1998. Moscow: Gosudarstvennyi istori- cheskii muzei, 1999 (Trudy Gosu- Kuz’mina 1998 Mar’yashev 1994 darstvennogo istoricheskogo muzeia). E. E. Kuz’mina. “Cultural Connections A. N. Mar’yashev. Petroglyphs of South of the People and Kazakhstan and Semirechye. Almaty: Sorokin 1966 Pastoralists of the Asian Steppes in Izd-vo. Akademii nauk Kazakhstana, the Bronze Age.” In V. Mair, ed., The 1994. V. S. Sorokin. Andronovskaia kultura. Bronze Age Peoples of Eastern Central Vyp. 1. Pamiatniki zapadnykh raionov Asia, Vol. 1. Philadelphia: University Mej 2000 (The Andronov Culture. Issue 1: of Pennsylvania Museum Publi- Monuments of the Western Regions). cations, 1998: 63-98. J. Mej. Copper and bronze metallurgy Leningrad: Izd-vo. Akademii nauk, in late prehistoric Xinjiang: its cultural 1966 (Arkheologiia SSSR, Svod Lamberg-Karlovsky 2002 context and relationship with arkheologicheskikh istochnikov, V3- neighbouring regions. Oxford: BAR 2). C.C. Lamberg-Karlovsky. “Archaelogy international series Archaeopress. and Language: The Indo-Iranians.” Hadrian Books distributor, 2000. Zdanovich 2002 Current Anthropology, 43/1 (2002): 63-88. Miller-Rosen et al. 2000 D.G. Zdanovich. Arkaim: nekropol’ (po materialam kurgana 25 Bol’she- Mallory 1989 A. Miller-Rosen, C. Chang, F. and karanskogo mogil’nika) (Arkaim: the Grigoriev, “Paleoenvironments and Necropolis — According to Materials J.P. Mallory. In Search of the Indo- economy of Iron Age Saka-Wusun of Kurgan 25 of the Bolshekaranskii Europeans. London: Thames and agro-pastoralists in southeastern Cemetery). Cheliabinsk: Iuzhno- Hudson, 1989. Kazakhstan.” Antiquity, 74 (285) Ural’skoe knizhnoe izd-vo., 2002. (2000): 611-23. Mallory and Mair 2000 Zdanovich 1988 Parzinger et al. 2003 J.P. Mallory and V.H. Mair. The Tarim G.B. Zdanovich. Bronzovyi vek Uralo- Mummies: Ancient China and the H. Parzinger, N.G.O. Boroffka, Kazakhstanskikh stepei (osnovy Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, periodizatsii) (The Bronze Age of the the West. New York: Thames and and Eurasien-Abteilung. Das Zinn der Urals/Kazakhstan Steppes — The Hudson, 2000. Bronzezeit in Mittelasien. Archäologie Basis for the Periodization). in Iran und Turan. Mainz: P. von Sverdlovsk: Izd-vo. Ural’skogo Mar’iashev and Frachetti in press Zabern, 2003. universiteta, 1988.

A.N. Mar’iashev and M.D. Frachetti. Potemkina and Shilov 1985 “Begash, mogil’nik Epokhy bronzy” Notes (The Bronze Age Burials of Begash). T.M. Potemkina and V.P. Shilov. In Istoriia i arkheologiia Semirech’ya Bronzovyi vek lesostepnogo Pritobol ia 1. Cal BC is a convention in steppe (This History and Archaeology of (The Bronze Age of the Forest- archaeology designating “calibrated” Semirech’e), ed. by A. Rogozhinskii Steppe Region in the Vicinty of the Carbon 14 dates before the Common and A. Goriachev, Vol. 3. Almaty: Tobol’ River). Moscow: Izd-vo. Era. Rodnichok. “Nauka”, 1985.

Mar’iashev and Goriachev 1993 Renfrew 2002

A.N. Mar’iashev and A.A. Goriachev. C. Renfrew. “The Indo-European “Voprosy tipologii i khronologii Problem and the Exploitation of the

8 that are found in the general On the Antiquity of the Yurt: region of northern Iran and Afghanistan (1997: 25 ff). The tent Evidence from Arjan and Elsewhere consists of four principal elements (Fig. 1): (a) the wall frame, made up of several flexible lengths of trellis David Stronach (each with an open-work pattern of University of California, Berkeley crossing wooden laths) which, when they are held in place by the restraint For all the considerable interest that tent can be ev, öy or üy, each of which of a number of encircling bindings, has been taken over the years in the simply means “dwelling.” Yet what create a cylinder up to about five and nature and uses of the yurt — in, for appears to have begun as an error a half meters in diameter and about example, its wide distribution (which in Russian usage currently equates one and a half metres in height; (b) stretches from Mongolia to Anatolia), with a broadly accepted word in in its prefabricated, eminently English.3 Accordingly, some use portable elements, and in the variety of the term may not be out of of different terms that are used to order; and all the more so in the define its component parts — very present context since most little has been done to try to uncover ancient representations of yurts the more remote history of this long- depict covered dwellings. In lived, highly adaptable type of other words, while modern dwelling. Thus, while Peter Andrews’ researchers in the field Nomad Tent Types in the Middle East, presumably have every mentions all significant references to opportunity to distin-guish yurts in the Middle East that occur in between “ribbed tents” and Photo © Daniel C. Waugh 1991 documents of early Islamic date or in “trellis tents” (to use two of the Fig. 1. A yurt being dismantled at travellers’ accounts, these and other terms that Peter Andrews Achikh Tash, Southern Kyrgyzstan. sources cited in this magisterial work1 derives from the structural are not enough to carry the story of elements of two somewhat the door frame which is introduced the yurt back to any moment before differently constructed types of yurt), on one side of the trellis wall; (c) the 700 CE.2 the archaeologist only rarely has this roof wheel, which is about two luxury. As a rule there is nothing to meters in diameter, which is pierced With reference to older attes- go on except for an artist’s im- radially with slots to receive the roof tations of the form, it may well be pression of a yurt’s covered profile struts and which always possesses appropriate for future investigators — and this in itself may not be a an arrangement of spokes to to continue to interrogate Chinese reliable guide to the nature of the support the wheel’s separate felt literary sources. In addition, others frame that was employed. cover; and (d) a set of curved struts, may wish to explore the possible each about two and a half meters in relevance of Inner Asia’s far-flung, length, which span the space variously dated petroglyphs. At the Characteristics of a yurt between the top of the trellis wall moment, however, I am chiefly and the rim of the above-mentioned concerned to draw attention to the A short description of the key roof wheel (which is customarily testimony of once buried evidence characteristics of the above- suspended some three meters which, to the best of my knowledge, mentioned ribbed and trellis tents above the level of the floor). has never been consulted in any should perhaps also preface the detail in the present context — and archaeological notes which follow. To With reference to the presence of which now appears to extend the begin with, the characteristic wooden several external woven restraints, chronological horizon of the yurt back frame of a domed “ribbed tent” the upper part of the trellis wall (Fig. to at least 600 BCE. consists of long struts that bear 2) is “encircled by several broad directly on the ground at one end and girths, woven from wool ...while the But before this and other matters which unite radially in a roof wheel engage our attention, a note on at the top. In addition, the lower end nomenclature is in order. The term of each strut is customarily secured yurt appears to be something of a by a peg driven into the ground misnomer. Of the main nomadic (Andrews 1997: 179 ff.). For the more groups that live in yurts not one of evolved “trellis tent” — so named for them uses the term to describe this its most characteristic feature — I will kind of portable structure. Instead, very largely borrow, in an abbre- in Turkic languages, the term can viated form, from Peter Andrew’s mean “territory” or “camp site” but description of the Türkmen tent of never “tent” (Andrews 1997: 5). Khorasan (1973: 94 ff.) as well as Indeed, the real Turkic name for a from his descriptions of other trellis Photo © Daniel C. Waugh 1991 Fig. 2. Interior of a yurt, Achikh Tash.

9 struts are held firmly at the correct spacing by a much narrower girth which is wrapped around each in turn” (Andrews 1997: 95).4 The dome and the upper part of the walls are covered by two large felts, cut so as to leave most of the roof wheel exposed. The latter opening is then covered by a smaller felt, the forward part of which is usually folded back in order to leave a smoke hole which takes up the front third of the roof wheel. At the last, the walls are hung with four rectangular felts that nearly reach rug can cover the standard floor felts bottom edges touch the ground. the ground and the open doorway is and where the adjoining north wall Furthermore, the hearth is lit; and provided with either twin wooden may display say, two wall-bags of cooking — an outdoor undertaking in door leaves or a felt flap.5 superior quality (Andrews 1997: 77). the warmer months — becomes an indoor activity. While the long struts of an Finally, the range of adjustments important ribbed tent could no doubt that can be made to the coverings of In sum, this portable type of be laboriously shaped in such a way a yurt in order to accommodate dwelling seems to have more than as to provide partly vertical side walls changes in climate and temperature deserved its longevity. It was beneath a domed top, the great are many and various. In hot regulable for extreme changes in advantage of the presence of a trellis weather, for example, the wall felts climate; it could boast rich hangings appears to have been that it en- can be raised by as much as 50 cm to indicate elite status both inside sured, with a minimum expenditure so that “air can enter the tent and out; its standardised, prefab- of effort, the initial verticality of the through the top and flow out through ricated parts made it swiftly side walls (not to mention a suitable, the gap at the periphery” (Andrews repairable; and, as the dwelling of vertical unit to which a doorframe 1997: 73). At such times too the cane choice for pastoral nomads occupying could be attached). Furthermore, the screens that are often attached to a broad belt of territory approaching roof struts in this superior design the outside face of the trellis wall (see a quarter of the span of the globe’s could be relatively short and it was note 4, above) serve to “filter the surface, it could be speedily often only necessary to go the glare of the sun on the dry ground assembled or disassembled for trouble of bending them at one point outside” apart from offering conveyance on camels, horses or 6 near their lower end. protection from wind-blown dust and donkeys or even, at times, on open As far as the internal appoint- debris (Andrews 1997: 74). In carts (Gervers and Schlepp 1997: ments of a traditional yurt are addition, the smoke hole, which is 101). concerned, those dispositions that closed at night in winter, spring and are still in evidence in many parts of fall, is left open all summer long. The depiction of a yurt on an northeastern Iran and Afghanistan Further, since the smoke hole engraved bronze bowl of c. 600 normally faces south (with any may serve as as a broad guide to the BCE way interior domestic space is often protruding, folded felt located on the organized. Wherever other factors north side), this opening is This paper owes its initial inspiration are equal, the doorway faces south. positioned in such a way as to admit to the recovery of a totally unex- The men’s side is then to the west the rays of the sun. As Andrews has pected image from a surprisingly and the women’s to the east. The remarked, this arrangement provides early archaeological context. In brief, hearth stands at the center of the a “patch of light on the wall or the the year 1982 saw the chance tent, but a little forward of the exact furnishings, which moves predictably discovery of the “Arjan tomb,” a rich center in order to lie directly under around the periphery according to burial of Neo-Elamite date that came the smoke hole. In addition, the the time of day.” In other words the to light not far from the ruins of Arjan, interior of the tent is often conceived interior of the tent becomes “a sun a Sasanian and medieval township of as having four distinct quarters dial and the position is used to tell deep in the Zagros mountains of with the hearth at the center. The the time for prayers or meals” southern Iran at a point 10 km north place of honor (or the reception area) (Andrews 1997: 74). of Behbahan and 250 km southeast is located towards the rear. This is In cold weather, the main external of Susa (Tohidi and Khalilian 1982). where (at least in Iran) a brocaded felts are duly lowered until their In the course of recording the tomb

10 the excavators recovered a number of precious and non- precious metal objects, at least four of which are now known to have carried the same unvarying legend, “Kidin-Hutran, son of Kurlush.” And while Kidin- Hutran appears to repre- sent a hitherto unknown local Elamite ruler, the Elamite cuneiform script that was used to write this short text can be reliably ascribed to an interval between the mid-seventh and the mid- sixth centuries BCE (cf. Vallat 1984: 4). In line with this finding, moreover, a series of independent clues provided by the iconography and style of the main objects suggests a parallel date which most scholars would now place either late in the 7th century or at some point early in the 6th century.7

When the first detailed description of the tomb and its contents appeared in English in 1985 the bronze bowl had still not been treated by the conservators at the National Museum in Tehran. Accordingly, it was Drawing by R. Vatandust. (After Majidzadeh 1992: fig. 1.) merely described as a “large Fig. 3. The engraved design on the interior of the Arjan bowl. shallow bowl, 43.5 cm in diameter and 8.5 cm deep” and was taken to be the product of a distant tent is shown without its customary listed as one of thirteen bronze workshop. As Yousef Majidzadeh was felt covering in an illustration that vessels recovered from the floor of the first to point out, a large number was clearly intended to reveal the the tomb (Alizadeh 1985: 55). The of specifically Elamite elements are structure’s characteristic, long subsequent treatment of the object visible in the bowl’s multiple incised curved struts and all-important roof (Vatandust 1988) revealed the images (Majidzadeh 1992: 136-138). wheel. Indeed, this last item is existence of one of more stunning And as I have sought to stress deliberately shown in an unreal, artifacts from the tomb: namely, a elsewhere (Stronach forthcoming), upright position, i.e. in an “aspective vessel with Kidin-Hutran’s inscription this circumstance implies that an view” in order to stress its vital role. etched on the exterior (just below engraver who was working for a local the rim) and with five concentric patron — presumably Kidin-Hutran The doorway in the incised design registers of engraved decoration himself — drew up the intricate is also of special interest; for, while distributed across the surface of the designs that make this vessel such modern yurts are often equipped (as shallow interior (Fig. 3). an extraordinary “window” on one has just been noted) with double limited region of southwestern Iran wooden doors that are side-hinged, Such a scheme of decoration — in the years shortly before Cyrus the the Arjan tent appears to document with its notably relaxed and lively Great (559-530 BCE) conquered the the presence of a single, broad character — can be broadly related Medes and founded the first Persian wooden door that was top-hinged.8 to the bronze (and sometimes even empire. Very conceivably this latter design gold) “Phoenician bowls” of the had the same advantage in an Mediterranean and the Near East, As Figure 3 indicates, the broad emergency as a felt door flap: it could which remained in production as late outer register of the Arjan bowl be closed in a split second. As an as the second half of the 7th century includes a prominent representation enlarged and slightly modified view BCE (Markoe 1986). At the same time, of the basic wooden elements of a indicates, the door was customarily however, the Arjan bowl cannot be circular, domed “ribbed tent”. The propped open by a tall pole with a

11 a record of this local ruler’s representative of one of the more characteristic activities. It has superior designs that was available to be acknowledged, for at the time of his reign and, as such, example, that the yurt may the incised design in the Arjan bowl once have been a common strongly suggests that the tented form in the highlands introduction of the otherwise of southern Iran, in which dominant trellis tent had still not case it could have been occurred. brought there at the time that the Persians first en- A yurt in a wall painting of the tered the region some-where lst century CE near the beginning of the first millennium BCE. Alternatively, Fig. 4. A detail of the yurt or “ribbed tent” in the if such an explanation should One further hint that nomadic outer register of the Arjan bowl. The lower parts fail to find adequate con- peoples of Iranian origin used yurt- of a number of struts have been deleted in order firmation in the fullness of like structures in the course of their to provide a clear view of the internal appoint- time, it would at least seem migrations across the endless ments. At right, in a location that also placed him difficult to deny that portable grasslands of Asia comes from the at the focal point of an adjacent banquet scene, dwellings of this type must extreme western limit of this Kidin-Hutran sips wine from a deep vessel with a have been present in the investigation. I refer to the presence flaring rim while seated on a high-backed throne steppes of Central Asia from of what may well have been a felt- with a single visible cervine (gazelle-headed?) a date prior to 600 BCE; and, covered framed tent (Fig. 5) in a no finial. in this event, the long- longer extant wall painting found in established conventions of a Sarmatian tomb of the first century lion- or wolf-headed finial — a gift-exchange between rulers both CE. The tomb came to light in the city distinction no doubt reserved for a great and small could always have of Panticapaeum (in the vicinity of residence of high status (Fig. 4).9 chanced to bring this exotic indication modern Kerch, in the Crimea) and the of status all the way to Kidin-Hutran’s painting itself has been in the The presence of two intriguing southern domain. published domain for more than objects of identical appearance eighty years (Rostovtzeff 1922: 160 inside the yurt (unusually shaped ff. and pl. 28,1). water jars or, as it is tempting to At all events it is now decidedly suppose, twin incense burners), not difficult to suppose that the yurt was to mention the presence of a number an exclusively Turkish invention, and In his description of the painting of attendants either inside the tent that tents of this kind made their first Rostovtzeff observed that “the scene or in the vicinity of the shaded appearance in the vicinity of Iran, as is an idyllic one. The dead man, doorway, may have been intended Andrews once suggested (1973: armed, followed by a retainer, is riding to demonstrate that this portable 94), “as the of Türkmen towards his family residence, a tent dwelling not only served as a kind of nomads all descended from the of true nomadic type (my emphasis). portable hunting lodge (in keeping Oghuz tribes” after these tribes had His household, wife, children, and with the bowl’s adjacent references crossed the Amu Darya (the Oxus) in servants, are assembled in the tent to hunting and banqueting) but also the eleventh century. On the other and beside it, under the shade of a as a setting for formal audiences hand Peter Andrews’ inclination to single tree; beside the tree is his long when Kidin-Hutran was “on tour” in view the ribbed tent as “an ancient spear, and his quiver hangs from a the back-country of his mountainous type, as old as, if not older than the branch.” He goes on, “The inter- kingdom. Indeed, it is more than trellis tent” (1997: 179) can now be pretation is easy: the gentleman is likely that the internal details shown to have been entirely correct. a landed proprietor, who spends illustrate the fittings of the tent as Kidin-Hutran’s tent was presumably most of his time in town: in summer, these would have appeared when viewed from the open doorway. Thus, on entering the royal tent, a visitor would have taken in the elaborate wall-hanging (or floor carpet?) associated with the place of honor as well as the flanking positions occupied by the two probable incense burners.10 Needless to say, a number of intriguing questions are necessarily After Rostovtzeff 1922: pl. 28, 1. posed by the inclusion of Kidin- Hutran’s yurt in what appears to Fig. 5. A wall painting found in a tomb of the 1st century have been, at least to some extent, CE at Panticapaeum, near Kerch.

