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Reflecting on the Rooftops of the Eastern Uighur Khaganate: A Preliminary Study of Uighur Roof Tiles

November 30, 2015, 1:22 pm
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SINO-PLATONIC PAPERSNumber 258 October, 2015 

Reflecting on the Rooftops
of the Eastern Uighur Khaganate:
A Preliminary Study of Uighur Roof Tiles

by Lyndon A. Arden-Wong, Macquarie University, Sydney Irina A. Arzhantseva, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow and Olga N. Inevatkina, State Museum of Oriental Art, Moscow 




Introduction

There has been an increased focus on Eastern Uighur (744–840 CE) archaeology in recent years. Surveys (Ahrens et al. 2010, Moriyasu et al. 1999) and excavations (Arzhant͡seva et al. 2008: 886–898; Arzhant͡seva et al. 2011, pp. 6–12, Ta La et al. 2008 and Hüttel and Erdenebat 2010) of walled sites have added significant data to our growing knowledge of the Eastern Uighur Khaganate. The results of this work have contributed to an emerging picture of the Uighur Khaganate as a polity that embraced urbanization (or at least the construction of walled architectural complexes), although the nature of this development and the extent to which this was undertaken is yet to be fully understood (Arden- Wong 2012 and Arden-Wong forthcoming a).
Among the most abundant artifacts retrieved from these sites are roof tiles made with the use of Chinese technologies. This evidence has largely been neglected by archaeologists of Türk and Uighur archaeology, and thus only generalized statements have been made. In our view, the neglect in not better recording this evidence has potentially limited possibilities for enhancing knowledge of architectural relationships between sites, chronological-typological studies and models of architectural exchange.
With this in mind, it is the purpose of this article to undertake an exploratory study of these Uighur roof tiles with the ultimate aim of making progress toward a typology of them. This article first contextualizes the evidence by providing a brief summary of Chinese roof tile technology and implementation. Further context is given in the description of the principal Uighur sites where ample roof tile evidence has been collected. A detailed exposition of the Uighur roof tile evidence is then provided, as well as notes on their production. Additional notes are provided on eave end tiles, as they offer the most detailed and thoroughly recorded data. The discussion section is given in two parts: first, a discussion on the Uighur roof tiles evidence presented and, second, a discussion on early Türk and Uighur roof tiles. The discussion will argue for the consistency of decorative Eastern Uighur roof tile designs found across Uighur sites, which therefore justifies the need for a developed roof tile typology. It also argues that roof tile evidence may be synthesized with other data to better comprehend Turkic sites that do not contain dedicatory inscriptions. It is hoped that this paper will demonstrate the benefit of roof tile evidence to Türk and Uighur archaeology and encourage further study in this field.
The scope of this paper is broad, yet the evidence put forward is both selective and limited. The Uighur Khaganate covered large expanses of the steppe, and its political core was situated in the Orkhon Valley, in present-day Arkhangai Aimag, Mongolia. The region of the modern Tuva Republic, in Russia, is said to be home to at least seventeen Uighur walled sites (Kyzlasov 1969: 59). Only three of these contain structures within their enclosures: Bazhyn Alaak, Shagonar III and Por-Bajin (Por- Bazhyn). Shagonar III and Por-Bajin have yielded roof tile evidence; however, only the excavations of Por-Bajin have produced a sufficient roof tile data set.2 Uighur walled sites on the central Mongolian Plateau have received limited archaeological attention. The two most prominent are Bay Balïq and the capital city Ordu Balïq (Karabalgasun/Kharbalgas). However, only limited sections of Ordu Balïq have been excavated. Therefore the proportionate number of walled sites that have yielded roof tiles to those that have not is not reflected in this paper. Furthermore, there are some Eastern Uighur walled sites that have been excavated from which no roof tiles have been recovered. The types of roof tiles studied in this paper include barrel tiles, pan tiles, roof eave end tiles, spirit/beast mask tiles, roof ridge tiles and associated ornamentation.3
The focus of this paper is predominantly on decorative roof-eave-end tiles, primarily because the amount of data on and extracted from them is greater than with other types. This is not to say that other types of roof tiles should be considered as secondary data. On the contrary, it is hoped by the authors that this article may inspire future study of other Uighur roof tile types.
The authors are privileged to work with data from recent archaeological excavations at Por- Bajin, Ordu Balïq and elite Uighur dȯrvȯlzhin/durvuljin sites. The data supplied by the Por-Bajin Foundation is extensive and our knowledge of the roof tiles from this site is clearer than that obtained from most other Uighur sites. The German-Mongolian researchers (DAI and MAS) that have been undertaking field work at Ordu Balïq since 2008 have kindly permitted our study of photographs of roof tiles taken from the 2010 and 2011 excavations. We regret however that our team was refused access to illustrate and obtain measurements of these roof tiles — the lack of this data hampers our ability to produce a complete typology and subsequently generalizes our material. We also extend our thanks to the joint Chinese-Mongolian team that has been studying the Uighur dȯrvȯlzhin sites since 2005. Their permission for us to work with and republish their images of excavated roof tiles is greatly appreciated.

