A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Archaeologica 8. (Szeged, 2002)

NAGY Imre: Fabulous Creatures From the Desert Sands: Central Asian Woolen Textiles from the Second Century BC to the Second Century AD.

materials, and determined their relationship to each other in detailed charts. The place of origin of the different dyestuff materials indicates a long range trade network (Caucasus, India, China). On page 150, in Appendix, two charts include the results of carbon14 tests. The first chart shows six test results made on organic materials (reed, charcoal, wood) from Shanpula tombs, their oldest dates ranging between 1210 BC and 797 BC, while the latest between AD 81 and AD 540. The second chart shows eleven test results on textile fragments from the Abegg-Stiftung collection, indicating that the oldest piece is cat. no. 2a, ranging between 265 BC and 40 BC, while the youngest is fragment cat. no. 6, its dates ranging between 145 AD and 407 AD. The volume ends with a bibliography, and the list of authors. Before we conclude the conclusion, we have to add two remarks. First, the investigation of Shanpula woven textiles indicates that the visual vocabulary of these figurai fragments demonstrates the existence of a very coherent system of picture writing. This can be detected not only in case of restricted motifs (like the stepped mountains, or floral designs), but even among the formal variations, or color scheme of the figurai elements. The detailed analysis of this visual vocabulary would go beyond the limits of the present review, but a thorough investigation of the problem - supplemented by the finds of future excavations — might support us in revealing the characteristic features of a unique iconographie system and its taxonomy. The second remark of the reader deals with the identification of figurai elements in general, and the steppe connection of a given actor in particular. The fragment of cat. no. 10a illustrates a four-legged creature in full color on Fig. 84 (82), while the Catalogue shows five additional fragments in black-and-white (122), providing further details of the same creature. This unique animal is identified in the caption of Fig. 84, as a "distorted deer", while the description of the catalogue calls it a "highly stylized and abstractly distorted deer". The creature in question is neither a deer, nor an elk but an antlered wolf, and his range of distribution can be drawn with precision. It was Esther Jacobson, who first discussed the problem of the stag with bird-headed antler tines, and investigated the historic, and geographic connections of the motif (JACOBSON 1984). Although her paper illustrates stags with birdheaded antler tines primarily, on Plate 25, she illustrated a bronze belt buckle from the C. T. Loo collection, depicting an antlered wolf. The antler tines of the wolf end in raptor-heads and ibex heads. On Plate 18, she published a B-shaped gold belt buckle from the collection of the Ermitage, which depicts another antlered wolf, whose antler tines also end in raptor-heads. The same collection houses another gold belt buckle, which depicts a battle between a tiger and a mythical wolf. The mane of the wolf ends in raptor-heads, and even its tail tip forms an eared bird head (JACOBSON 1985, Fig. 6/b). However, it was Emma C. Bunker who deepened our knowledge on the image of antlered wolf and its range of distribution. The 1997 catalogue of the Arthur M. Sackler collection contains the following entry: "...a wolf with a raptor-head tail tip, relate to a symbolic system that appears to continue the beliefs of earlier groups that were absorbed into the Xiongnu confederacy, or may have been even adopted by the Xiongnu themselves" (BUNKER 1997, 256). A couple of pages later she remarks: "...The horned wolf apparently had mythical significance for the pastoral tribes of the eastern Eurasian steppes, and it appears in their art between the fifth and second century BC. ...Numerous examples of this particular image abound on artifacts excavated in southern Ningxia and the Ordos region, dated to the fourth and third centuries BC" (BUNKER 1997, 259). She annotated a bronze belt buckle with the image of a walking, antlered wolf in the catalogue of the Sackler collection too (BUNKER 1997, 273-74, Fig. 241). Following the description of the buckle she wrote: "An identical buckle was recovered from the disturbed cemetery at Xichagou, Xifeng county, Liaoning 4 walking-wolf plaque was collected in the vicinity of a destroyed cemetery at Dadaosanjiazi near Qiqihar city, Heilongjiang province. A plaque depicting the same mythological wolf was also found at Maryasova in the Minusinsk region of southern Siberia, and another was recently excavated in Derestuy, Transbaikal, Buryatia..."

. Obviously, the antlered wolf is well-known from steppe belt plaques, and it is surprising that his woven "brother" was not recognized on the Shanpula fragments. The correlation is not a direct one, but the characteristic elongated head-form of the wolf, and the fantastic antler growing from the forehead can be unmistakably recognized. A bird-head grows up from the shoulder of the wolf on the Shanpula textile, but as I already indicated, the picture writing character of these woven tapestries suggests that the "highly stylized and abstractly distorted" white motif with dark brown central form in the antler disguises a raptor-head in a preliminary stage of metamorphosis. As far as our reconstruction permitted to show its limbs go through a unique transformation to floral elements. Concluding our second remark we should emphasize the strong and polyphonic relation of the iconography of the Shanpula woven tapestry bands to the art and mythology of the Eurasian steppe zone more than it was suggested by the authors of the volume. The Fabulous Creatures From the Desert Sands is the first publication of the Abegg-Stiftung which was produced entirely in English. This is a new venture for them which resulted that the knowledge on these very important mythical creatures from Central Asia reach a wider audience, and could influence our appreciation of the art of a scarcely known chapter of Eurasian history. In sum, this is a very important publication which is highly recommended!