12 during the harvest season, he goes artistic convention by the first reduced to a single horseman, who out to the steppes, armed, and century CE — her proximity to the wears his bow-case on his left side accompanied by armed servants; yurt calls for special notice. That is “as if prepared for war” (Rudenko taking his family with him. He to say that her position may well 1970: 275); to the rider’s slim, long- supervises the work in the fields, and have been intended to underline the tailed horse; to an elaborate “tree” defends his labourers and har- special relationship that existed with abundant blossoms; and to an vesters from the attacks of between the goddess and the enigmatic enthroned figure who, with neighbours who live beyond the deceased (whose body, in this a shaven head and no facial hair, is fortified lines; Taurians from the reconstruction, can be understood — usually taken to be a goddess (cf. mountains, ferocious footsoldiers; notwithstanding his parallel, active, Stronach 2002: 389 and fig. 10). But Scythians from the plains, horsemen equestrian representation — to lie, at the very least these similarities and landowners. Who knows? suitably mourned, inside the tent). oblige us to continue to weigh the perhaps he raids a little himself.”11 character of the principal participants As far as the structure’s prominent in the Panticapaeum wall painting — Whatever credence one may wish roof opening is concerned, it is and, hence, the status of the to place in Rostovstzeff’s vivid appropriate to stress that William of depicted yurt. interpretation, the chief point in the Rubruck’s thirteenth century present context is that, in spite of its description of Tartar tents included unusual, square-shouldered appear- a reference to structures “from which Yurts in Sogdian funerary ance and strangely prominent projects a neck like a chimney” reliefs of the second half of the ventilation hole, the felt-covered (Gervers and Schlepp 1997: 105). 6th century CE structure in Figure 5 is, in all Furthermore, the likelihood that this probability, the second earliest elite Sarmatian tent also had The last body of once buried evidence known depiction of a yurt. Indeed the something like a square base is again that calls for close consideration prominent “shoulders” that appear not unparalled in the long history of comes from the eastern limit of this in the painting might represent an the yurt. As late as 1935 Owen survey. It is chiefly owed to recent uncertain attempt to stress the Lattimore was able to photograph a archaeological discoveries from north presence of an inward-leaning trellis yurt of a similar, more or less square China, most of which have only wall. At the very least this carefully design which was used in Inner begun to be described in print within delineated structure appears to Mongolia to celebrate “the Sacrifice the past ten years. As readers of represent a tented dwelling of some of Chinggis Khan at Ejen Horo” Étienne de la Vaissière’s article in the quality. (Gervers and Schlepp 1997: 114 and previous issue of The Silk Road will fig. 16). recall, the period of the fifth and sixth If close attention is paid to the centuries marked a peak in Sogdian exaggerated scale of the chair and Finally, with regard to the emigration to China. It was a time its occupant (the supposed “wife” of Panticapaeum painting, there would when the Sogdians were deeply Rostovzteff’s narrative), there is a seem to be a distinct possibility, as involved in the caravan trade good chance that an enthroned not a few others have surmised, that between China and the West; and, goddess is represented: one the composition represents a at least by the latter part of the 6th attended, in fact, by a number of retelling of a well-known legend that century, “most of the main towns of individuals, each of whom is depicted was already possibly alluded to in the northern China” had a resident (following time-honored norms of celebrated felt carpet or wall- Sogdian community in which each differential, hierarchical scaling) at a hanging (Fig. 6) from barrow 5 at community was customarily headed decidedly smaller scale. And although Pazyryk (Rudenko 1970: 13ff). It is by a Sabao (or chief caravaneer) who the goddess herself is shown in a true that the repeated elements in was also granted mandarinal rank in frontal as opposed to a side view — this latter design of the 3rd century the official Chinese hierarchy in what was already a much-used BCE (cf. Mallory et al. 2002: 210) are (Vaissière 2003: 24). By the second half of the 6th century numbers of Sogdian officials of this high status appear to have been in a position to order Chinese- style stone funerary beds for their relatively capacious tombs. The carved and painted vertical panels that were an integral part of such beds (cf. Marshak 2001: fig. 12) provided ample space, moreover, for the owner to record elements of his Sogdian way of life (including his

After Rudenko 1970: pl. 147. continuing devotion to Zoroas- Fig. 6. A detail of the lower register in a large felt carpet or wall-hanging of the trianism) as well as evidence of the 3rd century BCE from barrow 5 at Pazyryk.

13 extent to which he and his family At least one other elite yurt with a With a roof that is highest at the were integrated into Chinese society. tiger-skin covering is illustrated in a center, it is a four-sided circle panel that stood on the left side of without corners. From the standpoint of the present An Jia’s bed (Marshak 2001: fig. 18) With its side door open wide, the air enquiry, however, such panels are of and still other panels record the inside remains warm. particular value because they lavish nature of the hunts and allowed the owner to document banquets that An Jia organized for Though it comes from far beyond the something of the nature of his the entertainment of his Turkic passes, now it rests securely in the peripatetic ambassadorial duties at counterparts. Indeed, whatever front courtyard. a time when relations between the diplomatic considerations may have Though it casts a lonely shadow Sogdians and the Western Turks occasioned these proceedings, An during nights brilliantly illuminated were of great importance. This Jia’s record of his exceptional life by the moon, its value doubles in element is illustrated with striking leave us with a clear impression that years when the winter is bitterly realism in the case of the superbly he was notably taken by the exotic cold. preserved funerary couch of An Jia, ways of the khagans. Softness and warmth envelop the a Sogdian Sabao who flourished Chinese testimony felt hangings and rugs; the tinkling under the Northern Zhou and who of jade enfolds the sounds of pipes was buried at Xian in 579 A.D.12 If An Jia was fascinated by such and strings. matters, he was not alone. Quite Descended from a family that apart from the fact that the Chinese It is most convenient after the earth originated in Bukhara (Marshak 2001: taste for the exotic reached un- has been covered with frost, and it is 244), An Jia had extensive dealings precedented heights during the the best match when snow fills the with the Turkic khagans of his day. heady days of the Tang dynasty (c. sky. In one panel An Jia is depicted, for 618 - 917 CE), members of the Positioned at an angle is the low example, in intense negotiations with highest ranks of Chinese society chair for singing, evenly disposed are a khagan inside the doorway of the appear to have found unusual the small mats for dancing. latter’s yurt (Fig. 7). In the illustration pleasure in exploring, especially in the winter but in certain cases even When I have leisure time I lift open in the summer as well (see note 9, the curtain and enter the yurt, and above), the attractions of an urban, when I am drunk I wrap myself up in tented existence. a cover and sleep there. In the capital, Luoyang, where the Behind me an iron lamp-stand that leading literati of the 9th century bears a candle; a silver incense frequently occupied grand villas with censer that flames is suspended extensive grounds, the celebrated from the ceiling. poet, Bai Juyi (772-846), not only set up a yurt in the front courtyard of his Kept deep within is the flame that Luoyang villa, but he wrote a poem, lasts till dawn; stored inside is the in 833, in praise of the virtues of his fragrant smoke that lasts till tented abode. Through Bai Juyi’s evening. After Marshak 2001: fig. 14a. personal vision, then, we learn — When the animal-shaped charcoal is Fig. 7. Drawing of an elite yurt depicted most engagingly — of the advan- close by, fox furs can be cast aside. in a funerary relief from the tomb of tages of a yurt:15 the Sogdian Sabao, An Jia (d. 579 CE). When the ink-stone is warm it melts The Sky-Blue Yurt the frozen ink and when the pitcher in question the appearance of the by is heated it becomes a stream in yurt is reduced to little more than an Bai Juyi springtime. elegant frame for the animated The finest felt from a flock of a discourse of the two principals; An orchid canopy will barely attract a thousand sheep, stretched over a nonetheless the near-vertical sides hermit and a thatched is inferior frame shaped like the extended bows of the tent strongly suggest that it for meditating. of a hundred soldiers. could have benefitted from the (But invited to my yurt) an presence of a trellis wall.13 Beyond Ribs of the healthiest willow, its color impoverished monk responds with this, the elite rank of the yurt is dyed to saturation with the freshest praise, and a threadbare scholar indicated by the fact that it had a indigo. stays in place, unwilling to leave. covering of tiger skins.14 In addition, Made in the north according to a the inner side of the open doorway Guests are greeted with it, Rong invention, it moved south had a curtain of fine quality (perhaps descendants will hand it down to following the migration of slaves.16 suggesting a use of silk) and the floor posterity. of the yurt appears to have been at When the typhoon blows it does not The Wang family boasts of their least partly covered by a long-fringed shake, when a storm pours it gets antiques, but they have nothing to circular carpet. even stronger. equal this Sky-Blue Yurt.17

14 Concluding remarks “1300 years,” it also has “several may still owe its first putative centuries” of unknown history before beginnings to the distant moment at If we may work backwards from the that (1997: 12). At one point, for which pastoral nomadism began to latest evidence just cited, Bai Juyi’s example, he goes out of his way to take hold in Inner Asia), I will limit testimony is important. It stress “the need to master the myself to a few interim reflections. To supplements, in many vital ways, the technique of wood-bending” in order begin with it is not difficult to concur visual representations of elite yurts to create such a tent. Then, after with Peter Andrews’ contention that that occur in the new-found Sogdian pointing out that the techniques in the simple “bender tent” of his overall reliefs. In particular, Bai Juyi’s poem question were definitely available in classification21 could have been in indicates that the more significant the time of Chinggis Khan (as existence by the second half of the yurts of the second half of the first evidenced by the remains of the second millennium BCE and that it millennium CE were of considerable trellis tent mentioned in footnote 18, could have been employed by, among size (as witness the places reserved above), he goes on to admit that the others, “Iranic nomads” (1997: 5-6). — at least in cosmopolitan Luoyang techniques also existed much earlier The next advance was surely the — for such activities as singing and “as indicated by the cartwheels... creation of the ribbed tent — the first dancing); and that such satisfying, found at Pazyryk” (Andrews 1997: quintessential form of domed yurt — logically designed structures (such as 25). which conceivably evolved early in were most at in more northerly the first millennium BCE since it would climes) were at once luxurious and The extent to which conceivably appear to have been widely dis- far more impervious to the assaults yurt-related innovations can be said tributed by 600 BCE. As for the of winter than a contemporary to have been present at Pazyryk is admirable trellis tent, which still Chinese mansion. of course one of high interest. In this remains in regular use over a very Accordingly, context alone can be context the structural and decorative substantial area, this was almost seen to explain the greatly similarities between the distinctive certainly present, as we have seen, abbreviated, almost coded depic- wood and leather shields from by 560 CE. Furthermore, if the tall, tions that appear in the Sogdian Pazyryk (Rudenko 1970: pl. 144) and rectangular wickerwork shields of the reliefs. Context is all; and it is clear the decorated cane or reed screens Achaemenid Persians (Schmidt 1953: that the tents in question were only that regularly complement today’s 225 and pl. 136; Briant 2002: 195), meant to be read as “atmospheric trellis tents is decidedly striking. In not to mention the similar, if shorter, settings” for the actions of the addition, a box-like wooden cabin shields of those who were interred principal protagonists. At the same that was mounted on one of the in the barrows at Pazyryk, should be time these 6th century Sogdian Pazyryk carts is known to have been in any way related to the cane carvings provide precious evidence of partly covered by black felt (see e.g. screens that were presumably a the extent to which dwellings of this Rudenko 1970: fig. 17 and pl. 131). necessary complement to even the kind were unquestionably in wide- However, if any attempt should be earliest trellis tents (see note 4, spread use at this juncture among made to speculate on the ethnicity above) there could be a case, in my the Western Turks.18 of those who were buried at Pazyryk view, for suggesting that the earliest — or on the degree to which they examples of this most evolved form As far as the more ancient history might have enjoyed indirect of yurt were introduced at a date not of the framed tent is concerned, both communications with the heartland far removed from the middle years the excavated evidence from Kerch of the Achaemenid empire as early of the first millennium BCE. and that from Arjan, deep in as the 5th century BCE — it is southern Iran, can be said to necessary to be aware of the fact underscore an already acknowledged that the ethnic identity of those who About the author Iranian perspective. On the one hand were buried in Pazyryk’s frozen the Sarmatians were an Iranian- barrows remains uncertain,20 and speaking people and on the other that the cumulative evidence from a hand a number of the objects from David Stronach was educated at series of revised radiocarbon Gordonstoun and St. John’s College, the Neo-Elamite tomb at Arjan determinations, dendrochronological document the extent to which the Cambridge. Between 1957 and 1959 indications, and art historical he was a Fellow of the British Elamites were adjusting to the habits considerations now combines to to and tastes of their immediate Persian Institute of Archaeology at Ankara suggest that the date of the Pazyryk and the British School of Archaeology neighbors in the years before and culture falls “in or near the third after 600 BCE.19 Long before the in Iraq and was, successively, an century BC” (Mallory et al. 2002: assistant on the excavations of wholesale adoption of the yurt by the 210). Turks, in other words, there may Seton Lloyd, Max Mallowan and Sir Mortimer Wheeler. In 1960 he was have been an extended period * * * during which peoples of Iranian origin named British Academy Archaeo- made prior use of the form. logical Attaché in Iran and in the In conclusion, if I may take the no following year he began a nineteen- Interestingly enough, Andrews doubt rash step of providing a year term as the Director of the himself stresses that, while the tentative timetable for the evolution British Institute of Persian Studies. framed tent has a known history of of the yurt (which, for all we know, Since 1981 he has been Professor of