For the full article, click HERE 


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Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China

November 30, 2015, 1:37 pm
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Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China

E. N. Anderson

352 pages | 6 x 9 
Cloth 2014 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4638-4 |  
A volume in the Encounters with Asia series
"This is a marvelous book, a long-view description of China's basic geography, the advantages and constraints imposed by climate and terrain, human conservation and despoliation of the natural environment, and the effect of all of these on food customs."—Paul Freedman, Yale University
"Anderson's book is, as surely intended, provocative, challenging much inherited wisdom and at the same time extremely wide-ranging, placing China's foodways in a broad comparative framework."—Thomas Allsen, Professor Emeritus, College of New Jersey
Chinese food is one of the most recognizable and widely consumed cuisines in the world. Almost no town on earth is without a Chinese restaurant of some kind, and Chinese canned, frozen, and preserved foods are available in shops from Nairobi to Quito. But the particulars of Chinese cuisine vary widely from place to place as its major ingredients and techniques have been adapted to local agriculture and taste profiles. To trace the roots of Chinese foodways, one must look back to traditional food systems before the early days of globalization.
Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China traces the development of the food systems that coincided with China's emergence as an empire. Before extensive trade and cultural exchange with Europe was established, Chinese farmers and agriculturalists developed systems that used resources in sustainable and efficient ways, permitting intensive and productive techniques to survive over millennia. Fields, gardens, semiwild lands, managed forests, and specialized agricultural landscapes all became part of an integrated network that produced maximum nutrients with minimal input—though not without some environmental cost. E. N. Anderson examines premodern China's vast, active network of trade and contact, such as the routes from Central Asia to Eurasia and the slow introduction of Western foods and medicines under the Mongol Empire. Bringing together a number of new findings from archaeology, history, and field studies of environmental management, Food and Environment in Early and Medieval Chinaprovides an updated picture of language relationships, cultural innovations, and intercultural exchanges.
E. N. Anderson is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside, and author of numerous books, including Everyone Eats: Understanding Food and Culture.
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Mongolian noblewoman with Chinese mirror

December 6, 2015, 1:25 am
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'We dug up a medieval Mongolian noblewoman in our compost pit'

