in which the Xiongnu became “the other,” a people with a “heaven-endowed nature” essentially different from that of the Chinese.12
Chinese histories show an escalation in this view of the “other,” undoubtedly promoted by the need to demonize peoples who had become a major threat but also, as Paul Goldin points out, in response to the concept of “Chinese” formulated by the Qin Empire (221–206 BC)—the first rulers of a united China: “As there is no Self without an Other, calling oneself Chinese meant calling someone else non-Chinese; the new China had to invent an irreconcilable opponent, and the Xiongnu were in the right place at the right time.”13 As Sergey Miniaev notes, the early histories use a variety of names for their northern neighbors, and the first mention of the Xiongnu in the Shiji, the first history of China, by Sima Qian, of an encounter in 318 BC is probably a later interpolation or was being used “as a collective designation, common in this time, for stock-breeding tribes, being devoid of a particular ethnocultural meaning.”14 Tamara Chin notes that Sima Qian avoids “anthropological rhetoric” and does not embed the Chinese conquest “in a narrative of cultural or moral superiority.”15 That rhetoric, she argues, came post-Qin with the expansion of China under the Han emperor Wu (r. 141–87 BC). By the time of the next history, Hanshu, composed in the first century AD, it was firmly embedded.16
Other settled cultures also have to name or label the “other” to tell their story, and we inevitably learn more about the settled cultures from these histories than about the “other.” The fifth-century BC historian Herodotus used the term Scythian; the Achaemenids in Iran termed their steppe neighbors the Saka. Early Chinese histories use several terms for the peoples the Chinese encountered to their north. This has given rise to numerous discussions about the origins and ethnicity of the peoples so labeled. In the case of the Xiongnu, these have especially concentrated on a possible identification with the peoples that historians and archaeologists have called the Huns.17 However, many scholars remain skeptical; as Goldin notes, “The semantic domain of the term ‘Xiongnu’ was political: there is no reason to assume that it ever denoted a specific ethnic group—and, indeed, plenty of reason not to. . . . Excavations in areas that came to be dominated by the Xiongnu have uncovered a wealth of distinct cultures.”18
The Chinese histories tell of settled and pastoralist peoples and mounted warriors living both northeast of and within the area enclosed by the great northward curve of the Yellow River, known now as the Ordos.19 Many scholars have proposed that it was the encounter with these peoples in the late fourth century that led a ruler of the Zhao (403–222 BC)—a kingdom in what is now northern China that bordered their territory—to change his army from an infantry to a cavalry force.20 The horse up until then had been used to pull chariots or as a pack animal. Despite breeding programs, central China never succeeded in raising sufficient stock to equip its armies.21 The adoption of horseback riding also necessitated a change in clothing and weaponry. Over the next millennium the horse became an essential part of life in northern China, not just for the military, and was celebrated in art and literature (see chapter 6).
The Zhao was the last kingdom of what is now known as the Warring States period (ca. 475–221 BC) to succumb to the army of the Qin, who declared a united empire of China in 221 BC. Chinese histories tell how around 209 BC, following the Qin’s successful expansion into the northern and western Ordos, the various pastoralist tribes on the borders of China were united under a leader called Modu; the histories refer to these tribes as the Xiongnu.22 Under Modu’s alliance they expanded, bringing other tribes to the north—in what is now Mongolia—into their confederation. They moved westwards toward the Tarim, pushing out the peoples whom the Chinese called the Yuezhi and asserting their rule in some of the oasis kingdoms of the Tarim.23 To the south they had easy victories over the forces of the newly founded Chinese Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220), expelling them from territories the Qin had previously taken.24 The Han responded with an envoy sent to broker a peace treaty. Like many such treaties from this time onwards between the Chinese and their neighbors, this included a marriage alliance (heqin) between a Chinese princess and the foreign ruler.25 Both sides accepted the equal status of their respective empires and a border in part demarcated by the walls built by the Han and their predecessors; further, the Chinese agreed to provide the alliance with regular gifts of goods, including silk and grain. The Chinese historians record the words of the Xiongnu ruler: “According to former treaties Han emperors always sent a princess, provided agreed quantities of silks, coarse silk wadding and foodstuffs, thus establishing harmony and a close relationship [i.e., heqin]. For our part, we refrained from making trouble on the border.”26 Hyun Jin Kim characterizes this as Han China becoming a tributary state of the Xiongnu alliance.27
The balance turned again with the Han emperor Wu, who embarked on a successful expansion policy northeastward into what is now Korea, westward into the Tarim basin, and southward to defeat the Nan Yue kingdom (see chapter 2). His plan to defeat the Xiongnu alliance was to find allies among the Yuezhi—themselves previously displaced from the Tarim according to the Chinese histories. The strategy was that the Yuezhi would attack from the west, while Chinese forces would attack from the southeast. However, the envoy sent to negotiate this, Zhang Qian, was singularly unsuccessful (although, having been captured by a member of the Xiongnu alliance on his way out and having been resident there with a local wife, he must have gained very useful intelligence).28 The Han went ahead anyway, and although they were successful the battles were costly and ultimately of limited value, as it was not possible to hold onto the steppe land. This was accepted by both sides in 54/3 BC in another peace treaty between one ruler of the now-divided Xiongnu and the Chinese, precipitated by the breakdown in the Xiongnu alliance. The positions of power were now reversed, with the southern Xiongnu ruler accepting the lower status. Yuri Pines argues that this encounter, because of the pastoralists’ strength and refusal to accept the settled way of life in China, “became the single most significant event in the political, cultural and ethnic history of the Chinese.”29
Across Eurasia and during the Silk Road period, this encounter was by no means unique to the Xiongnu and the Chinese. Nor was there a single model of interaction. The nature of the relationships was complex, although often simplified by the historians of the settled into one of dichotomy and conflict. The Romans themselves struggled with incursions along their borders and, like the Chinese, built a network of defensive walls and forts.30 In Greek histories the northern equestrian nomads were the archetype of the “other.” Labeled as Scythians, their image as other continued to be perpetuated from Herodotus into Byzantine histories.31 Further east, the Persian Achaemenids (550–330 BC) were to be defeated by a group of pastoralists moving from their northeast who established the Parthian Empire (247 BC–AD 224). The Parthians successfully adopted a new settled lifestyle while retaining their military prowess, threatening even the borders of Rome.32
So are these earrings Xiongnu or Chinese, or does it even make sense to try to label them in this way? To answer this, we need to explore some of the complexity hidden by the labels Xiongnu and Chinese and the aspects of their relationship that are revealed by the tombs—at Xigoupan—in which the earrings were found.
THE XIGOUPAN TOMBS
Xigoupan lies at the northeastern edge of the Ordos, where the Yellow River starts to turn south. It is roughly at the same latitude as Beijing to its east.33 The tombs were excavated in 1979. Unfortunately, the archaeological reports are not detailed, and drawings of most of the graves and details of the inventory are missing. The tombs are dispersed, suggesting they might belong to different burial grounds and have widely varying dates. The earliest tombs excavated here date to around 300 BC or possibly earlier, but later tombs and a settlement have also been discovered that date from the second century BC, the period of the Xiongnu confederation.34 The archaeologists date to the second century nine of the tombs, four of which have not been robbed.35 Among these,