15 Near Eastern Archaeology at the Gervers and Schlepp 1997 Rudenko 1970 University of California, Berkeley. He M. Gervers and W.A. Schlepp. “Felt has conducted excavations at various S.I. Rudenko. Frozen Tombs of Siberia. and ‘Tent Carts’ in The Secret History sites in the Near East including The Pazyryk Burials of Iron Age of the Mongols.” Journal of the Royal Pasargadae, Tepe Nush-i Jan and Horsemen. Berkeley: University of Asiatic Society, Series 3, 7/1 (1997): Nineveh. His publications include California Press, 1970. 93-116. papers on the early history of wine, Schafer 1963 textiles, and the Persian garden. In Grenet 2003 January of 2004 he was awarded the E.H. Schafer. The Golden Peaches of F. Grenet. “The Pre-Islamic Gold Medal of the Archaeological Samarkand. A Study of T’ang Exotics. Civilization of the Sogdians (seventh Institute of America for Distinguished Berkeley: University of California century BCE to eighth century CE): A Archaeological Achievement. Press, 1963. Bibliographic Essay (studies since References 1986).” The Silk Road, 1/2 (December Schmidt 1953 2003): 28-36. E,F. Schmidt. Persepolis I. Structures, Alizadeh 1985 Irons 1975 Reliefs, Inscriptions. Chicago: A. Alizadeh. “A Tomb of the Neo- University of Chicago Press, 1953. W. Irons. The Yomut Türkmen. Ann Elamite Period at Arjan, near Arbor: Museum of Anthropology, Sommer 1996 Behbahan.” Archäologische Mitteil- University of Michigan, 1975 ungen aus Iran, N.F., 18 (1985): 49- J.L. Sommer. The Kyrgiz and Their Reed (Anthropological Papers 58). 73. Screens. Printed privately, 1996. Majidzadeh 1992 Alvarez-Mon 2004 Stronach 2002 Y. Madjidzadeh. “The Arjan Bowl.” J. Alvarez-Mon. “Imago-Mundi: Iran, 30 (1992): 131-44. D. Stronach. “Icons of Dominion: Cosmological and Ideological Aspects Review Scenes at Til Barsip and of the Arjan Bowl.” Iranica Antiqua, 39 Mallory et al. 2002 Persepolis.” Iranica Antiqua, 37 (2004): 203-237. (2002): 373-402. J.P. Mallory, F.G. McCormac, P.J. Reimer Andrews 1973 & L.S. Marsadolov. “The Date of Stronach 2003 Pazyryk.” In K. Boyle, C. Renfrew & P.A. Andrews. “The White House of M. Levine, eds., Ancient interactions: D. Stronach. “The Tomb at Arjan and Khorasan: the Felt Tents of the east and west in Eurasia. Oxford: the History of Southwestern Iran in Iranian Yomut and Göklen.” Iran, 11 Macdonald Institute Monographs, the Early Sixth Century BCE.” In N.F. (1973): 93-110. 2002: 199-211. Miller and K. Abdi, eds., Yeki bud, yeki nabud. Essays on the Archaeology of Andrews 1997 Markoe 1986 Iran in Honor of William M. Sumner. Los Angeles: The Cotsen Institute of P.A. Andrews. Nomad Tent Types in the G. Markoe. Phoenician Bronze and Archaeology at UCLA, 2003: 249-259. Middle East, Volume I: Framed Tents, Silver Bowls from Cyprus and the text; Volume II: Framed Tents, Mediterranean. Berkeley: University of Stronach 2004 illustrations. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig California Press, 1986. Reichart Verlag, 1997. D. Stronach. “Notes on a Fortified Marshak 2001 Building and a ‘Yurt’ in Adjacent Boehmer 1989 Registers of the Arjan Bowl.” In A. B. Marshak. “La thématique Sagona, ed., A View from the R.M. Boehmer. Review of Archäo- sogdienne dans l’art de la Chine de Highlands: Archaeological Studies in logische Mitteilungen aus Iran, 18 la seconde motié du VIe siècle.” Honour of Charles Burney. Louvain: (1985), in Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Peeters, 2004: 711-28. 79 (1989): 142-5. Inscriptions & Belles-Lettres, 2001: Briant 2002 227-264. D. Stronach forthcoming D. Stronach. “The Arjan Tomb: P. Briant. From Cyrus to Alexander: A Potts 1999 Innovation and Acculturation in the History of the Persian Empire. Winona D.T. Potts. The Archaeology of Elam. Last Days of Elam.” In E. Haerinck, Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2002. Formation and Transformation of an ed., The Iron Age in the Iranian World. Ancient Iranian State. Cambridge: Louvain: Peeters, forthcoming. Curtis 1995 Cambridge University Press, 1999. J. Curtis. “Introduction.” In J. Curtis, Tohidi and Khalilian 1982 ed., Later Mesopotamia and Iran: Rostovtzeff 1922 F. Tohidi and A.-M. Khalilian. “Report Tribes and Empires 1600-539 BC. M. Rostovtzeff. Iranians & Greeks in on the Study of Objects from the London: British Museum Press, 1995: South Russia. Oxford: Clarendon Arjan Tomb, Behbahan” (in Persian). 15-24. Press, 1922. Asar (Athar), 7-9 (1982): 232-86.

16 Vaissière 2003 very often fastened, in the manner Mongol ruler of the first half of the of a tall sheath, to the external face 13th century is said to have moved É. de la Vaissière. “Sogdians in of the lattice wall of a trellis tent (see his felt tent “to follow the hunt” in China: A Short History and Some New e.g. Andrews 1997: 48). The an activity in which he regularly took Discoveries.” The Silk Road, 1/2 sometimes striking decorative “his officers and retinue with him.” (December 2003): 23-27. qualities of screens of this type (as (For references, see Gervers and they are still produced, using reeds Schlepp 1997: 99.) For the known Vallat 1984 rather than cane, by, for example, deployment of precious incense F. Vallat. “Kidin-Hutran et l’epoque the Kirghiz) are now treated in detail burners in tents of diverse kinds, see néo-élamite.” Akkadica, 37 (1984): 1- in Sommer 1996. both Plutarch’s vivid description 17. (Alexander 20.12-13) of Alexander the 5. In the latter instance the felt flap Great’s visit to the vast, captured Vatandust 1988 can be backed by a mat composed tent of Darius III (a description of “canes laid horizontally and bound discussed at greater length in R. Vatandust. “A Preliminary Report with vertical goat hair lines.” This Stronach 2004: 718, note 42) and the on the Conservation and Technical arrangement allows the flap to be thirteenth rhymed couplet in the Studies of Some of the Arjan rolled up, with the felt face outwards, poem, “The Sky-Blue Yurt” by the Material” (in Persian). Asar (Athar), when the doorway is open; equally, eminent Tang poet, Bai Juyi, which 15/16 (1988): 72-116. in an emergency, the felt flap can be appears on p. 14, above. dropped in an instant (Andrews 1997: 67). 11. It is frustrating that Rostovtzeff makes no mention of the way in 6. Outside Iran, in Mongolia in which the creation of a large wall- Notes particular, straight roof struts also niche apparently destroyed part of 1. Such as the Wen Chi scroll of 12th regularly serve to bridge the space the original painting (Fig. 5) or to the century date (Andrews 1997: 12) or between the top of the trellis wall fact that a second wall-niche appears other evidence which suggests that and the roof wheel. See, for example, to be closely associated with an elements of the current tent Gervers and Schlepp 1997: fig. 11. inscription, in Greek, which refers to terminology of the Türkmen of Iran Anthesterios, son of Ktesippos (Fig. could be as much as 1200 years old 7. See especially Boehmer 1989: 5). Indeed, it is difficult to decide (Andrews 1997: 215). 142-3; Curtis 1995: 22; and Stronach whether these omissions stem from 2003: 252-5. Rostovtzeff’s innate awareness of 2. In exploring a topic that has the extent to which the Sarmatians frequently taken me into areas of 8. This design may even throw useful chose to “percolate into the enquiry that lie outside my light on a longstanding puzzle populations of the Greek cities” on customary “bounds” I have not connected with the anatomy of the the northern rim of the Black Sea, seldom profited from the promptings 13th century Mongol tent. The top- where they adopted “the Greek of others. In this context I particularly hinged Arjan door could account, for language and some Greek customs” wish to acknowledge the extent to example, for the phrase “... let them (1922: 120) or whether his silence which this paper is indebted to the lift for you the wide door” which is was meant to indicate that these rigorous and devoted field studies of found (in evident reference to an very possibly secondary manifes- Peter and Mügül Andrews. More elite tent) in paragraph 37 of The tations had no place in his analysis. recently, I have received valued help Secret History of the Mongols. For prior from Elizabeth Baughan and Alma discussion and references, see 12. Marshak 2001: 244-252. In this Kunanbayev, and, most especially, Gervers and Schlepp 1997: 97. same article, which has been justly from Boris Marshak and Jeffrey singled out as “the main reference Riegel. This said, I alone am 9. The presence of a lion- or wolf- for the Sogdian funerary reliefs found responsible for the tenor of the headed finial finds an unexpected in northern China” (Grenet 2003: remarks that follow. parallel in a much later context that 35), the author initially illustrates and derives from 7th century China. discusses a set of Sogdian reliefs 3. In which context the noted There the eccentric Tang prince, Li now housed in the Miho Museum in anthropologist, William Irons, refers Cheng-Chien, who elected to live in Japan. Since one of these reliefs without equivocation to the “yurts” a yurt on the grounds of his palace shows a long-haired Turkish ruler of the more nomadic component of on a permanent basis, is said to have seated, at ease, in the doorway of the present-day Yomut Türkmen of enjoyed sitting in front of his tent his yurt (Marshak 2001: fig. 8a) and northeastern Iran. See, for example, under a “wolf’s head ensign” since Professor Marshak believes the Irons 1975: 26, 36. (Schafer 1963: 29). Miho reliefs to be the earliest in the series — dated, that is, to the 560’s 4. Flexible cane screens (composed 10. With reference to Kidin-Hutran’s (Marshak, personal communication) of tightly connected, vertical lengths use of his yurt as a mobile “hunting — this specific yurt deserves to be of sunflower stems or cane) are also lodge,” compare the way in which a counted, if only by a decade or two,

17 as the oldest so far attested in these University of Californa, Berkeley, who One exception is known, however; Sogdian documents (Fig. 8). prepared, with great generosity, and and it appears, importantly, to fortify at short notice, the following contemporary evidence which translation of Bai Juyi’s poem. He suggests that the tents of any single comments that the poem, composed tribal group, elite or otherwise, will in twenty rhymed couplets, is normally be of the same type. The probably of the Tang dynasty sub- case in question concerns the genre “in praise of things.” The initial wooden elements of an unmistakable task of tracking down the poem, the trellis tent from the grave of a importance of which was first drawn commoner who was buried in the to my attention by Boris Marshak, Khentei Mountains of Mongolia in the was greatly facilitated by the time of Chinggis Khan. While this unstinted help of Lynn Xu. simple grave provides the earliest incontrovertible evidence for the 16. The term “Rong” was used by the existence of the trellis tent (Andrews Chinese of the Tang period to refer 1997: 25), it could also be said to to non-Chinese populations beyond lend circumstantial support to the

Drawing by J. Shahbandi, after Marshak 2001: fig. 8a. their western borders (personal view, expressed above, that the Fig. 8. Detail of an elite yurt in a communication from Jeffrey Riegel). yurts in the various Sogdian de- Sogdian funerary relief of c. 560 It is of interest that Bai Juyi refers to pictions were probably already of this CE. his yurt as one that was made “in improved design. the north” while also referring to it 13. I am indebted to Jasmine as a Rong, i.e. western, invention. 19. The name of Kidin-Hutran’s Shahbandi for the drawing in Figure But since Turkish power to the north father, Kurlush, even suggests that 7. The very slightly impressionistic and northwest of the Tang capital he himself was of Persian ancestry. treatment of the scene is intentional. was effectively consolidated by the See Vallat 1984: 4; Potts 1999: 303; 14. Marshak 2001: 249; the skins in time that Bai Juyi had earned his and, most recently, Alvarez-Mon question were presumably those of prominence no serious contradiction 2004: 232. the Siberian Tiger. Given the normally exists. robust internal structure of any 20. Against a backdrop of dates framed tent, I also think it likely that 17. The poem may be located in its obtained from Chinese or other the horizontal red band near the top original form in the Bai Juyi ji jianjiao historical sources, the population has of the tent and the vertical red (Annotated and Collated Edition of been variously defined as originating “flaps” on either side of the open Bai Juyi’s Collected Works), Vol. 4 from the Issedons, Wusun, Yüezhi or doorway were chiefly decorative (: Guji chubanshe, 1988): Saka (Mallory et al. 2002: 204). embellishments (see especially the 2134-6. color plate in Marshak 2001: fig. 14a), 21. Such a tent is described, in brief, even if a structural function cannot 18. Given the predictable stress on as having “supple wooden rods... be ruled out entirely. status in the records that are stuck into the ground opposite one available to us, there is little hope another, bent to meet as an arch, and 15. Unreserved thanks are owed to that extensive evidence will ever be fastened at the top” (Andrews 1997: my colleague Jeffrey Riegel, available where the tented struc- 5). Professor of Chinese at the tures of commoners are concerned. Photo © 1995 Daniel C. Waugh

Urmat Mamytov and his family at their yurt near Karakichi Pass, not far from Lake Sonkyol, Kyrgyzstan.

18 Earliest antecedents and later The Burial Rite: an Expression of parallels for the display of the corpse in temporary structures Sogdian Beliefs and Practices prior to its burial

The practice of temporary burial in a Guitty Azarpay nomadic tent is first recorded in University of California, Jordanes’ Getica in connection with Berkeley the Hunnic burial of Attila in AD 453: His body was placed in the As a sequel to contributions on the Sogdiana. In these scenes explicit midst of a plain and laid in state life and times of the Sogdians, demonstrations of mourning, which in a silk tent as a site for men’s highlighted in volume 1/2 of this were prohibited by the Persian admiration. The best horse- Newsletter, this article focuses on Zoroastrian church, are combined men of the entire tribe of the the treatment of the dead in a with the Zoroastrian-type burial in Huns rode around in circles, funerary monument from Sogdiana. ossuaries. This mixture of pre- after the manner of the circus In a review of the archaeology of Zoroastrian and Zoroastrian games…. When they had Sogdiana in that Newsletter, Boris practices is reflected also in Sogdian mourned him with such lamen- Marshak has brought attention to a religious concepts, hence, for tations, a strada, as they call change in the funerary practices of example, the implied participation of it, was celebrated over his the Sogdians marked by the gods in this otherwise ordinary tomb with great reveling…. appearance, from the fifth century, funerary ritual. One of the curious Then in the secrecy of night of vaulted surface burial chambers features of the mourning scene from they buried the body in the (Marshak 2003). These chambers, Temple II at Panjikent is the earth [Maenchen-Helfen 1973: which were built until the eighth depiction of a seemingly domed 275]. century at Panjiket, Samarkand and funeral bier which is borne by a row Attila’s burial was compared by Otto- Bukhara, housed ossuaries in which of mourners, a feature that may Dorn (1964: 139) with that practiced were collected and placed the bones suggest the display of the corpse in in the seventh and eighth centuries of the dead in accordance to a a temporary structure, such as a tent by the Tou-kiue, the Western Turks, manner that Marshak there com- or a yurt, prior to its eventual who exposed the body in a tent prior pares with the Zoroastrian Persian disposal in a permanent installation, to its disposal. Tent burial was also custom. Marshak also draws a practice known among some practiced by the Mongol Great Khans attention to the appearance of the Central and northeast Asian of Mongolia and northern China, and Zoroastrian-type fire cult in some peoples. has survived to the present century Sogdian temple complexes that date to the fifth century. These obser- vations now justify reexamination of the artistic context, meaning and function of a remarkable funerary rite associated with a Sogdian royal personage, depicted in a mural from the sanctuary of the Temple II complex, at Panjikent, dated to the early sixth century CE.