By The Siberian Times reporter
02 December 2015
Couple unearth remains of 'rich' female buried up to 1,000 years ago with her rare Chinese bronze mirror.
'It was the remains of a Mongoloid woman of about 30 years old, perhaps one of our ancestors.' Picture: Dmitry Stolyarov/Interior Ministry of Buryatia
Natalia Filina, 31, and her husband were digging in their garden when they hit stones. 'I wish I could find buried treasure,' he said, when amongst the stones they found bones at a depth of around 60 centimetres. 
Bronze mirrorAt first they thought these were chicken remains, but then Natalia said: 'This is very similar to someone's legs...'. She said: 'At this moment we stopped digging and called the police.'
In the hole they were digging as a compost pit, they found not only a skeleton but also a bronze mirror some 9.9 centimetres in diameter and 0.5cm thick. Police called in the Institute of Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies in Ulan-Ude, and experts found additional remains. 
Bronze mirror
Bronze mirror
Mongolian woman
In the hole they were digging as a compost pit, they found not only a skeleton but also a bronze mirror some 9.9 centimetres in diameter and 0.5cm thick. Pictures: Dmitry Stolyarov/Interior Ministry of Buryatia
'The study showed that it was the remains of a Mongoloid woman of about 30 years old, perhaps one of our ancestors,' said research fellow Dr Alexey Buraev. 'It is impossible to determine from the bones what caused her death. There are no life-threatening traumas, and so no conclusions can be drawn. But for those times 30 years - this was rather an advanced age.'
The medieval woman was lying in a wooden coffin made of log, covered with birch bark. The bronze mirror is believed to date to the 10th to 13th centuries, which perhaps indicates the age of the burial. Detailed tests will be carried out to determine when she lived. 
Natalia Filina
Natalia Filina: my husband joked he could find a buried treasure. Picture: Arigus TV
Experts say the mirror is from China, and on one side are visible two dragons and an inscription which it is hoped to decipher. The woman evidently had high status in her society. 
'Bronze mirrors are quite rare in archaeological excavations and are unique works of art that characterise the skill of those who make them, and their beliefs,' said Bilikto Bazarov, another research fellow at the institute, which is part of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science. 
Map
Rare find was made in Ulan-Ude suburbs. Picture: The Siberian Times
'We think that the mirror can indicate that the burial was not later than the 13th century and we plan to clarify the date after radiocarbon analysis of the birch bark and remains of the coffin.'
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International Dunhuang Project Issue No. 46

December 6, 2015, 1:36 am
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The Berlin- Turfan Expeditions 1902- 1914

December 6, 2015, 3:28 am
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Abenteuer Seidenstraße: Die Berliner Turfan-Expeditionen 1902-1914 Broschiert – 18. November 2015



  • Broschiert: 272 Seiten
  • Verlag: Seemann Henschel; Auflage: 1 (18. November 2015)
  • Sprache: Deutsch
  • ISBN-10: 3865023665

The four German Turfan expeditions from 1902-1914 led Western scholars for the first time to the Buddhist cave systems and monuments along the old trade routes in Central Asia, in those days decorated with paintings and sculptures , that is, along the northern Silk Road. Consequently, thousands of paintings and more than 40.000 text fragments and other art objects were brought to Berlin in 46 crates. These finds, as frescos from the 9th century are now one of the treasures of the Museum of Asian Art and are exhibited in the Humboldt Forum in Berlin at a central point under the great dome. This publication shows very beautiful images, how  the region of Xinjiang, an area in the far west of China's autonomous regions, once looked like it,how it looked like for travellers from Germany before the First World War. For example for Albert Grünwedel, the initiator of the Turfan expedition in 1902 and then director of the Indian Department of the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, and the Turcologists Albert von Le Coq. The unique photographs in this book are impressive and historical maps provide an exact overview of the itineraries; Excerpts from letters and reports, plans and sketches reflect the conditions, to which the researchers were exposed on their explorations, a richly illustrated, archaeological and art-historical adventure book.
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Sogdians in China

December 10, 2015, 4:41 am
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Sogdians in China 

Archaeological and art historical analyses of tombs and texts from the 3rd to the 10th century AD 

Gebundene Ausgabe– 1. Dezember 2015



  • Hardcover: 347 pages
  • Publisher: Verlag Philipp von Zabern in Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 
  • (1 December2015)
  • Language: German
  • ISBN-10: 3805349858

Sogdians, originating from present-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, dominated one of history’s greatest trade empires, extending from Constantinople to Korea between the 6th and 8th centuries AD. They established settlements in China and were granted positions of the highest rank at the imperial court. In recent years, richly equipped tombs attributed to members of the Sogdian diaspora were discovered in north and west China. The burial objects and inscriptions in these tombs offer surprising insights into the lives of these Central Asians. Patrick Wertmann followed the routes of the Sogdian traders and documented for his dissertation their traces in 54 museums and collections in eight countries, particularly in China. This fifth volume of the series Archaeology in China and East Asia offers the most comprehensive overview of Sogdian artefacts thus far assembled, with numerous colour photographs by the author.
The book has 347 pages with 116 full-page plates and 15 tables.
 About the Author:
Patrick Wertmann (PhD 2013) .is a specialist in East Asian art history and now working in the Sino-German cooperation project “Silk Road Fashion” of the Beijing Branch Office, Eurasia Department, German Archaeological Institute.

