be argued with equal force that it emerged in different places at different times.55 What might be more interesting, she suggests, would be to explore the meanings and depictions of the theme in different cultures and see if and how they overlapped.56
How much the Xiongnu were influenced by the Scythic-Siberian culture that stretched across the steppe to their west is uncertain. Some scholars see the Xiongnu as the continuation of this culture, while others see the Xiongnu as distinct, albeit having absorbed some influences.57 Whatever the case, the Xiongnu also used belt plaques, as shown by those in the Xigoupan and many other tombs. They were part of steppe attire, used both to hold the short upper tunic of the horseman—or woman—in place and as portable storage, to hold daggers and other essential implements. In classical China, the traditional dress was a long gown, unsuitable for riding and not needing such a belt.58 Yet we see steppe-style belt plaques in central China from this time, as in the grave of the king of the Chu state, Liu Wu (r. 174–154 BC), at Shizhishan near Xuzhou in eastern China, and in the tomb of King Zhao Mo of Nan Yue in southern China (see chapter 2). Those in the tomb of Liu Wu are in gold. They are identical to gilded bronze pieces found in a burial in Pokrovka 2 cemetery on the Ural River, north of the Caspian in Russia; to belt plaques from a Han-period tomb outside Xian in central China; and to two others in gilded bronze now in a New York collection.59 Emma Bunker discusses these and suggests a possible origin in North China. She further argues that the design has been adapted to fit Chinese taste in that “the vigor of the attack scene is almost lost in the manipulation of shapes into pleasing patterns.”60
The belt plaques found in Liu Wu’s tomb near Xuzhou and those from Xigoupan have Chinese characters engraved on the back, giving their weight and details of their subject matter. This supports the argument that they were produced in Chinese workshops or at least by Chinese craftsmen.61 In addition, the reverse of a Xigoupan M2 plaque shows the impression of a textile, suggesting that it was made by the lost-wax lost-textile technique.62 In her study of these objects, Katheryn Linduff suggests that this “was a Chinese invention that was aimed particularly at the efficient production of objects for the foreign [steppe] market.”63 Other items from these tombs of the Xiongnu period show mercury gilding, and Bunker concludes that these were also made in Chinese workshops.64 If this is indeed the case, then we see a steppe object and motif—the belt plaque with the motif of animal predation—being adopted within central China and also adapted for production for a market outside China. Evidence suggests that the production of artifacts for the steppe market probably began in the kingdoms of fourth- to third-century China, before its unification.65 Other finds demonstrate the further movement of these items, whether by trade, gift, or plunder.
The discovery of these belt plaques shows not only that artisans in the kingdoms of China were producing items for the steppe market but that some Chinese had also acquired a taste for these items, even if in some cases the theme was modified.66 Their lavishness and their presence in elite tombs, as instanced by the gold and glass plaques of the king of Nan Yue (see chapter 2) and the massive gold plaques of the king of Chu, suggests they were a mark of wealth and power. Military leadership undoubtedly remained a mark of the Xiongnu elite, but this elite was now also involved in trade as an alternative form of wealth and status.67 In Di Cosmo’s words:
The emphatic accumulation of precious objects reflects a “network mode” of elite representation. Nomadic elites became increasingly involved in long-distance contacts, and drew legitimacy and power from their connections with other elites. Exchange of prestige items, as well as trade and tribute, became the source of stored wealth that demonstrated and consolidated a lineage’s enduring power. Foreign connections and representations of one’s elite status in terms that would be readily recognized outside one’s community marked a transition, among certain groups, to a symbolic system resembling the “network” rather than the “corporate” mode.68
The Xiongnu did not acquire objects only from their Chinese neighbors. Textiles from burials in Noin-Ula, another Xiongnu-period site in southern Mongolia, included Chinese and locally made felts but also other textiles that were almost certainly made in Central or West Asia.69 A Greek silver medallion was also discovered in Noin-Ula, recycled as a platera, and a Roman glass bowl in Gol Mod 2, also in the Xiongnu area in what is now Mongolia.70 These are generally dated later than the Ordos tombs, from the late first century BC to the first century AD. They are different from the pit burials at Xigoupan and other Ordos sites in that they consist of a deeply buried wooden burial chamber accessed by a ramp. They include peripheral burial pits that belong to people who followed the elite occupant of the main chamber into death.71
The earrings are part of this story: they might also have been made in Chinese or steppe workshops. Alternatively, the jade plaques could have been fashioned by Chinese artisans well accustomed to working with this material—either in China or on the steppe—and then sold or given as gifts to the Xiongnu, whose craftsmen then incorporated them into this elaborate headdress. Jade and dragons are both often associated with the cultures of central China, but, as with most subjects in this book, the story is not a simple one.
JADE AND DRAGONS
Several different minerals are often termed yu (玉), the Chinese word for jade, the most valued in early China being nephrite found locally in the Yangzi River delta in eastern China.72 But some pieces identified as “jade” are not nephrite but serpentine and marble.73 The stone was worked from Neolithic times into copies of weapons and tools but also into forms that clearly had a ritual meaning and are found in a mortuary context. These included the bi, a flat disc with a circular hole in the center.74 Few of the jades found in burials had any wear, supporting this ritual use. However, since little jade survives outside burials, we cannot be certain how much was produced for other contexts and has long been lost.75
Jade is a hard stone and has to be worked by abrading with sand.76 The fine work of these early jades attests to high levels of skill and investment of time: these were expensive and valued objects. There is still considerable uncertainty about the sources of jade used in China, but for nephrite they certainly might have included Lake Baikal in Siberia and Khotan in the Tarim basin in eastern Central Asia (see below and chapter 6). It is possible, therefore, that some jade was imported two thousand miles from Khotan.77 This, and the skill and time required to work it, probably made it as valuable to the early kings in China as lapis was to the Egyptian pharaohs. Jade ranges in color from white to black, with the lightest jade having translucent qualities. The aesthetic appreciation of different colored jades is reflected by the vocabulary developed to describe them: mutton fat, chicken bone, orange peel, nightingale, egg, ivory, duck bone, antelope, fish belly, shrimp, chrysanthemum, rose madder, and many more.78
Nephrite jades also include a dark green stone found in Mongolia and eastern Siberia near Lake Baikal. Bunker discusses an openwork plaque, probably carved using stone from eastern Siberia, and argues that this piece was probably created on the steppe.79 The most likely method of creating jade ornaments, because of the stone’s hardness, was abrasion with quartz sand, crushed sandstone, or crushed loess, the main part of which is quartz.80 Metal tools started to be used before the time our piece was made. The design of the dark-green plaque is almost identical to that on bronze belt plaques discovered in Ivolga (near Ulan-Ude) and eastern Siberia. It also resembles gold plaques, inlaid rather than openwork, excavated from a tomb in Sidorovka, near Omsk in western Siberia. This last site is dated to the late third to second century BC, whereas the bronze and nephrite objects are slightly later. Communities of Chinese craftsmen were known to have worked at Ivolga, so it is also possible that this dark-green plaque was made by them.81
One of the sinuous animals on the nephrite, bronze, and gold belt plaques is of a type now often associated