The Sogdian mourning scene The focal point of the mural in the principal sanctuary of Temple II at Panjikent is a mourning scene represented as a large composition along the entire face of the temple’s south wall (Fig. 1). This mural shows the funeral bier of a youthful per- sonage, whose death is mourned by both mortals and gods. Although the identity of the deceased is a matter for conjecture, the ritual depicted in this composition appears as a reference to what might have been customary practice, recorded also on ossuaries from Khwarezm and Fig. 1. Mural of funerary rite, south wall of Temple II complex, Panjikent

19 among the Tungus and Mongol tribes About the author Azarpay 1981b of northeast Asia. The encampment, or ordu, of the Mongol Great Khan Guitty Arzapay is a Professor in the G. Azarpay. “The Islamic Tomb Tower: was used after his death as a Department of Near Eastern Studies a Note on its Genesis and temporary burial place that housed at the University of California, Significance.” In Essays in Islamic Art his body during the performance of Berkeley. She has made valuable and Architecture in Honor of Katharina funerary rites. The Khan’s yurt, contributions to the study of the arts Otto-Dorn, ed. Abbas Daneshvari. Los though occupied by his wife, became of the Silk Road: in addition to her Angeles: Undena Publications, 1981. taboo (qoruq) after his death and frequently-cited book, Sogdian was maintained as his symbolic burial Painting (1981), her articles include Azarpay1981c place. Adaptation or emulation of the “Iran and Silk Road: Art and Trade Turco-Mongol yurt as a model for the along Asia’s Crossroads,” Iran Nameh Guitty Azarpay. Sogdian Painting: The temporary burial depicted in the XIV/2 (1996), and “A Jataka Tale on Pictorial Epic in Oriental Art, with Sogdian mural from Panjikent, finds a Sasanian Silver Plate,” Bulletin of Contributions by A. M. Belenitskii, B. other echoes in later burial practices, the Asia Institute 9 (1997). In recent I. Marshak and Mark J. Dresden. such as in the Islamic tomb towers years she has focussed attention on Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: of eastern Iran and their subsequent important electronic cataloguing University of California Press, 1981. Anatolian versions (Azarpay 1981a). projects: Sasanian Sealstones: an Electronic Cataloging Project (Elec- Boyce 1975 The significance of the parallels tronic Cultural Atlas Initiative/ with other artistic traditions California Digital Library; http:// Mary Boyce. A History of Zoroas- ecai.berkeley.edu/sasanianweb/) trianism I. Leiden/Koln: Brill, 1975: The foregoing comparisons are not and the Pahlavi Archive Electronic 325-328. intended to imply an identity Publication Project, cataloguing an between Turco-Mongol tent burials important collection of seals and Maenchen-Helfen 1973 and Sogdian funerary practices. manuscripts in the Bancroft Library. What the Sogdian mural from Temple Otto Maenchen-Helfen. The World of II at Panjiklent suggests, rather, is References the Huns. Berkeley/Los Angeles: the artist’s enhancement of the University of California Press, 1973. importance of a local event by its See also the bibliography cited for equation with the prevailing practices Sogdiana in The Silk Road, 1/2 Marshak 2003 of other royalty with which the (December 2003). Sogdians had become familiar. Boris I. Marshak. “The Archaeology Another instance of the enhanced Azarpay 1981a of Sogdiana.” The Silk Road, 1/2 status for the deceased is perhaps (December 2003): 3-8, claimed at a pavilion, reportedly G. Azarpay. “Cairns, Kurums and decorated with images of the kings Dambs: a Note on pre-Islamic Otto-Dorn 1964 of the four quarters, at Kushaniyah Surface Burials in Eastern Iran and (presumably situated midway Central Asia,” with an “Appendix” by K. Otto-Dorn. L’Art de l’Islam, between Samarkand and Bukhara; Martin Schwartz. Acta Iranica 1964. see Azarpay 1981b: 132) where (Leiden), 21 (1981) (Monumentum Sogdian princes are said to have Georg Morgenstierne I): 12–21, pls. paid homage. The account of these III-XII. images now finds material parallels in depictions of rulers of various lands, carved in relief, on a series of stone panels associated with Sogdian tombs uncovered in China in recent years. The enhancement of meaning in a given theme in Sogdian art, achieved through the use of the prevailing artistic formulas of the time, finds another notable expression in the particulars of the mourners from the Panjikent mural from Temple II, which correspond with those from Parinirvana scenes, found in Buddhist cave paintings from Kizil, Kucha and elsewhere

along the Silk Road. Map © 2004 Lance Jenott Lance 2004 © Map

Fig. 1. Palmyra and its neighbors

20 Palmyra as a Caravan City

Albert E. Dien Stanford University

Generally the caravan trade leaves few traces except for some anecdotal literature and what remains of the goods carried by it to its destinations. Hence the existence of Palmyra, which is recognized by even the most critical historians as a true caravan city, is an important resource in the study of the Silk Road.1 There are of course the impressive remains (Fig. 2) brought to light by travellers, first in 1678, and by archaeologists in more recent times. Even more importantly, there are the bilingual inscriptions in Aramaic and Greek which give first- hand information about at least one relatively short stretch of the Silk Road.2 Of added interest is the romantic story of Zenobia, Queen of Photograph © Ruth and Franklin Harold 1998 Palmyra, who is so celebrated in the Fig. 2. Palmyra from the air at dusk. works of Roman historians, in Chaucer’s “Monk’s Tale,” in art and The beginnings of Palmyra are not event in 41 BCE when Mark Anthony in drama.3 clear. There are natural springs of led an army through the region. In sulphurous water which are thought the face of his attack, the inhabitants Palmyra is in modern Syria in the to have attracted the first settlers of the village, most likely nomads middle of the desolate Tadmorean drawn from the nomads who lived in who had settled by the springs, Desert (see maps, Figs. 1, 3). All the surrounding desert. A settlement melted into the desert with all their around are natural barriers, dry and called Tadmor is mentioned as early goods so that the Romans came up bare mountains to the north, west as the eighteenth century BCE when empty-handed (Seyrig 1950: 1, citing and southwest (the Lebanon and Amorites settled at the spring. The Appian). Anti-Lebanon Mts., cutting off the name appears in the Bible, which By the first century CE Palmyra had Mediterranean coast), while to the claims it was built by Solomon, become a city because of the east and south are dry flatlands, with although this is now known to have development of its caravan trade. As the volcanic basalt desert of the been a mistake for Tamar, in the early as 19 CE there is an inscription Hauran merging into Jordan and to Judean desert.4 Much is made of an that mentions the contribution to the the southeast into Iraq and then Saudi Arabia (Sanlaville and Traboulsi 1996). To the east, beyond the desert with its wadi and passes, runs the Euphrates River, but rather than being a barrier, it permitted traffic by river to come in through the Persian Gulf from northwest and beyond. The Tadmorean mountain range meant that roads either went north or south. The southern one came through Palmyra which then became the hub of a series of roads. Thus geographically Palmyra was well-served to become an important center of trade if the decision were made to cross this desert rather than take the longer route around it. Adapted from Gawlikowski (1983): 54. Fig. 3. Palmyrene trade routes.

21 building of a temple by the Palmyrene significant sector of the population of shod in supple boots. Unlike the and Greek merchants from Seleucia, Assyria and Babylon, and their usual Greek fashion, this style is though it is not known if this was the writing was simpler than the highly decorative with bands of famous Seleucia on the Tigris or one cuneiform Akkadian (Beyer 1986: 9- ornamentation on the tunic and along of several others with this name. In 14). The religion and customs were the limbs. A cloak was worn over the 24 CE there is mention of another those of the local population, tunic. The women also wore a long, contribution to this temple by “all the originally Amorite but with a belted tunic with either tight or full merchants in the city of Babylon” (PAT representation of Arabs, who were long sleeves with a decorative cuff, 0270 and 1352). a part of a later Nabatean wave from or without sleeves, like that of the the south, and various other groups men. From the first century on, the The period of Palmyra’s rise (on religion see Dirven 1999; Teixidor clothing became more complex, with coincided with Roman control of Syria. 1979). There was also a layer of a cloak over the tunic and held by a Earlier, Syria had been conquered by Hellenic civilization: Greek was broach on the left shoulder, a kind of Alexander the Great (332 BCE). spoken. The inscriptions which turban and over it all a long veil Thereafter ruled by the Seleucid line remain are bilingual, in Aramaic and covering the head, shoulders and of kings, it had become subject to Greek; a few with Latin also survive arms. The women wore jewelry such Hellenizing influences, although the but only from the later years of the as ornate necklaces, rings, and Greek influence was felt more on the city (As’ad and Delplace 2002). earrings. The sculptures pose them Mediterranean coastal area than it with one hand seeming to draw back was east of the mountains. Rome The clothing as seen in the the veil a bit, and the other holding had acquired what is modern Syria sculptures of that time also a spindle and distaff, symbolic of their in 64 BCE and made it a Roman represented the two cultures, Greek household duties (Internet images: province with Antioch as its capital. and Central Asian. For the men, the 2, 3). The major Greek cities such as Greek garments consisted of a Antioch and Seleucia were given chiton, a long, sleeveless tunic with The inscriptions indicate that the autonomy under the supervision of the cloth, generally of linen, covering early socio-political organization of the provincial governor. Arab dynasts to the elbows. Over this was worn a the city was based on four tribes, at Emesa and Edessa, for example, large cloak, the himation, of linen or each settled in a different part of the were left in place as long as they wool. It was usually draped so as to city. These were: a sacerdotal tribe, supported Rome, and there was a provide a support for the right hand. the Bene Komare (Kohenite); an Arab province-wide land and poll tax. The At least in the sculpture, there was tribe, the Bene Maazin or Ma’zyân; province became increasingly no ornamentation. The priests, who the Bene Mattabol, also of western important as a bulwark against can be recognized by the cylindrical origin; and a fourth whose name is threats first from Parthia and then headgear and the containers of uncertain. Each had its own cult the Sasanids to the east and was a incense that they hold, wore more temple, but that of the god Bel base for military campaigns against ornate costumes, tunics with represented all of Palmyra them. Rome exercised hegemony embroidery and a cloak fastened by (Schlumberger 1971). over Palmyra, and it seems to have a large metallic plaque decorated The primary temple in Palmyra was become a tributary city with a garrison with a stylized floral pattern that dedicated to Bel, and his temple from 19 CE, with the name Palmyra (Internet images: 1). Fragments of is the most impressive relic that coming to replace the older Tadmor. patterned cloth of linen, wool and silk remains (Figs. 4-5; Seyrig, Amy and Trajan’s ill-fated attempt to conquer have been found, as well as Will 1968 & 1975). Bel (originally Bol, Parthia in 117 CE created much fragments of Chinese silk (Maen- which occurs in names) had a cosmic difficulty for Palmyra, whose pros- chen-Helfen 1943; Stauffer 1995; role in the pantheon of the city. The perity depended upon peaceful Stauffer 1996). temple is in two parts: a large relations between the two powers. The other His death in 119 and reversion to a style was policy of peace by Rome in their what gen- eastern holdings eased the erally is situation. Palmyra became a metro- called polis with “free” status under Parthian. It Hadrian (117-38), who visited there consisted of in 129, and was named a colony in a long- 231, but withal retained its own sleeved forms of government. tunic, short, The language of the area was belted and Aramaic, a language related to split at the Hebrew, and written with the same sides, and alphabet. Aramaic became the lingua trousers franca from the time of the Assyrian that were

Empire (eighth century BCE), tight at the Photograph © Ruth and Franklin Harold 1998 because the Arameans were a ankles, and Fig. 4. The exterior of the cella at the Temple of Bel.

22 Palmyra is a reminder that Palmyra was able Allat to field archers, mounted on camels became and horses, who protected the assimilated caravans against the marauding to the Syro- desert nomads (Ingholt 1976). Phoenician With the standoff between Rome Astarte, and Parthia, Palmyra in effect came and the to occupy a no-man’s land criss- Greek crossed with caravan routes. Aphrodite. Palmyra profited from its location, for She was there was a demand from Rome for also called the luxuries of the East — silks and Ishtar, an spices — and Parthia, with its Assyrian growing interest in Hellenistic deity who culture, wanted the goods of the gave victory West. There was some sort of tacit in battle. Photograph © Ruth and Franklin Harold 1998 understanding between the two As Ishtar Fig. 5. The interior of the cella at the Temple of Bel. powers, which enabled Palmyra, a she was neutral, semi-independent town, to courtyard, 205 by 210 meters, and the goddess par excellence, with a become the middleman in this trade the cella. The cella is a rectangular variety of cults worshipping her as with its enormous profits. building upon a podium raised in the the “Arab Venus” of the Bedouin. By center of the courtyard. Entrance to the second century, following a vogue This flow of wealth supported the inner court of the temple was in iconography, her traits had building on a grand scale (Chamdor through a propylaeum, a powerful become those of the armed Athena, 1953; Gawlikowski 1973). With its gate 35 meters wide, with a monu- with the Medusa-head breastplate of temples and their grounds and civic mental staircase leading into it. scale armor, spear and shield. buildings such as the Agora, Nothing remains of the furniture, Monumental Arch, Grand Colonnade Other names that occur in statues or cultic objects, but an and Theater, Palmyra became the inscriptions include Manawat, an inscription dated 51 CE mentions most luxurious and elegant city in Arabian goddess, Herta and Nanai, libation vases, a golden censer, and Syria. Even today enough remains to Babylonian godesses, and Reshef, a libation bowls, no doubt to be used indicate the magnificent city of that Canaanite deity. There were in the ceremonies. There may have time with its splendid architecture hundreds of altars at Palmyra, been processions carrying the image built of a local pale gold limestone. attesting to the worship of many of Bel about the city. At the city’s center, the public other deities, not all of which have meeting place or Agora (probably Another important deity was Baal left traces. A further example of the built in the middle of the first century) Shamin, the ancient god of the range of religions to which the was the same as that found in all Canaanite and Phoenician coast. His Palmyrenes adhered is a relief of Graeco-Roman cities. The brackets on name means Lord of Heaven, and he Mithras from Dura-Europos, dated the columns on the east side were was the lord of the Heavens, the March 169 CE, dedicated by a reserved for statues of senators, on supreme weather god, a patron of Palmyrene who was stationed there. the north for officials, on the west for farmers and shepherds. In Palmyra The inscription reads: soldiers, and on the south for he was especially associated with caravan leaders — in all some 200 the Bene Maazin tribe, who had dkrn tb ‘bd ‘tpny ‘strtg’ would gaze down at the goings-on settled the land on which his temple br zbd’h dy ‘l qsht dy bdwr’ in the Agora itself. Probably the most was then built around 131 CE. He is byrh ‘dr shnt 480 famous of all the Palmyrene often shown with Yarhibol and structures is the Monumental Arch Aglibol, the one an ancestral deity in A good memorial erected by (Fig. 6), which marks a shift in the the oasis and the other a deity from Etpani the strategos, northern Syria. The two became the son of Zabde’a, who is in sun god and moon god, respectively; command of the archers Yarhibol was a deity in his own right, who are in Dura. In the as a judge and dispenser of benefits. month Adar, year 480. The sanctuary of the goddess Allat has been found in the area of the Branch establishments of temple of Baal Shamin, in the Arab Palmyrene merchants or quarter, where it must have been the fonduqs such as this at Dura- cultic center of those tribes. She Europos were to be found in became the female companion of Bel many cities, even as far as and had the epithet blty “My Lady.” Egypt and Rome. The reference In the cosmopolitan environment of to the military title of strategos Photo © Ruth and Franklin Harold 1998 Fig. 6. The Monumental Arch.

23 direction of the Grand Colonnade. ingly elaborate with adjoining there is no solid information on what The colonnade (Fig. 7), which runs sepulchres or underground goods were carried, who carried along the 1100-meter length of the cemeteries, called hypogeum, and them, how the caravan was major thoroughfare, originally with ever more sophisticated organized, and so on. These contained some 375 columns, most architecture. While by the second inscriptions and the statues that they of which are 9.5 meters high and 0.95 century the towers ceased to be accompanied were of the city’s elite, meters thick. About half remain. built, the sepulchres in a sense took and were pats on the back, as it There would have been shops and off. Known as bt ‘lm, “houses of were. trading stations The inscriptions under the porticos on provide incomplete both sides, with evidence of Palmy- statues and their ra’s trade routes. inscriptions atop the They mention only brackets, ten feet off one caravan route, the ground.5 The from Spasinou Char- Theater, built in the ax (Hansman 1967; early second century, Matthews 1984: is one of the best- 165)8 on the Persian preserved buildings Gulf up the Euphra- of its kind. It may tes through Vologe- originally have had sias9 (west of

30 rows of seats in Photo © Ruth and Franklin Harold 1998 Babylon) probably to three stories, prob- Fig. 7. The Grand Colonnade. Dura-Europos or ably with a pillared another river port loggia at the top. Facing the seats eternity,” the elaborately decorated such as Hit (neither of these are was the stage whose backdrop was chambers might have a group of mentioned), and from there overland a wall with doorways, pillars and three richly sculpted sarcophagi to Palmyra. There are two cases of panels of sculpture, a standard around three walls, to form a ships owned by a Palmyrene that design in the late Hellenistic-Roman banquet scene, and individual arrived from Scythia, by which is world. There was not much room portraits of the dead marking the meant the Indus estuary area in backstage, as it bordered directly on niches into which their remains were northwest India. As Michal Gawli- the Grand Colonnade. There are laid (Internet images: 4, 5). These kowski has observed, in the other impressive buildings such as were the wealthy Palmyrenes: inscriptions “there is nothing to Diocletian’s Camp and the Diocletian priests, municipal officials, military suggest that the Palmyrenes were Baths, but these date after the fall commanders, caravan owners, etc. interested in the land route through of Palmyra, when it was turned into Almost half of the surviving Iran and Central Asia,” which is a Roman camp and was no longer the Palmyrene inscriptions (1371) are usually taken as the route of the Silk center of the caravan trade that it funerary. Road (Gawlikowski 1994: 29). Rather had been earlier.6 they would appear to have The inscriptions, usually bilingual, channeled the trade from India and The main burial grounds were to are on the pedestals or consoles of the southwest of the city (Schmidt- statues of the men being honored. Colinet 1989). The types of graves None of these statues survive, but at Palmyra changed over time and of the 181 honorific inscriptions that reflected the status of the deceased. have been found some 36 relate to Simple burials were marked by a pile the caravan trade.7 A typical of stones. More elaborate ones inscription reads: contained sarcophagi of terracotta or Statue of Marcus Ulpius plaster and were marked by a Yarhai, son of Hairan, son of gravestone which could feature a Abgar, dedicated by the full-length human figure. By the first caravan that came from century CE, in a wadi to the west of Charax Spasinou, as he has the city called the Valley of Tombs, helped in all things, in his appears the sepulchre, with a honor, during the time that doorway, a corridor, and a number of Zabdela, son of Yadaya, was burial compartments and graves, and chief of the caravan. Dated containing grave goods of lamps, August 466 [= 155 CE]. pottery, alabaster vases, jewelry, and coins. Increasing prosperity coincided The term here for chief of the caravan with the building of soaring, is synodiarch in Greek and rb shurt in rectangular stone towers, generally Aramaic. Other inscriptions give a bit lining a road running through the more information, and mention other Photograph © Ruth and Franklin Harold 1998 wadi (Fig. 8). These became increas- names and titles, but unfortunately Fig. 8. A tomb tower.