Dieser Band bietet die bislang umfassendste Sammlung sogdischen Fundmaterials. Patrick Wertmann ist den Routen der sogdischen Händler gefolgt und hat ihre Spuren in 54 Museen und Sammlungen in acht Ländern, insbesondere jedoch in China, dokumentiert.
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Preserving the Maritime Silk Road in Quanzhou

December 11, 2015, 1:35 pm
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Michael Rowlands (UCL) will give the next International Centre for Chinese Heritage and Archaeology (ICCHA) China Night Lecture of 2015-16 at the Institute on 17 December.
Prof Michael Rowlands will present a lecture entitled 'Preserving the Maritime Silk Road in Quanzhou' and all are welcome to attend.
The lecture will be followed by a wine reception in the Institute's Staff and Research Student Common Room (Room 609).
Through its China Nights events and Guest Lecture Series, the International Centre for Chinese Heritage and Archaeology (ICCHA) endeavours to promote all aspects of Chinese history and prehistory and strengthen academic links between China and Europe. 
Any enquiries about the event may be directed to the ICCHA Administrator.
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DNA tests uncover rare 2,000 year-old "golden" horse

December 12, 2015, 1:19 am
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From: I cross China 10 December 2015  By Yi Ling，Li Linhai
640.webp
Glossary of horse colors 
A rare golden colored horse might have galloped across northwestern China's Gobi Desert 2,000 years ago, an archaeological DNA analysis has suggested.
The discovery comes after archaeologists with the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) institute of archaeology analyzed the bones of five horses from a nomad tomb complex dating back to the Western Han Dynasty (202BC--8AD) in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
"The color of the horse's body was golden, or palomino, while its mane and tail were nearly white," said Zhao Xin, lead researcher of the project.
"Though it's not the first archaeological discovery of a golden horse, such genovariation is very, very rare," she said.
640.webp (1)
An aerial photo of the vault.
The animal was buried in the same vault with its owner and unearthed in a joint excavation by the Xinjiang cultural relics department and Northwestern University from 2006 to 2007.
Archaeologists also discovered a large quantity of other human and animal remains, along with pottery and vessels made of bronze, gold, silver and stone.
640.webp (2)
A picture shows the horse remain from the tomb complex
The tomb complex dates back to 400BC--120BC, according to Zhao, and belonged to a nomad community. The five horses were apparently buried as sacrifices for three different people. Three came from the same tomb. Two were chestnut and buried along with a camel in an animal vault. Only the golden one shared the chamber with the owner, said Zhao.
"Obviously, its conspicuous and unique appearance made it precious," she said.
Horses were first domesticated in central Asia at least 5,000 years ago.
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Jades unearthed at Han-Dynasty tomb in China's Nanchang

December 12, 2015, 3:53 am
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China Daily 8 December 2015
Photo taken on Dec 7, 2015 shows a jade pendant unearthed at the Haihun Marquis tomb dated back to the ancient China's Western Han Dynasty(206 BC - 24 AD) in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. [Photo/Xinhua]

Photo taken on Dec 7, 2015 shows a jade ring unearthed at the Haihun Marquis tomb dated back to the ancient China's Western Han Dynasty(206 BC - 24 AD) in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. [Photo/Xinhua]

Photo taken on Dec 7, 2015 shows jade sword ornaments unearthed at the Haihun Marquis tomb dated back to the ancient China's Western Han Dynasty(206 BC - 24 AD) in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. [Photo/Xinhua]

Photo taken on Dec 7, 2015 shows a jade ear cup unearthed at the Haihun Marquis tomb dated back to the ancient China's Western Han Dynasty(206 BC - 24 AD) in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. [Photo/Xinhua]
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Another Kazakhstan: Mangistau

December 12, 2015, 8:46 am
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 History of Kazakhstan       9 December 2015 


Kazakhstan – not only boundless steppes and distant region of Mangistau at the west of the country, it is absolutely another amazing world, rich in its history. 