24 China through the ports in India and attacks by nomads and carried out tions. Who these men were, their up the Persian Gulf. Some Palmy- any diplomatic negotiations with the role in that society, and much else renes were appointed by the king of relevant authorities (Rostovtzeff about the caravan trade remain Mesene (the territory covered the 1932: 806). Rostovzeff further tantalizing vague. estuary of the Tigris and Euphrates believed that the members of the and beyond, whose capital was caravan were the merchant-princes A breakdown of the delicate Charax) to govern what is modern who formed into a company for each balance between the Roman Empire Bahrein and other cities of that journey and chose from among and its eastern neighbors, the kingdom. There is some question themselves their own leader who Parthians and then the Sasanids, about the role of the desert nomads might also be the caravan leader, but would threaten Palmyra’s affluence. in all of this. Their sheiks may well not necessarily so. The caravan The Roman emperors Crassus in 54 have profitted by the trade, would simply disband at the end of BCE, Trajan in 114-117 CE, and supplying the camels needed and each trip. Caracalla in 216 CE all failed in their perhaps receiving other payments. efforts to control the frontier. Ernest Will has emphasized the Caracalla at least tried to come to But there is also mention in several complexity of the caravan’s inscriptions of danger from attacks terms with the Parthians by offering organization, for beside the caravan to marry the daughter of Artabanes being averted by the prompt action leaders and merchants, there were of armed forces sent from Palmyra. V. The Romans suggested that a the funders or entrepeneurs, the union of the two empires would then The goods coming into Palmyra had fonduqs or trading communities rule the world, the result being that to go somewhere; so there is no outside of Palmyra, and the strategoi the spices and wonderful cloth of the doubt that there were other routes who provided for the caravan’s Persians, on the one hand, and the out of the city (Fig. 3). The silence of security, including any necessary manufactured goods of the Romans the inscriptions may be explained in diplomatic negotiations (Will 1957). on the other could be exchanged various ways. Since caravans going Will’s emphasis on these other directly without middlemen and westward to the Mediterranean roles in the caravan trade perhaps would thus no longer be difficult to through Roman-controlled territory unduly diminishes the importance of obtain and in short supply. Was this were under Roman protection, there the caravan leader. Some of those to in reference to the caravans of may have been no need to offer whom statues were dedicated Palmyra? Artabanes V was not thanks for services in that direction. clearly were major players in the convinced of the merits of the offer. A more likely explanation is that Palmyrean commercial scene and Palmyrenes were involved in funding quite likely supplied the capital The rise of the Sasanids created only the caravans to the south, while necessary to carry on the trade. In a new difficulties for the Romans, who other routes were underwritten mountainous area northwest of were beset on all sides and elsewhere. If so, this would also Palmyra there is evidence of weakened internally by pretenders open the possibility that caravans agriculture and pasturage and to the throne. The expulsion of the were reaching Palmyra from the east extensive development, such as Romans from Mesopotamia began by routes other than that along the villages, shrines and wells dating with Ardashir in the 230s CE. His Euphrates, and thus Palmyra was on from the period of Palmyrean successor Shapur I routed a Roman the traditional Silk Road after all. prominence. These discoveries point army in 244. Dura-Europos fell in 256, Appian, the Roman historian of the to the source of the wealth and and Palmyra would appear to have early second century, said of the resources that men such as Marcus been next. Shapur’s triumph was Palmyrenes, “Being merchants, they Ulpius Yarhai may have invested in complete when he captured the bring the products of India and the caravan trade (Schlumberger Roman emperor Valerian in 260. Arabia from Persia and dispose of 1951). At this juncture Odenathus and his them in Roman territory.” They were In an eloquent article, J. F. wife, Zenobia, appear on the scene undoubtedly involved in the lucrative Matthews went further and described (Stoneman 1992). A member of one silk and spice trades. these eminent men as having been of the leading families of Palmyra, The caravan leader who is featured Bedouin sheiks who brought to Odenathus gained power through in many of the inscriptions either as Palmyra their close connections with his military successes in support of the person being honored or as the the nomads and thus the ability to Rome during these trying times. He one dedicating the statue must have police the desert and protect the became Palmyra’s ruler and the been involved in the organization of caravans. While not themselves recipient of many titles awarded by the caravan itself. Michael Rostovtzeff merchant-princes, they could serve the grateful Roman emperors and suggested that he was little more as protectors and patrons of the senate. A victory over two claimants than a specialist or technician, hired merchants. Once Palmyra fell to to the Roman throne gave him even to provide the animals, camels and Roman armies in 272 CE, they simply greater visibility. As a Roman horses, and the personnel to care for moved back to the desert, having historian put it, he became in effect them and to guide the party through enjoyed “a phase of magnificent, but “emperor over almost the whole the desert. In addition to doing all relatively short-lived, urban East,” which meant that Odenathus’ the prelimiary tasks such as obtaining grandeur” (Matthews 1984: 169). Syria was an important player in the the necessary food and water, he While this interpretation is plausible, destiny of Rome. He attacked the also protected the party against it is not documented in the inscrip- Persians in 262, drove them back

25 across the Euphrates, captured the allies, among them the Armenians, University. His research ranges wives and children of Shapur, and Zenobia fled with a small party widely over early Chinese history and was thus hailed as the savior of the toward Persia to seek aid but was archaeology and the history of the empire. A further attack in 267 forced overtaken and captured by the Silk Road. He edited State and Society the Persians back to the Tigris. Romans. She was brought back to in Early Medieval China (1990), which Following the pattern of that age, Rome to be paraded in golden chains contains his essay on “The Military Odenathus might next have declared in the victory march, and lived out her Hierarchy of Western Wei/Northern himself a Roman emperor, but on his days in a villa at Tivoli, just northeast Chou,” has written on “The Stirrup return from that campaign he and his of Rome. In Chaucer’s words, and its Effect on Chinese History” son were assassinated at Emesa. Aurilian, whan that the (Ars Orientalia 16 [1986]) (available on-line at: http://www. silkroad Who and why the murder? Power governaunce foundation.org/artl/stirrup.shtml), passed to Zenobia, his second wife Of Rome cam into his hondes and recently contributed an essay on and the mother of his second son, tway... the Sogdians to Annette L. Juliano Wahballath, for whom she was He made hir flee, and atte last and Judith A. Lerner, eds., Monks and regent. One version of the history of hir hente, merchants : Silk Road treasures from Zenobia is to be found in Chaucer’s And feterid hir, and eek hir Northwest China : Gansu and Ningxia, “Monk’s Tale,” where she is children tweye, 4th-7th century (2001). His essay portrayed as the warrior queen, And won the lond, and home to “The Glories of Sogdiana” is available famous for her beauty and her Rome he wente.... on the Silkroad Foundation website ambition. Some have suspected her Bifore this triumphe walkith she, (http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/ of being something of a Lady Macbeth And gilte cheynes in hir necke artl/sogdian.shtml). in plotting her own husband’s death. hongynge; At very least she was of noble Corounèd she was, as aftir hir References lineage, claiming descent from the degree, Ptolemies and Cleopatras of Egypt And ful of jewels chargid was hir Abdulhak and Abdulhak 1996 and from a king of Syria. Rome’s clothynge. troubles on other fronts meant that Palmyra declined into a provincial Sélèm and Andrée Abdulhak. little attention was paid to Syria. market town for the nearby nomads, “Palmyre dans l’architecture et Zenobia quickly asserted her control occupied for a time by a Roman l’urbanisme des premiers siècles de over the various desert nomads and garrison. The caravan routes moved notre ère.” In Palmyra and the Silk the other cities and towns of central to the north, through Asia Minor and Road: Special Issue Documenting the Syria, sent armies south to the on to Constantinople, and Syria itself Activities of the International Arabian peninsula and, finally, in was no longer part of the Silk Road. Colloquium (, 1996) (Les open revolt from Rome, even invaded Europeans rediscovered Palmyra, Annales archaeologiques Arabs Egypt. She extended her rule to the city, in the seventeenth century, Syriennes: Revue d’Archaeologie et include Antioch and even distant and the reports and wonderful d’Histoire, 42 [1996]): 263-283. Ankara in the north, and she was well illustrations brought back to Europe on the way to establishing an in the eighteenth century created a As’ad and Delplace 2002 independent kingdom. The legend on Palmyrean craze. The authoritative one of her son’s coins calls him “King early study was Robert Wood’s Ruins Khaled As’ad and Christiane of Kings, corrector of all the world, of Palmyra (Wood 1753). Its Delplace. “Inscriptions Latines de and prince of Palmyra.” He took the renderings of the ceiling of the Palmyre.” Revue des études title of Augustus in 271, which Temple of Bel, drawn by Wood and anciennes, 104 (2002): 363-400. signaled the break with Rome. Some James Dawkins, helped inspire the surmise that her intention was to Palmyrean interior decor of lavish Bevan 1897 rule Rome itself, either alone or as estates, such as can be seen in the the consort of the new emperor ceiling of the drawing room of the Anthony Ashley Bevan. The Hymn of Aurelian (270-75). Osterley Park House, designed by the Soul contained in the Syriac Acts Unfortunately for her, Aurelian was Robert Adam in 1775 (Osterley Park). of St. Thomas. Cambridge: Cam- a successful general who turned the That fashion too faded in time, bridge University Press, 1897. declining fortunes of Rome around. leaving us with the wonderful legacy He was able to defeat the Goths and of the funerary sculptures, now to be Beyer 1986 Vandals who had crossed the found in museums all over the world, Danube, and the Germans who had and the magnificent ruins of the city Klaus Beyer. The Aramaic Language. invaded Italy, and later was to itself (Dentzer-Feydy and Teixidor Göttingen: Vanderhoeck and recover Gaul, Britain and Spain. 1993; Ruprechtsberger 1987). Ruprecht, 1986. Aurelian sent one army to recover Egypt (the breadbasket of Rome), Bounni 1989 while he led another through the About the Author Balkans and Anatolia and, turning Adnan Bounni. “Palmyre et les south, crossed the desert to arrive Albert E. Dien is Professor Emeritus Palmyrénienes.” In Jean-Marie at Palmyra in 272. Deserted by her of Asian Languages at Stanford Dentzer and Winfried Orthman, eds.

26 Archaeologie et Histoire de la Syrie II: Michal Gawlikovski. Palmyre: Le temple 4. Funerary banquet, http:// La Syrie de l’epoque achémenide à palmyrénien. Etude d’épigraphie et de www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/ l’avènement de l’Islam. Saarbrücken: topographie historique. Vol. 6. compass/resources/image/large/ Saarbrücker Druckerei und Verlag, Warsaw: Éditions scientifiques de ps251465.jpg Pologne, 1973. 1989. 5. Gravestone with funerary banquet, http://www.metmuseum. Gawlikowski 1983 Chamdor 1953 org/Works_of_Art/images/an/ images/an02.29.1.L.jpg Albert Chamdor. Les Ruines de M. Gawlikowski. “Palmyre et l’Euphrates.” Syria, 60 (1983): 53-68. Palmyre. Paris: Albert Guillot, 1953. Maenchen-Helfen 1943 Gawlikowski 1994 Chaucer Otto Maenchen-Helfen. “From China to Palmyra.” Art Bulletin, 25 (1943): M. Gawlikowski. “Palmyra as a Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Monk’s Tale,” 358-362. accessed at About.com: http:// Trading Center.” Iraq, 56 (1994): 27- 33. classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/ Maricq 1959 gchaucer/bl-gchau-can-monk-m.htm Gawlikowski 1997 A. Maricq. “Vologésias, l’emporium de Chaumont 1974 Ctesiphon.” Syria, 36 (1959): 264- Michael Gawlikowski. “Palmyra and 276. Marie-Louise Chaumont. “Études its Caravan Trade.” In Palmyra and the Silk Road. Special issue of Les Annales d’histoire Parthe, III: Les villes Matthews 1984 fondées par les Vologèse: (a) Archaeologiques Arabes Syriennes: Revue d’Archaeologies et d’Histoire. Vologesocerta et Volegésias.” Syria, J. F. Matthews. “The Tax-Law of Damascus: Directorate-General of 51 (1974): 77-81. Palmyra: Evidence for Economic Antiquities and Museums, Syrian Arab History in a City of the Roman East.” Republic, 1997. Degeorge 2001 The Journal of Roman Studies, 74 (1984): 157-180. Gérard Degeorge. Palmyre: métropole Hansman 1967 caravanière. Paris: Imprimerie Millar 1998 nationale, 2001. John Hansman. “Charax and the Karkheh.” Iranica Antiqua, 7 (1967): Fergus Millar. “Caravan Cities: The 21-45. Dentzer-Feydy and Teixidor 1993 Roman Near East and Long-distance Trade by Land.” In Michael Austin et Hillers and Caissini 1996 Jacqueline Dentzer-Feydy and Javier al., eds. Modus Operandi: Essays in Teixidor. Les antiquités de Palmyre au honour of Geoffrey Rickman. London: Delbert R. Hillers and Eleonora Musée du Louvre. [Paris]: Réunion University of London, 1998: 121-137. des Musées nationaux, 1993. Caissini. Palmyrene Aramaic Texts. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Osterley Park Dirven 1999 University Press, 1996 “Osterley Park: The Drawing Room,” Ingholt 1976 Lucinda Dirven. The Palmyrenes of accessed from National Trust website Dura-Europos: A Study of Religious for Osterley Park, http://www. Harald Ingholt. “Varia Tadmorea.” In Interaction in Roman Syria. Leiden: nationaltrust.org.uk/places/osterley/ Palmyre: Bilan et perspectives. Brill, 1999. housetour9.html Strasbourg: AECR, 1976: 123-124. Drijvers 1995 PAT, see Hillers and Caissini 1996 Internet images: Han J. W. Drijvers. “Greek and Rostovtzeff 1932 Aramaic in Palmyrene Inscriptions.” 1. Limestone funerary portrait of a priest, http://www. thebritish In M. J. Geller et al., eds. Studia M. Rostovtzeff. “Les inscriptions Aramaica: New Sources and New museum.ac.uk/compass/resources/ image/large/ps251460.jpg caravanières de Palmyre.” In Approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Mélanges Gustave Glotz. T.II. Paris: Press, 1995: 31-42. 2. Stone funerary bust of Aqmat, Presses universitaires de France, http://www.thebritishmuseum. 1932. Finley 1999 ac.uk/compass/resources/image/ large/ps279593.jpg Ruprechtsberger 1987 M. I. Finley. The Ancient Economy, 3. Limestone memorial bust of updated ed. Berkeley: University of Tamma, http://www.thebritish Erwin M. Ruprechtsberger, ed. California Press, 1999. museum.ac.uk/compass/resources/ Palmyra: Geschichte, Kunst und image/large/ps251468.jpg Kultur der syrischen Oasenstadt. Gawlikowski 1973

27 Einführende Beiträge und Katalog zur Paris: Librairie orientaliste Paul myra as an exception in his general Ausstellung. Linz, 1987 (Linzer Geuthner, 1968, 1975. dismissal of the claim that caravan Archäologische Forschungen, Bd. Stauffer 1995 cities existed in the Greco-Roman 16). period that he examines. Millar 1998 Annemarie Stauffer. “Kleider, Kissen, disputes Finley’s generalization that Sanlaville and Traboulsi 1996 bunte Tücher.” In Andreas Schmidt- trade was never a dominant factor Colinet, ed. Palmyra: Kulturbegegnung in the economy of any ancient city, Paul Sanlaville and Myriam Traboulsi. im Grenzbereich. Mainz am Rhein: but while Millar emphasizes such “Palmyre et la steppe syrienne.” In Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1995: 57- trade, he agrees with Finley that at Palmyra and the Silk Road: Special 71. the least, Palmyra was indisputably Issue Documenting the Activities of a “caravan city.” the International Colloquium (Damas- Stauffer 1996 cus, 1996) (Les Annales archaeo- 2. The surviving Aramaic texts, logiques Arabs Syriennes: Revue Annemarie Stauffer. “Textiles from numbering 2832, with the Greek d’Archaeologie et d’Histoire, 42 Palmyra: Local production and the counterparts where available, are [1996]): 29-40. import and imitation of Chinese silk included in Hillers and Caissini 1996, weavings.” In Palmyra and the Silk hereafter PAT. On the language of Schlumberger 1951 Road: Special Issue Documenting the the inscriptions, see Drijvers 1995. Activities of the International Daniel Schlumberger. La Palmyrène Colloquium (Damascus, 1996) (Les 3. The most inclusive bibliography of du nord-ouest. Villages et lieux de culte Annales archaeologiques Arabs Palmyrean materials is Degeorge de l’époque impériale. Recherches Syriennes: Revue d’Archaeologie et 2001: 302-307. archéologiques sur la mise en valeur d’Histoire 42 [1996]): 425-430. d’une région du désert par les 4. For the earliest occurrences, see Palmyréniens. Suivi du Recueil des Stoneman 1992 Bounni 1989: 251. inscriptions sémitiques de cette région par H. Ingholt et J. Starcky, Richard Stoneman. Palmyra and Its 5. As Will (1992: 59) points out, only avec une contribution de G. Empire: Zenobia’s Revolt Against a few of the statues in stone have Ryckmans. Paris: Librairie oriental- Rome. Ann Arbor: University of survived. Those of bronze were iste Paul Geuthner, 1951 (Institut Michigan Press, 1992. probably melted down when the city français d’archéologie de Beyrouth. was sacked in 273. Bibliothèque archéologique et Teixidor 1979 historique, t. 49) 6. Among the many accounts of Javier Teixidor. The Pantheon of Palmyrean architecture, see, for Schlumberger 1971 Palmyra. Leiden: Brill, 1979. example Abdulhak and Abdulhak 1996 and Gawlikowski 1973. Daniel Schlumberger. “Les quatre Will 1957 tribus de Palmyre.” Syria, 48 (1971): 7. Thirty-four of these are listed in 121-133. Ernest Will. “Marchands et chefs de Gawlikowski 1997: 142-143, and a caravane à Palmyre.” Syria 34 (1957)/ few others are found elsewhere. Schmidt-Colinet 1989 3-4: 262-277 (reprinted in Ernest Will, De l’Euphrate au Rhin: Aspects 8. This was the capital of Mesene or Andreas Schmidt-Colinet. “L’architec- de l’Hellénisation et de la Romanisation Maishân, on which see Gawlikowski ture funéraire de Palmyre.” In Jean- du Proche-. Beyrouth: Institut 1994: 28-29. The city was founded Marie Dentzer and Winfried Orthman, français d’archéologie du Proche- by Hyspaosines, originally a Seleucid eds. Archaeologie et Histoire de la Syrie Orient, 1995: 541-556). governor of the area; its name, II: La Syrie de l’epoque achémenide à Charax Spasinou, means Palisade of l’avènement de l’Islam. Saarbrücken: Will 1992 Spasines or Hyspaosines (Hansman Saarbrücker Druckerei und Verlag, 1967: 23-24). The usual name in the 1989: 447-456. Ernest Will. Les palmyréns: La Venise Aramaic texts is krk myšn. St. Thomas des sables. Paris: Armand Colin, 1992. mentioned Maishân as the “meeting- Seyrig 1950 place of the merchants of the East” Wood 1753 and “the haven of the merchants, Henri Seyrig. “Palmyra and the East.” That sitteth on the shore of the sea” The Journal of Roman Studies, 40/1-2 Robert Wood. The Ruins of Palmyra, (Bevan 1897: 15, 25). (1950): 1-7. Otherwise Tedmor, in the Desert. London, 1753. 9. On the location of Vologesias, see Seyrig, Amy and Will 1968 & 1975 Maricq 1959. Disagreeing with him Notes are Chaumont 1974 and Gawlikowski Henri Seyrig, Robert Amy and Ernest 1994: 29-30. See also Matthews Will. Le Temple de Bêl à Palmyre. 2 tt. 1. Finley (1999: 59) mentions Pal- 1984: 165-166.

28 traveling stages. One has fifty-one The “Ancient Tea and Horse river crossings, fifteen rope bridges and ten iron bridges (Fig. 2, p. 30) Caravan Road,” the “Silk Road” and traverses seventy-eight mountains over 3000 meters high. All of Southwest China of this makes the route one of the most difficult in the world. Moreover, the weather in this area of the world Yang Fuquan is extremely changeable. In a single day the traveler may experience The “Tea and Horse Caravan Road” with an abundant bio-diversity and heavy snow, hail, burning sun and of Southwest China is less well complex topography. Generally heavy winds, with extreme varia- known than the famous Silk Road. Its speaking, the Tea and Horse Road tions in the temperatures. There are route crosses some very high and follows two main routes (Fig. 1). One many branches joining these two dangerous terrain. It begins from of them starts at the original place major routes, combining to connect Sichuan and provinces in of the famous Pu’er tea production the economy, religions and cultures Southwest China, runs along the (present day Xishuangbanna and in the broad triangular area of Tibet, eastern foothills of the Hengduan Sima prefectures of Yunnan province) Yunnan and Sichuan. Mountains, a center of tea pro- and passes through Dali, Lijiang, duction in China, then crosses the Zhongdian (present Shangrila Hengduan mountain range and deep county), Deqin of Yunnan Province The Tea and Horse Caravan canyons of several major rivers, the and Mangkang, Zuogong [Zogong], Road as a corridor of ancient Yalong, the Jinsha (the upper Bangda, Changdu, Luolongzong, civilizations reaches of Yangtze), the Lancang Gongbujiangda and Lhasa in Tibet. (Mekong), and the Nu (Salween), From Lhasa it heads south through This route would appear to have thus spanning the two highest Jiangze [Gyantse], Pali, and Yadong been in use long before it became plateaus of China (Qinghai-Tibet and in Tibet and on to Burma, Nepal and an avenue for the tea and horse Yunnan-Guizhou) before finally India. The other route starts at trade during the Tang and the Song reaching India south of the Ya’an, Sichuan province, which is the dynasties, for it was a very important Himalayas. major site of Yacha tea production, corridor connecting the ancient The name of the road (Chamadao and goes through Luding, Kangding, cultures of the areas of present Tibet, in the Chinese records meaning “the Batang, Changdu and Lhasa, and Yunnan and Sichuan. In such places tea and horse road”) indicates its then to Nepal and India. According as Ganzi and Aba distrcts of Sichuan importance in the trade of tea and to the surveys, the tea and horse and the Hengduan Mountains of horses, but other products passed route from Sichuan to Lhasa is some Northwest Yunnan archaeologists along it as well. Horse caravans 2350 kilometers long, with fifty-six have discovered many cist tombs carried tea, sugar and salt from Sichuan and Yunnan to Tibet and brought back colorful local mountain goods. The Chinese over the ages often bought warhorses from Tibetan and other ethnic groups of Southwest China, and these too came over this road. The road also served as a significant corridor for migration as well as a channel for cultural communication among the ethnic groups in western China; beyond this, it was a bridge for international cultural and economic exchange between China and India. Although silk was not included in the trade goods carried over it, at times it has been termed the “Southern Silk Road of China,” due to its importance in both economic and cultural aspects of Chinese history. The Hengduan mountain range and the Qinghai-Tibet plateaus through which the Tea and Horse Map © 2004 by Lance Jenott Caravan Road passes is an area Fig. 1. Map illustrating the Tea and Horse Road

29 the Tang dynasty. Mountains of Mengla County, According to the Xishuangbanna. The local people call Tibetan book these ancient tea trees the “Tea Tree “Historic Collection Kings.” In the Man shu (the book of the Han and about the native tribes of southwest Tibet” (Han Zang shi China, written by Fan Chuo during

(1909), facing p. 56. ji) “In the reign of the Tang), there is a description of the Tibetan King the tea trees grown in southern Chidusongzan [Khri Yunnan. It also states that the local Yün-nan ‘Dus sron] (676- tribal people of Nanzhao Kingdom 704), the Tibetan (7th-9th centuries CE) had the aristocracy started custom of drinking the local tea (Fan to drink tea and Chuo 1961, 1992). The Tibetan use the tea-bowl, military government had a very close and tea was relationship with the Nanzhao Source: H.R. Davies, classified into dif- kingdom, and it is possible that Fig. 2. Iron chain bridge over the Nu (Salween) ferent categories.” Yunnan tea was introduced into Tibet Moreover, the book, during that time. which date from the Shang (ca. 1600- Ganlu zhi hai (The Sea of Amrita,), ca.1100 BCE) and the Zhou (ca. mentions ranking tea by quality The development of large-scale 1100-256 BCE) dynasties. These cist (Dacangzongba: 104-106). Li Zhao’s commerce in tea and horses between tombs are scattered broadly in the Guo shi bu (Supplement to the the Chinese dynasties and Tibet and canyons and valleys of the upper National History), written under the the development of the caravan road reaches of the Min River as well as Tang dynasty, relates that emperor for the tea and horse trade probably the Yalong and Jinsha Rivers. Most Dezong sent his supervisory official dates to the Song dynasty (960- of these tombs are located in (jiangchayushi) Chang Lu to visit 1279). During that period, the western Sichuan and western Tibet, where the Tibetan king re- demand for tea would have gradually Yunnan, although a few have also ceived him in a tent. Chang Lu offered increased as tea became an been found in Tibet. Although there boiled tea to the King, who asked important drink in the daily life of the are slight differences between the what it was. Chang answered that Tibetans. The Song court then started cist tombs of the various sites, their this was called cha (tea) and was to be involved in the shipping of tea main features and cultural char- good for relieving thirst and to Tibet. The Song required an large acteristics are generally similar. The nervousness. The king then re- number of warhorses from Tibet to archeologists have established that sponded that Tibet already had cha defend against the invading northern the cist tombs discovered in Tibet are and instructed his servants show the nomadic Liao, Jin and Xixia. The court closely related with those of Sichuan tea to Chang Lu (Li Zhao: Vol. 2). This established the Chamasi [Ch’a-ma and Yunnan in terms of their form and record corroborates that of the Han ssu] , Tea and Horse Office, in charge the grave goods. Notably those cist Zang shi ji. of the tea and horse trade in the tombs found in Changdu and Linzhi, seventh year of Xining (1074) and Tibet, definitely belong to the same The Tibetan people had been in also set up many markets for selling cultural system as those in western close communication with the Tang tea and buying horses in Northwest Sichuan and western Yunnan (Luo and the various ethnic groups of China.1 Every year the government Kaiyu 1992). The cist tombs in Tibet southwest China for a long time; so transported huge amounts of tea, are for the most part found close to it is very likely that the tea of Sichuan obtained mainly from Yunnan and the roads which led directly from and Yunnan had already reached Sichuan, to exchange for warhorses Yunnan and Sichuan. Thus it is clear Tibet. As early as the seventh century with the Tibetan tribes. According to that about 4000-5000 years ago, Tubo (Tibetan) military power had one study, more than 20,000 well before the Tea and Horse Road conquered the ethnic tribes warhorses per year were exchanged was opened, migration and scattered in the present areas of for tea during the Northern Song communication among the various Lijiang and Dali, Yunnan, and had (960-1127) dynasty. Of the total ethnic groups operated along this established a military administration annual output of tea in Sichuan, road. in northwest Yunnan. The military 30,000,000 Jin or 15,000,000 route used by the Tibetans to reach kilograms, at least half was sold to Yunnan was closely related to the Tibet (Jia Daquan 1993: 4). A brief introduction to the contemporary tea and horse route. history of the ancient Tea and Yunnan is the one of the places The Yüan dynasty (1271-1368) also Horse Caravan Road where tea plants are native. Since paid great attention to the trade of 1949 scientists have found many wild tea to Tibet and established the One can trace the history of the Tea and cultivated tea trees that are more Xifanchatijusi, meaning the bureau in and Horse Road back to the period than a thousand years old in the charge of tea trade to Tibet. At first, of the Tang dynasty (618-907) and Nannuo mountains and Bada tea was sold through the Tibetan (Tubo) regime. Tea was Mountains of Menghai County as well government bureau, but later it introduced to the Tibetan area during as Yiwu Mountains and Xiangming gradually was handled by individual

30 traders. The most prosperous period According to one source, more than aside for the northern route to for the tea and horse trade between 25,000 horses and mules were used Tachienlu [Dhartsedo/Kang- Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet was under (Fig. 3) and more than 1200 trading ding], to be transported by the Ming dynasty (1369-1644). The firms were to be found along the yaks; other articles were Ming court established the office of road. The Russian-born Peter packed for delivery at Likiang, Chakesi [Ch’a-k’o ssu], the bureau in Goullart, a descendant of merchants especially the liquors and charge of tea and horse trade. The who had been involved in the inner cigarettes which were worth quality of the horses offered to the Asian trade with China, arrived in their weight in gold in court by the Tibetans as “tribute” Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, in Kunming, crowded with thirsty determined the quality of the tea. 1939. He spent two years there and American and British troops... Given the importance of tea in the then moved to Lijiang (Likiang), one It was estimated that daily life of the Tibetans, the Ming of the important stopping points on some 8,000 mules and horses, court was able to use the tea trade the Tea and Horse Caravan Road. In and probably 20,000 yaks, as a means of maintaining some his evocative book about his Lijiang were used during Operation political control over the Tibetan years, Forgotten Kingdom, he Caravan, when all other routes leaders and lamas. provides abundant detail about the into China had been blocked wartime trade with Tibet over that during the war. Almost every During the Qing dynasty (1644- historic road: 1911), the tea trade between week long caravans arrived in Likiang. So good and profitable Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet continued Everything was indented [sic], to develop. Although the court was the business that even contracted or bought outright the rainy seasons failed to stopped buying horses from the that could be conveniently Tibetan area in 1735, it eased the stop some adventurous carried by yak or mule. Sewing merchants. This was a restrictions on the tea trade, and machines, textiles, cases of the huge amounts of tea were exported considerable risk and, in their best cigarettes, both British avarice, they took it. The rainy there. In 1661, the fifth Dalai Lama and American, whiskies and asked the Qing court to set up a season is much dreaded in gins of famous brands, dyes Tibet and on the border, and large market for the tea and horse and chemicals, kerosene oil in trade in Beisheng (present Yong- all caravan and pilgrim traffic tins, toilet and canned goods usually stops for the duration. sheng, Yunnan), and his request was and a thousand and one approved by the central court. From The trails become muddy and varieties of small articles swampy, rivers and streams that time there was a rapid increase started flowing in an unending in the amount of Yunnan tea swell to incredible proportions, stream by trail and truck to mountains are wrapped in transported to Tibet along the Tea Kaimpong, to be hastily and Horse Road. In just one year, mists and avalanches and repacked and dispatched by landslides become the rule 1661, 30,000 dan or 1,500,000 kg of caravan to Lhasa. There the Yunnan tea were sent to Tibet. Tea rather than the exception. flood of merchandise was Many a traveller has been also served as an important gift from crammed into the halls and the Qing court to the Tibetan elite: buried forever under tons of courtyards of the palaces and rocks or swept to his death by for example, the court allocated 5000 lamaseries and turned over to jin (2500 kg) to the Dalai Lama and a raging torrent [Goullart an army of sorters and 1955: 87-88]. 2500 jin to the Panchan Lama each professional packers. The year. During the Republic Period least fragile goods were set (1911-1949), though the With the defeat of Japan, Chinese government did not the bottom instantly play an important role in the dropped out of the Tibet tea trade, it continued to trade, and the merchants prosper in the hands of who had yet undelivered private traders who still stocks were devastated. traveled along the ancient The overland route never Tea and Horse Road. recovered.