Mangistau (in the Soviet time bearing the name the peninsula Myngyshlak) — the region of Western Kazakhstan, washed from the west by waters of the Caspian sea, and from the east practically distant from the remaining part of the country by the territory of Uzbekistan. From the south of Mangistau also borders with Turkmenia. This region is rich in history — two thirds of monuments of the whole Kazakhstan is located exactly here.  



However, the history of the land has not been fully studied. Archeological findings confirm that in the deep ancient times through Mangistau went the Great Silken way from ancient Khorezm to Khazariya, Volzhskaya Bulgaria, Persia. On the ways of caravans, counting thousands of camels, located the multiple caravan-sarays and the things are humming. The later Mongol raid wiped out the local settlements and the land decayed. A half of Mangishlak — the bottom of the receded Caspian sea. The abundance in the local lands of the shell rock allowed to the people of various tribes to eternalise its track in the kind of petroglyphs and ancient burials. More modern necropolises (cemeteries) or the cities of the dead, as Kazakhs call them, look not like in the ancient times. For the last 100 years the whole cities rose, where almost each grave had its dome.  The interesting peculiarity of Mangistau region is that far in the mountains, in the hollows of caves local people since ancient times raised mosques. The appearance of each of them (the oldest supposedly dates back to the VII century) has its beautiful legend. Going inside and seeing at the light of candles the ancient Arabic manuscripts, actually you feel a special feeling. 



But Mangistau is interesting not only with its history, but also with its beautiful legend. The most part of interesting places of the region is still hard to reach. To get to the distant places is possible only on the steppes by the offroader. For three weeks, that I went across the land of Mangistau, I was able to comprise only the part of all those interesting things that save this marvelous land. One of such places — a little known canyon in the region of the Tauchik settlement, there are tens, if not hundreds of them in Mangistau.  “It is interesting whether the deserts similar to what is represented by the reading of the Arabic fairy-tales?” — I thought and set off for search.



On topographical maps some places were marked as sand dunes which, in fact, looked as the usual steppe mixed with sand. But at the outskirts of not remarkable distant settlement Senek I could see the real barkhans of impressive sizes. Having known from the local people how to reach closer and by rising the slope I have been wandering through the endless sands for long. It was very windy, sand clogged into the folds of clothes and screeched on the teeth, sometimes it seemed that a little more and wind will strike down.  Photographers know that usually in these conditions it is better not to take out the camera, but the seduction to feature the beauty of the nature turned out to be stronger.  Another, as it seems, the most memorable and most hard-to-get place of the region — reserved cavity of saline land of Karyn-Zharyk, which is located practically at the boundary with Turkmenia. The road there, more exactly, not the road, but just GPS-direction on steppe after May rain is sometimes impassable even by the offroader. But, after going that way and, at last, occurring after all hardships at the place, I had the feeling of unreality of the current things. Lonely standing mountains in the middle of the mirror smooth surface of the saline lake. Neither a single car up to tens of kilometers, not single track of human foot on the mirror clayey surface. Only the boundary cordon stretching for 5 km reminded that life “on Mars” exists. 



The academic B. A. Fedorovich — a specialist on deserts did not stop to admire the landscapes of Mangistau. He wrote: “If you want to image all the types of the deserts of the globe, about black, cliffy, bare mountains, about shining with whiteness or mild-rosy “stoney cities” with intricate giant towers, obelisk if you want to see all the forms of the relief of sands and all the types of saline lands, then it is impossible to choose better place than Mangyshlak. In this country on the small space and in reserved jewelry-box the whole arsenal is gathered”.  About saint for the local people mountain Sherkala the participant of expedition of 1851 Bronislav Zalesskiy wrote: “Rising alone on the even surface it draws attention by its form. The margins of the mountain with the height of 700 feet are rising above the plain. From afar Sherkala is similar to the Rome Pantheon. By coming closer you can differentiate the pieces of walls which fell and further there are the separate columns on which the destroyed by time statues, so unusual forms stand”. Everybody who was at these places also was surprised with the great number of huge stone balls of the correct form by diameter of 2-3 m, as if scattered by someone around on the field. Certainly, it is one thing to admire by these landscapes only for several days and completely another thing — to contemplate them for years not on one’s will.  Taras Shevchenko, deprived the possibility to write and draw, who lived here at the tsarist regime for long 10 years in exile (his name today is eternalized in the name of Fort-Shevchenko city) wrote: “Real desert! Only sand and stone; if only little grass, if only little wood — there is nothing here. It is not even possible to see the proper mountain — just nonsense! You see and see and feel sad — just hang yourself but there is nothing to hang yourself with!” Landscapes of the region are, certainly, lifeless — often appears the feeling that you are somewhere on Mars and now “round the corner” will appear the characters from “Star Wars”. The most impressive one from such places — the peaks of Boszhira, risisng on white lifeless plain. The fame about them reached Japan — in the district of peaks located within the distance of 200 km from the nearest residential place, I suddenly saw the group of the Japanese who paid the money to one of travel’s agencies in order to reach there. 


From the height of the mountain plateau Usturt the views on Boszhiru are breath-taking! I will allow myself not to agree with Shevchenko — although nature of Mangistau is severe, anyway it is surprisingly versatile: from yellow sand dunes of desert to turquoise waves of the Caspian sea, from deep canyons and cliffs to green carpets of endless steppes. Exactly here, at Mangishlak the Karagie (132 m below the sea level) is situated.  However, one of the most breath-taking discoveries at Mangistau personally for me occurred to be the night sky. It probably can be compared with the spangled with stars night sky of the Himalayas. Whether it is the seashore of the Caspian sea, in saline lands, steppes or cliffy mountains, everywhere, where you had to stay for night for these three weeks, I wanted to spend nights under this starry sky nights long in order to soak up at least the part of all that unearthly beauty.  Konstantin Paustovskiy visiting in due time Mangishlak wrote: “Nowhere I saw such grandiose star rainfall and such dazzling shine of planets. It was so bright, that at nights it seemed that as if planets fly to us from the space, fly to one point of the globe — to the dead peninsula Mangishlak”. The seashore of the Caspian sea also pleasantly surprised with its primevalness and beautiful bays with the purest turquoise water. Isn’t that the Caribbean? Just think, it is Kazakhstan!!! I have never earlier thought that it is possible. And if at the health centers of Chernomor seashore in the season there is barely room to move then at the most beautiful seashore of the Caspian sea between Fort-Shevchenko and Aktau there is no resort-hotel-sanatorium. As a whole, if you love the auto-tourism and you are not only frightened but also rejoiced by the romantics in the tent at the white beach and starry nights by the fire to guitar, then you should come here! The only thing — you should also not be confused by the presence of certain amount of floating snakes at the seashore cliffs...  One of them I caught just at the moment when she took from water the fish and right in front of eyes swallowed the prey in one piece. Besides the snakes at Mangishlak in wild nature one can simply and rather often meet turtles. At the cemeteries (for some reason exactly there) I could see not once the hares. From domestic (grazing by themselves for kilometers in the district and even independently wandering around the settlements). The travelling around Mangistau is not the autobus tour around Europe. However, having visited this amazing region, I did not regret “about the accomplished thing”. On the contrary, difficulties only added adrenalin and sense of adventure. 


Taking into account that Kazakhstan — neighbouring and very friendly country (in the hospitality you can not refuse to Kazakhs), to all of them in whom lives the spirit of adventures, I without a shadow of a doubt recommend to visit Mangistau! It seems to me that it is only the issue of time, when there thousands of Western tourists dash. So, hurry up!  