During World War II, The Tea and Horse

especially in 1942 when the (1909), facing p. 2. Caravan Road today coastal cities of China and Burma were occupied by the While modernization under- Yün-nan Japanese army, blocking any mined this historic route’s remaining highways for commercial significance, the international trade, the Tea Tea and Horse Caravan and Horse Caravan Road Road is now attracting became a significant trans- attention due to the growth portation link supplying of tourism in southwest inland China from India.2 Source: H.R. Davies, China. One reason is the Fig. 3. A Yunnan pack mule and load.

31 ethnic and cultural diversity of the their studies and to advance their Goullart 1955 region. There is a local saying, “The careers. languages beyond five square li [2.5 Peter Goullart. Forgotten Kingdom. Goullart’s conclusion about the kilometers] are different from each London: John Murray, 1955. significance of the road (from his other, and the customs beyond ten post-war perspective) is worth square li are different from each Jia Daquan 1993 quoting, since it might be generalized other.” There are more than twenty to the earlier periods of this historic different ethnic groups to be found Jia Daquan. “The historic function of route: along the route. Some famous old the Sichuan tea sold to Tibet.” In The towns and villages which once were Collection of Papers of Tibetology of Few people have realized how key stations and markets of the Tea Sichuan. China’s Tibetology Pub- vast and unprecedented this and Horse Caravan Road have been lishing House, 1993 (in Chinese). sudden expansion of caravan listed among the most important traffic between India and international sites for historic Li Zhao n.d. China was, or how important. preservation. For example, the It was a unique and spec- Lijiang, where the Naxi people form Li Zhao. Tang guo shi bu [3 juan]. tacular phenomenon. No the majority of inhabitants, was been N.P. Ji gu ge, 16—. complete story has yet been designated as a world cultural written about it, but it will heritage site by UNESCO in 1997. In Luo Kaiyu 1992 always live in my memory as 2002, Sidengjie village, Shaxi one of the great adventures of Township in Yunnan, was listed as a Luo Kaiyu. “A study of the cist-tombs mankind. Moreover, it “protected world architectural in Western Sichuan, Western Yunnan demonstrated to the world heritage site” by the World and Eastern Tibet” (in Chinese). Kao very convincingly that, should Architecture Foundation. gu xue bao (Acta Archaeologica all modern means of com- Sinica), 1992, No. 4: 413-436. Moreover, the Tea and Horse munication and transpor- Caravan Road continues to be a tation be destroyed by some Rossabi 1970 sacred road for many people. The atomic cataclysm, the humble different religions along the road horse, man’s oldest friend, is “The Tea and Horse Trade with Inner include, for example, the white, ever ready to forge again a link Asia during the Ming.” Journal of Asian yellow and red sects of Tibetan between scattered peoples History, 4/2 (1970): 136-168. Buddhism; the Bon religion of pre- and nations [Goullart 1955: Buddhism in Tibet; the Dongba 88]. Notes [added by editor] religion of the Naxi people which combines Bon, Buddhism and its own 1. Morris Rossabi dates the animism; Han Buddhism and Taoism, establishment of this office to the as well as the Hinayana belief of the twelfth century, citing as his source Dai people, and the Benzhu (local References the Sung shih, 167, pp. 17b-18b gods and goddess) worship of the (Rossabi 1970: 140). The current Bai people. Along the caravan road, Dacangzongba 1986 article and that of Rossabi there are many sacred mountains complement one another, since belonging to the different ethnic Dacangzongba Banjuesangbu. Han Rossabi’s main focus is the horse and groups. For example, Kawagebo Zang shi ji: Xian zhe Xi le shan bu zhou tea trade along the “Northern Silk Snow Mountain [Meiliexuashan] ming jian (Historic Collection of the Route.” He says nothing about the (6740 m), near Yubeng in northern Han and Tibet). Translated by Chen trade with Tibet, just as Yang Fuquan Yunnan, is one of the most famous Qingying. [Lhasa?]: Xizang ren min says nothing about the trade with sacred mountains of the Tibetan chu ban she; Xizang Xin hua shu dian partners other than Tibet. Rossabi people. Every year many pilgrims fa xing, 1986. provides substantial detail about the from Sichuan, Yunnan, Tibet, Qinghai, mechanisms for controlling the trade and Gansu come there to worship Fan Chuo 1961 and the changes over time in and circumambulate the mountain government policies. with their tents, sheep and horses Fan Chuo. The Man shu, book of the to ask for blessings from the southern barbarians. Tr. Gordon H. 2. I have added here some material mountain god. Pilgrims still travel Luce, ed. Giok Po Oey. Ithaca, NY: from Goullart beyond what was annually to Lhasa to pay their Program, Department originally selected by Yang Fuquan. respect to the deities of Buddhism, of Far Eastern Studies, Cornell It is worth noting as well that the often still “measuring the road” by University, 1961. overland trade was but a part of the prostrating their bodies along its effort to supply the forces fighting length. The road these pilgrims Fan Chuo 1992 the Japanese. Americans best follow is the Tea and Horse Caravan remember the air routes over “the Road. In the past, young monks often Fan Chuo. Man shu. Beijing : Hump” of the mountains of the shared the road with the caravans Zhongguo shu dian; Fa xing Xin hua eastern Himalaya, an anecdotal when traveling to Lhasa to carry on shu dian shou du fa xing suo, 1992. account of which may be found in

32 Bliss K. Thorne, The Hump: The Great Military Airlift of World War II (Philadelphia and New York: Lippincott, 1965).

Chinese characters

Chakesi

Chamadao

Chamasi

Hang Zang shi ji

Man shu

Xifanchatijusi Anitpina Archive: KA 3900 Fig. 1. Family portrait. Klavdiia Antipina is standing in the white dress to the left of center. Morshansk c. 1910-11.

was a “blue blood,” a member of the Klavdiia Antipina — a Tribute to gentry. the Ethnographer of the Kyrgyz In 1922, at age eighteen (Fig. 2) she moved to Moscow where she John L. Sommer entered a Forestry Institute and became fascinated with dendrology. Fremont, California Her interests widened and she was accepted by Moscow State University, Born into nobility near Moscow, and the Leninist doctrines of where she studied ethnography and Russia, Klavdiia Ivanovna Antipina Communism with fellow students in became, along with several of her died at the age of 92 in Bishkek, the finest and most selective of classmates, a respected scholar. She Kyrgyzstan. In those decades, she Soviet universities, Moscow State married a fellow student, Mikhail had seen the beginning and the end University. A happy marriage and (“Misha”) Rabinovich, who edited the of the Soviet Union. Initially she had promising career in the 1930s were University’s student newspaper (Fig. shared the exhilaration of the Marxist soon destroyed by Stalinist repres- 3). They lived full and happy lives. She sions. Her husband was arrested and disappeared; she and her young son were exiled to Central Asia. “The stone must lie where it has fallen” is a Kyrgyz saying, an explanation for the acceptance of fate. Klavdiia Ivanovna lived in Kyrgyzstan for the remainder of her life, becoming a much-respected ethnographer of The Kyrgyz.

Klavdiia Ivanovna Antipina was born 5 May 1904, the fourth child in a large family which lived in Morshansk near Moscow (Fig. 1). Her grandfather had been a “person of the church.” Her father, who preceded every meal with a prayer, carried a title of nobility which he lost at the time of the communist revolution. The family lived in a two-story house with a piano on the second floor. We may conclude that the family was prosperous, aristocratic, religious, Anitpina Archive: KA 2950

and disciplined. Klavdiia Ivanovna Anitpina Archive: KA 3901 Fig. 2. Klavdiia Antipina at about the Fig. 3. Klavdiia Antipina and “Misha.” time of her move to Moscow. c. 1922. Moscow, c. 1930.

33 she was required to report to the possible for her to do the kind of local secret police. scholarly research for which she had been trained — ethnography (Fig. 5). When she and her son had first Gradually, the hostility she had met arrived, they had found in the on her arrival in Frunze gave way to railway station, in a barn, in genuine friendship and respect for haystacks. She eventually made the her. She had acquainted herself with acquaintance of a Russian-speaking the people of Kyrgyzstan and their family of simple means, who ways; she had “fallen in love” with understood her situation and offered them and with their material culture. a room. The room was “like a storage She remained in Bishkek, did field room.” The floor was earthen; work, taught and published. Her Klavdiia Ivanovna polished it. There archive of photographs is an was an open interior doorway which ethnographic treasure. She was she covered with a curtain to provide given the title of “Honored Science some privacy. She found a job Worker,” was a “Laureate of the washing laboratory equipment. As State Prize of Kyrgyzstan”, and was her abilities became recognized, a recipient of a Presidential Stipend. eventually she was instructing She had become a much-respected teachers — in their homes — in older woman, a baibichia. pedagogical techniques, in curriculum development and in the writing of In her last decades, Klavdiia syllabi. Later she taught the Russian Ivanovna had been working with language and Russian literature. artists on a book about Kyrgyz Anitpina Archive: KA 2940 costume which would contribute With Stalin’s death in 1953, fifteen Fig. 4. Klavdiia Antipina and Lev at substantially to a better appreciation years after her arrival in Frunze, her time of exile. Moscow, c. 1937. by the Kyrgyz of their past and a life began to change. She was no worked as a proofreader for a recognition of Kyrgyz artistry and longer required to report to the local publishing house; in 1932 their son craftsmanship. With her death NKVD (KGB) and was informed that Lev was born. though, the still unpublished book she was now free to live wherever manuscript, which would have served At that point their happy existence she wished in the Soviet Union and as a capstone to her illustrious was shattered by the repressions of to do whatever she liked. At a point career, disappeared. Josef Stalin’s regime. While she was in life when most people have away caring for her young son, who reached the peaks of their careers, Klavdiia Ivanovna never had a bad had been hospitalized for scarlet Klavdiia Ivanovna at age forty-nine word about anyone. If she had fever, without warning “Misha” was was about to begin hers. Now, for nothing good to say, she said arrested as “an enemy of the the first time in her life, it had become nothing; she never mentioned the people.” Klavdiia Ivanovna never saw him again. Not until nearly two decades later, following Stalin’s death, did she learn the truth — that, in fact, for decades she had been a widow. She, too, was labelled “an enemy of the people.” Shortly thereafter in 1937, and with only twenty-four hours’ notice, she was deported into exile with her then four- year-old son (Fig. 4). After ten days on a train, they found themselves in Frunze (now Bishkek), capital of the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic, a small provincial town in a remote part of the Soviet Union. She knew no one, she did not speak the language, she had no place to live, and her reception was hostile. Some of the locals threw stones at her for they knew her to be “an enemy of the people.” We can only speculate about the degree of anxiety and personal terror she experienced. As an exile, Klavdiia Anitpina Archive Fig. 5. Klavdiia Antipina (center) in the field. Kyrgyzstan, c. 1955-60.

34 name of Josef Stalin. In talking about during the Stalin regime. Each had About the Author her earier years, she equated the been labeled an “enemy of the “greatness of Moscow” and the people.” They were about the same John Sommer is a retired urological “greatness of The Cathedral of Christ age; their sons were of the same surgeon whose interest in Kyr- The Savior.” She would name the age. Klavdiia Ivanovna would have gyzstan has grown over the past streets along which she had walked known at the time that Sofiia decade. During multiple visits there daily on her way to the University, Petrovna had lost her husband, even he made the acquaintance of her route passing by the Cathedral, as she herself earlier had lost her Klavdiia Antipina and people who which was dynamited by Stalin’s own husband to arrest, imprison- knew her. He is a trustee of the orders in 1931 and rebuilt only after ment and eventual death. Textile Museum (Washington, D.C.) the collapse of the Soviet Union. We Over the years, Klavdiia Ivanovna and a member of The Textile Society speculate that by emphasizing the seriously considered, but ultimately of America. He has previously been Cathedral, she obliquely was rejected, living once again in a member of The Board of Directors criticizing Stalin. Moscow. She loved the Kyrgyz of the Textile Arts Council of The Fine Stalin’s regime spared neither her people, she loved the things they Arts Museums of San Francisco, family nor the Kyrgyz. In his Bishkek made, and she had friends in Bishkek. president of The San Francisco Bay Handbook, Inside and Out (Literary Despite personal experiences which Area Rug Society and chair of The Kyrgyzstan 1994), Daniel Prior would have broken a weaker Executive Committee of The describes the time when many of the individual and the barrier of being an International Conference on Oriental local Kyrgyz intelligentsia were “outsider,” she dedicated nearly the Carpets. He and his wife, Donna, eliminated by unpublicized exe- last half of her life to preserving have two sons who are teachers. cutions. There is a major Kyrgyz unique ethnographic information national memorial southeast of about the Kyrgyz. Still largely Bishkek at Ata Beyit, a once secret unknown in the West, Klavdiia mass grave where the remains of Ivanovna Antipina deserves to be Note nearly 140 victims have been found. recognized as one of the world’s The remains of the father of the most prominent scholars of Central 1. Quoted by Theodore B. distinguished Kyrgyz writer, Chinghiz Asian culture, the highly respected Schwartz, in Perspectives in Biology Atimatov, were found there. The “mother of Kyrgyz ethnography” (Fig. and Medicine, 44/3 (2001): 434. museum at Ata Beyit displays a 6). photograph of Aitmatov, who, together with Askar Akaev, President of the Kyrgyz Republic, is holding a box containing the remains of the writer’s father, Torekul Aitmatov. Chinghiz Aitmatov is quoted as having said at the time, “Father, I have looked for you for fifty-three years. Now I have found you….” The museum also juxtaposes a photograph of a rather pleased- looking Josef Stalin and a photograph of a skull with a holes, bullet holes. One is reminded of the words of Learned Hand, the respected American judge: “…Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent, soon find themselves eliminating dis- senters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.”1 Klavdiia Ivanovna’s best friend in Bishkek had been Sofiia Petrovna Choi, who was Korean. Sofiia’s husband, K. Shorukov, a local government official, is another of those whose remains have been identified in the mass grave at Ata Beyit. The two women had much in Photograph by John Sommer common. Each had lost a husband Fig. 6. Klavdiia Antipina at home, seated at her desk. 3 September 1992.