Text and photo: Alexander Khimushin  “My planet”  http://www. moya-planeta. ru/



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Geheimnisvolles Turfan

December 13, 2015, 11:50 am
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Von der Seidenstraße zum Humboldtforum



Erstmals ist es einem deutschen Kamerateam gelungen, in eine abgelegene Region Chinas zu kommen, die als Teil der Seidenstraße einen legendären Ruf genießt. Nahe der Wüste Taklamakan liegen die Oasen Turfan, Kizil und Kucha, weltberühmt für ihre uralten phantastischen Wandmalereien in buddhistischen Höhlen. Trotz politischer Unruhen in der autonomen, uigurischen Region Xinjiang konnte ein Team von ZDF und 3sat in der Region drehen.  

Dreharbeiten in den Höhlen von Kizil
Geheimnisvolles Turfan
Erste Dreharbeien eines europäischen Teams in den Höhlen von Kizil.
Die Höhlen aus dem dritten bis 13. Jahrhundert waren Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts von den Berliner Forschern Albert Grünwedel und Albert von Le Coq entdeckt worden. Sie fanden darin zahlreiche Schriften, Skulpturen und wunderschöne Wandgemälde, die erstmals belegten, wie früh sich Kulturen aus Ost und West an der Seidenstraße gegenseitig beeinflussten. Grünwedel und Le Coq lösten zahlreiche Fresken aus den Wänden und transportierten sie in Hunderten von Kisten nach Berlin. Seitdem galten die deutschen Wissenschaftler vielen in China als Kunsträuber.

Nun aber nähern sich Deutschland und China in bedeutenden, gemeinsamen Forschungsprojekten über diese Objekte einander an. ZDF-Autorin Carola Wedel hat mit ihrem Kamerateam den Direktor des Museums für Asiatische Kunst Berlin, Klaas Ruitenbeek, auf einer außergewöhnlichen Reise durch die Region Xinjiang begleitet. Die "Turfan-Expeditionen" sollen eines der aufsehenerregendsten Ausstellungskapitel im neu geplanten Humboldtforum im wiederaufgebauten Berliner Stadtschloss werden. Mit Original-Fresken werden die Höhlen aufwändig rekonstruiert - eine restauratorische Meisterleistung.
Völkerverbindung durch Humboldtforum
Die Dokumentation zeigt nicht nur die legendären historischen Orte, die das "Geheimnis von Turfan" begründet haben, sondern erzählt auch, wie es zu einer beispielhaften internationalen Forschungszusammenarbeit gekommen ist. Turfan und das internationale Forschungsprojekt "Nördliche Seidenstraße" steht für eine positive Form von Globalisierung und ist zum Symbol für die Idee von einem völkerverbindenden Humboldtforum geworden.
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Cross-faith conferences: Mongols and Mughals

December 14, 2015, 12:08 am
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From: AMGALANT by Bryn Hammond