35 would reach the so-called ger MONGOLIA: A DIFFERENT VIEW districts. The inhabitants, who now constitute more than fifty (and Morris Rossabi approaching sixty) per cent of the Columbia University population, are unemployed workers, dismissed with the closing of State enterprises and government offices The typical foreign tourist or which the expatriates and the in the early to mid-1990s, and an consultant who spends two weeks Mongolian elite consider to be increasing number of herders, victims or so in the central sections of bargains. A dollar and a half for a of distress in the countryside. and is escorted, on the kilogram of oranges is also beyond Migration into Ulaanbaatar has weekends, to tourist ger(yurt) camps their means. Though the markets, accelerated at an astonishing and or to historic sites on the outskirts kiosks, and shops offer a wider alarming rate. The estimated of the city may conclude that variety of products, as compared to population in 1990 amounted to Mongolia, free of Soviet influence for the communist period, the vast about 540,000, and the official more than a decade, is booming. majority of the population can look statistic for 2000 was about 790,000. Indian and Korean and faux at but cannot buy these goods. However, most observers believe that Japanese, German, Italian, and Thai the actual figure is close to a million, restaurants have sprouted in the city Soviet-style four-story blocks of or about 37% to 40% of the center. Markets, displaying canned apartments are but a few minutes’ country’s population. Streets in the goods and fresh vegetables and walk from the hotels or government ger district are unpaved, trucks deliver fruits, mostly imported from China, offices where consultants spend the limited but precious supplies of line Peace Avenue, the main most of their time. Foreigners would water, trash is irregularly picked up, thoroughfare, and adjacent areas. observe a different Mongolia in these and the coal-burning stoves Computer stores and even a “Grease complexes. They would see men and (together with automotive vehicles) Salon” (i.e. beauty parlor) produce much of the air advertising the latest pollution that engulfs the hairdos reflect Western city in winter. Declines in influence in a country that medical care have accom- had been one of the most panied the unsanitary and isolated in the world. Discos unhygienic conditions in the blaring forth rock and rap ger districts. A fee for music offer additional service system has replaced evidence of the Western comprehensive national impact. One local wag has health insurance, limiting asserted that Mongolia has the access to medical care more “tigers” (the Mongol of the mostly poor inhab- word for “bar”) than Korea, itants. Poverty has also Taiwan, or the other so- affected literacy and called tiger economies. More educational levels, par- than 60,000 cars and SUVs ticularly among boys who

clog the streets of a capital Photo © 1979 Daniel C. Waugh drop out of school to help city which ten years ago support their families. Fig. 1. A ger district on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar. hardly boasted any privately The visitor who travels owned vehicles. outside the city notices even families scrounging for scraps Yet the visitor would have missed similar conditions. A few weeks ago of food in the trash containers the reality underlying this glitz. Most the Resident Representative of the adjacent to these buildings; they of the consumers of the foreign food, United Nations Development Pro- could even encounter several of the bottled water, Mercedes, and pizzas gramme reported that 43% of the 3,000 to 5,000 street children and the patrons of the nightclubs, rural inhabitants are poor. A major sleeping in the hallways or stairwells; bars, and cafes are either ex- concern is that these impoverished they could be the victims of theft or patriates, who are employees of or rural dwellers will head for robbery, as the crime rate has tripled consultants for international donor Ulaanbaatar to seek employment. To since 1990; and they could come agencies (IMF, World Bank, etc.) or be sure, there are some oppor- across numerous placards adver- businessmen forging deals to extract tunities for jobs in Ulaanbaatar’s tising “Lombards” (pawnshops), mineral and natural resources, or the informal sector, opportunities which indications first of economic distress small number of Mongolian nouveau Western representatives of the and then of failures in the banking riche. The thirty-five per cent of the international donor agencies and system. population living below the poverty nations have trumpeted as evidence line of about $19 a month cannot Moving farther away from the of a developing entrepreneurial afford the $3 pizzas or the $5 steaks center of the city, the foreigners spirit. Driving taxis, working in

36 uncomfortable and sometimes price, and to severe winters in 1999, and elimination of subsidies unheated kiosks in winter, shining 2000, and 2001, which devastated contributed, in part, to inflation in the shoes, and temporary employment in the pastoral sector. Representatives early to late 1990s and to the construction (not to mention of these donor agencies do not growing pauperization of the prostitution and drug dealing) attribute the economic failures to the population. Minimalist government appear to be acts of desperation ideologically-driven shock therapy meant that the State had limited rather than embodiments of true they have required in return for loans resources to combat corruption and private enterprise. Also, these jobs and grants over the past decade, crime and indeed to protect the frequently lack social benefits and grants which have made Mongolia relatively pristine environment or the health insurance. the third or fourth largest recipient vulnerable among its people. It also of foreign aid per capita in the world. translated into reductions of The visitor will recognize that the This extraordinary level of foreign aid expenditures on health, education, dismal economic failures have been has not prevented very high levels pensions, and public welfare. The somewhat counterbalanced by of poverty and unemployment, which results were predictable, as the positive political developments. Since scarcely existed in the communist era, literacy rate declined, hospitals faced 1990, the one-party system has and has resulted in serious and severe shortages of basic supplies, been eclipsed, as several political growing disparities between the rich and the elderly barely survived on parties have contested national and and the poor. their pensions. Free trade (and the local elections. Foreign observers of elimination of nearly all tariffs in May the four Parliamentary and four A partial explanation for these of 1997) permitted Chinese Presidential elections after the fall of failures has been the implementation companies, often with Chinese communism have certified the of the typical formula of immediate government support, to flood the transparency and orderliness of the privatization, liberalization of prices Mongolian market with cheap process. To be sure, three members and elimination of subsidies, free consumer goods, undercutting of Parliament have served prison trade, an export-oriented economy, Mongolian industries, and to outbid sentences for bribery, another was balanced budget, and minimalist Mongolian processors for such raw murdered under mysterious cir- government, with scant consi- materials as cashmere. By the late cumstances, and the media have deration for or knowledge of 1990s, this unfair competition had accused others of corruption. Yet traditional patterns and with minimal offered Chinese traders and suffrage has not been limited, and regard for creation of proper companies, who often received accusations of human rights abuses institutions (banking, legal State-subsidized loans, with great have focused principally on police framework, etc.) before the shock economic leverage over Mongolia. detention procedures and abom- therapy. The rapidity of privatization Meanwhile Mongolian companies had inable conditions in prisons. There led to numerous abuses and to contend with 35% annual interest have been few other violations of considerable corruption. Privati- on loans from a mostly dysfunctional human rights, with almost no zation of the herds in 1991-92 banking system, though a few examples of obstruction of freedom resulted in serious inequities, as the credible banks have developed in the of speech or censorship of the media. well-connected laid claim to late 1990s and early 2000s. One distinguished Danish anthro- disproportionate numbers of pologist attributes these rapid animals, trucks, and other properties Despite these economic failures, strides toward democracy to the high of the disbanded communist- some of the international donor rate of literacy and to the fine quality established cooperatives. State agencies continued to make of education, products of the assets were relinquished at firesale untenable predictions about communist era. He fears that the prices. As late as 2002, public assets Mongolia’s economy. Acknowledging post-1990 school dropout rate and appear to have been undervalued that Mongolia required a 6% annual the attendant declines in literacy and and sold for ludicrously low prices to rate of growth in GDP to absorb the education may undermine the private individuals. A State bank, young people entering the labor progress of political democracy. Yet which had been founded in 1991 and force, they have repeatedly the country’s political system has thus had performed well for a decade, was overstated projections for rate of far remained stable. sold for $12.3 million to foreign growth. In 1995, IMF represen- investors. Yet its book value was $9 tatives predicted that the rate of Reading the myriad reports issued million, and its net profits amounted growth would be 4.5%; the actual by some of the international donor to $6 million in 2002 and $4.5 million figure turned out to be 2.6%. In agencies, the visitor will discover that in 2001. This sale seemed, to many 1997, the IMF posited a growth rate the economic turbulence, which Mongolians, to be a major squan- of 6% for each year from 1997 to offers a sharp contrast to the political dering of State assets. Yet inter- 2000, but real growth in 1997 stability yet poses threats to its national donor agencies enthu- amounted to 3%. Undaunted, early continuance, is attributed to the siastically supported its sale. in 1998, it forecast a rate of 5.8%, economy’s over-dependence on but the actual rate was 3.5%. In commodities such as gold, copper, Other economic policies related to 2000 and 2001, the Mongolian and cashmere, which have shock therapy have also been economy stalled, with a growth rate experienced sharp reductions in questionable. Liberalization of prices of about 1%. Admitting that poverty

37 was a serious issue, several of the international donors initiated an British Library Symposium on “The inadequately funded, poorly- managed, and characteristically Kingdom of Khotan to AD 1000: A trickle-down Poverty Alleviation Program, which proclaimed at its Meeting of Cultures” inception in 1994 that by 2000 it would reduce those living below the Richard Salomon poverty line to 10%; instead a World University of Washington, Bank survey conducted in 1998 Seattle classified more than 35% of the population as living below the An important scholarly meeting on Niya site dovetailed with Richard poverty line, and in 2002 two the archaeology, literature, Salomon’s discussion of the respected specialists on pro-poverty languages, history and culture of documents discovered there. economic growth have questioned ancient Khotan took place at the Historical and cultural relations the efficacy of a recently created British Library, London, on May 10 between Khotan and its Tibetan and poverty program. and 11, 2004. The symposium, Chinese neighbors were reflected in A few of the international donor organized by Ursula Sims-Williams the presentations by Tsuguhito agencies have intruded even in and Susan Whitfield, was held in Takeuchi and Hiroshi Kumamoto, and Mongolian government decision- conjunction with the library’s Klaus Wille’s paper authoritatively making. When Mongolian officials did spectacular special exhibit on “The summarized the extent and variety not abide by the policies prescribed Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and of the finds of Indian Buddhist by a particular agency, its repre- Faith” (May 7 to September 12, literature in Khotan and adjoining sentatives would sometimes 2004). Thirteen prominent scholars regions of the southern Tarim Basin. suspend aid that had already been from France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Finally, special presentations pledged. This was a strange way of Switzerland, United Kingdom, and were given by Franz Grenet, promoting democracy and autonomy the United States presented regarding the Sogdian community in for a country that had been illustrated lectures on such diverse the silk road regions, and by Prods dominated by China for three topics as art history, numismatics, Oktor Skjærvø. The latter was the centuries and by the U.S.S.R. for geography, recent archaeological self-described “Alpha and Omega” of seventy years. How can Mongolian explorations, folk legends, historical the symposium, who with char- government officials develop chronology, and manuscript studies. acteristic vigor and energy gave both independence if several of the (See the full list of presenters and the opening and concluding lectures, international donor agencies, on lecture titles at the end of this presenting fascinating glimpses of occasion, dictate policy? article.) The audience consisted, in the literature and folklore of Khotan. addition to the participants All in all, the symposium was a great In short, international visitors and themselves, of some forty invited success. All of the speakers pre- consultants have often provided a guests, many from abroad. Many sented new and original data and rosy portrait of Mongolia in the post- specimens of the types of materials interpretations, demonstrating the communist era. Observers who — manuscripts, paintings, coins, vitality of the study of Khotan and the travel outside the capital city have a textiles, and the like — that were other related cultures of the Silk Road less sanguine view. discussed in the lectures were also regions. represented in the accompanying exhibits, which had the effect of About the Author vividly bringing to life the Lectures in order of presentation presentations about the world of Morris Rossabi has written Khubilai Khotan. Prof. P.O. Skjærvø (Harvard Uni- Khan, Voyager from Xanadu, and Several of the many interesting versity): Khotan between other books on Inner Asia. He has presentations complemented each Iran and China — Legends contributed to “Legacy of Genghis other, for example Joe Cribb’s lecture on the Silk Road. Khan,” an exhibition that opened at on the historical and numismatic the Metropolitan Museum of Art and context of early Khotanese coins and J. Cribb (British Museum): The Sino- will be on display at the Los Angeles Helen Wang’s addressing broader Kharosthi coins from Yotkan. County Museum of Art from mid-April issues of the monetary system of to mid-July of 2003. In 2003 and Khotan. Similarly, Christoph Baumer’s Dr. C. Baumer (Hergiswil, Switz- 2004, he will publish two books, one illustrated description of his recent erland): 1998 expedition to on China’s national minorities and expedition to Dandan Uiliq Dandan-Uiliq. one on post-communist Mongolia. complemented Madhuvanti Ghose’s re-evaluation of the murals found in Dr. M Ghose (Ashmolean Museum, earlier excavations at the same site, Oxford): A reappraisal of the while Mariner Padwa’s insightful iconography of the murals at lecture on residential patterns in the Dandan-Uiliq.

38 M. Padwa (Harvard University): The Geography of the Niya Oasis: Guidelines for Contributors a comparison of textual and archaeological evidence. We welcome contributions, which may be submitted either to the Silkroad Foundation at its address in California, or, better, sent directly to the current Prof. F. Grenet (École Pratique des editor of The Silk Road: Hautes Études, Paris): Samarkand to Xi’an: the Prof. Daniel C. Waugh Sogdian self-image (evening Department of History Box 353560 public lecture). Smith Hall 315, University of Washington Seattle, Wa. 98195 USA Prof. M. Maggi (University of Naples): e-mail: [email protected] The Book of Vimalakirti and fax: 206-543-9451; tel.: 206-543-5790 (msg.); 616-8408 (direct) Buddhism in Khotan [can- (Be sure to indicate Prof. Waugh’s name on any faxes.) celled due to illness]. The normal publication schedule is two issues a year, appearing in June and Dr. K. Wille (Akademie der Wis- December. It is desirable, therefore, that material be received no later than senchaften zu Göttingen): early May for the June issue, and early November for the December one. Buddhist Sanskrit sources Where we have enough lead time we are happy to print information that is from the Southern Silk Road. time-sensitive (e.g., announcements about art exhibits or upcoming conferences); however we cannot guarantee production in a timely fashion. Prof. R. Salomon (University of Decisions regarding whether submissions are to be published are made Washington): Buddhist and by the editor in consultation with the Director of The Silkroad Foundation, secular documents in members of its Board of Directors, and, as appropriate, academic specialists. Kharosthi script from Niya, Contributions should be in English and generally should not exceed 8000 Khotan and other Tarim Basin words in length, including notes and bibliography. In normal circumstances, sites. we will not accept unsolicited book reviews; however, you may ask the editor whether your reviewing a particular book would be acceptable. Dr. Helen Wang (British Museum): Money in Khotan: archaeo- Our newsletter is intended for a general readership. While it is important logical and documentary that contributions be well informed and be of interest to specialists, they evidence. should be written with a non-specialist audience in mind. This means, among other things, keeping footnoting to a minimum, using non-technical language, Prof. H. Kumamoto (Tokyo University): including transcription or transliteration of source texts only if essential to The St. Petersburg bilingual the reader’s understanding, and avoiding transliteration using diacritical documents and problems of marks. chronology. The production of the newsletter is by volunteers. Most of the editing and formatting is done personally by the editor. Be aware that the editor Prof. T. Takeuchi (Kobe University): does take an “activist” stance in regard to clarity and style, but his preference Khotanese/Tibetan and would be not to spend a lot of time re-writing. He is not in a position to Tibetan/Khotanese cultural check all your facts and references. It is essential that submissions follow relations. some standard rules in order to minimize time-consuming problems. In particular, Prof. P.O. Skjærvø (Harvard University): Perils of princes • and ambassadors in tenth- Submit text formatted in Microsoft Word, not in another word- century Khotan. processing program. Send the editor both electronic copy (this may be done as an e-mail attachment, which should have a .doc file About the Author extension) and hard copy. References to sources should be included in the text in parentheses — e.g. (Smith 1992: 25). Endnotes should be used only if they contain some essential explanation that does The director of the Early Buddhist not fit in the main text. A list of references should be included, with Manuscripts Project, Richard Salomon full bibliographic citations (author, including first name where is a Professor in the Dept. of Asian available; title; vol. and number if a journal; place and publisher if a Languages and Literature at the book; date; pages if an article or section of a book). Please include University of Washington, His books authors’ or scholars’ first names if referring to them in your text. include Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in the Indo- • In references use standard transliteration (e.g., for Chinese, pinyin; Aryan Languages (1998), Ancient for Cyrillic, modified Library of Congress system). It is preferable for Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhara: the citations in other than West European languages that you provide British Library Kharosthi Fragments both transliterated titles and, in parentheses, translated titles. We (1999); A Gandhari Version of the generally prefer not to include Chinese or other non-Latin characters Rhinoceros Sutra (2000). (which may present problems in printing and formatting), but you

39 may include them if you consider them to be essential for clarity. Your current editor is not an East or South Asia specialist; so his ability to verify or correct citations in the languages of those regions is limited.

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• While illustrations for the printed version of the newsletter are in black and white, the online version can substitute color illustrations if you have them and can provide them in addition to the black and white versions. Color illustrations for the online version should be scanned at 72 dpi and be sized at a maximum dimension of 550 pixels. Note that 72 dpi is not adequate resolution for hard-copy printing.

• While image files can be sent as e-mail attachments, if they are very large they may not be delivered by the mail system. Generally it is best to send large image files on a CD through the mail.

• Append a list of captions for the illustrations to your text file and indicate in parentheses in your text where illustrations best be placed — e.g. (Fig. 1). Your list should indicate the sources of the images. If they are copyrighted, it is your responsibility to obtain copyright permission for their use in our non-profit educational publication.

• Be sure to provide contact information, including e-mail address, mailing address, phone, and, if available, fax. The editor often has questions for contributors and, in cases where a substantial amount of editing is necessary, prefers that the author approve the finished copy before printing. In most circumstances though, we do not send proofs unless specifically requested to do so. Photo © 1979 Daniel C. Waugh

A northern Mongolian landscape on the road to Terelj