This post looks at Mongol China and Mughal India: the reigns of Khubilai Khan (1260-94) and Jalal al-Din Muhammad Akbar (1556-1605). These figures were conscious innovators in the old worlds of China and of India. Khubilai introduced a universal script, Akbar a universal religion; neither invention is thought to have outlived its sponsor, but even so, these remain great experiments in change. I want to focus on a tradition of cross-faith conferences staged at Mongol courts, transported into Khubilai’s China, and culminating in Akbar’s House of Worship: it seems to me that this might well be an inheritance, where Akbar built his house on foundations from his steppe ancestors.
Khubilai and Akbar have commonalities. They were the main establishers of post-nomad states in the great cultural worlds of China and of India. Akbar was more distanced from his Mongol background, but a few scholars have directed attention to Central Asian influences in the Mughal state.[1] Self-consciously, the two were unifiers: although Khubilai was frustrated in his claim to the world-kingship of the Mongols, he returned the north and south of China to unity, which Chinese dynasties had tried and failed to do since Tang; while Akbar united large areas of India that had not been one before. Religious pluralism was important to their politics, and this they had in common with other Inner Asians in custody of settled territory – not only the Qaraqorum Mongols before Khubilai, but the Qara Qitai before them, in Central Asia. Akbar introduced diversity into his government by employment of Rajputs and other Hindus; Khubilai staffed a poly-ethnic government, in resistance to pressures to become fully Confucian.
Iqtidar Alam Khan traces a general Mughal tolerance, as against the persecutory Islam seen in the Delhi Sultanate before them, back through Timurid traditions to the yasa (legal code) of Chinggis Khan, from whom Babur descended on his mother’s side. The thirteenth-century Persian historian Juvaini, employed by the government of Mongol Iran, gives in ideal terms Chinggis’ edict on the coexistence of religions.[2] Even after the Mongols took on world religions in Iran and China, their policy of religious pluralism was never altogether abandoned, although it became inconsistent – Mirza Haydar Dughlat relates bloody conversion tales among the Mughals’ cousins in Moghulistan, with a prince executing his unconverted entourage.[3]
The objective of religious pluralism in the Mongol world is often misunderstood. It had a history in Inner Asia, and was practiced similarly by the shamanist and Buddhist Qara Qitai in their poly-religious khanship just prior to the Mongols in Central Asia.[4] To see this policy as merely state pragmatism – or worse, a crudity of mind – is to neglect the indigenous religiosity. Of help here is a book on Mughal religiosity: A. Azfar Moin explains Akbar’s ‘participatory acts’ in a way that sheds light on the Mongols’ participation in the rituals and the gestures of religions they did not profess, as orthodox adherents understood profession.[5] Akbar’s sense of religion was ‘embodied’, ‘local’, centred on holy persons rather than on doctrine.[6] Shamanist peoples, Mongols and others, had a preference for Sufis, and this, along with the disruption of the Mongol invasions, aided a shift in religious weight and sentiment from the ulama to Sufis.[7] In Devin DeWeese’s study of the transition to Islam in the Golden Horde, the closeness, even the conflation, of shaman and Sufi, can be seen in depth.[8] Jesuits felt themselves led on by Akbar, and experienced disillusionment when they realised he wasn’t serious: this happens again and again at Mongol courts, and the Jesuit complaint is uncannily alike to the revolving feelings recorded by the missionary friar William of Rubruck, in the account I look at next.[9]Neither Akbar nor the potential converts Rubruck meets were cynical or exploitative, nor did they have simply state concerns in mind. Religious pluralism, as a policy, was certainly pragmatic for the Mongols, but it also made religious sense to them. Both these motives are evident in the religious debate at Grand Khan Mongke’s court in (or near – they were nomads) Qaraqorum.
This debate is a precursor to Khubilai’s debates, and is a cultural heritage behind Akbar’s House of Worship (‘Ibadat Khana). Our witness is Friar William of Rubruck, who gives us our closest view of a court-led interfaith discussion among the Mongols. Its purposes can be ascertained, in spite of Rubruck’s misconstructions. The debate was announced a few days after an incident of hostilities between Christians and Muslims in front of the khan’s brother Arigh Boke, who intervened to stop the exchange of insults. Arigh Boke had met the Christian group, of whom Rubruck was one, with a sign of the cross: here is a ‘participatory act’, that led to rumours he was Christian. Later, the quarrel became physical, with a monk answering Muslim taunts with his whip; Rubruck’s party was reprimanded by being told to make camp not beside the khan’s tent as hitherto, but with the other foreign envoys. Clearly, the debate, an opportunity to air conflicting views, with orders from the khan for no ‘provocative or insulting remarks’, no ‘commotion that might obstruct these proceedings,’ is a response to these unseemly incidents.
It is also clear that the other participants in the debate understood the khan’s purposes better than did Rubruck. First, a ‘tuin’ – probably a Buddhist – attempts to tell him that instead of there being one God, there are evidently gods for regions of the world just as these regions have their kings. This is to phrase another way what Mongke himself says to Rubruck in an audience the day after the debate: ‘God has given ways and religions to man as there are different fingers on one hand.’[10] Thus the khan draws his lesson to the visiting friar. Rubruck and his party have been the most volatile contenders at the debate; the opposition ceases to dispute him, but quietly hears him out. Rubruck believes he has reduced them to silence by his arguments, but it is more likely that they are acquainted with Mongke and behave in a manner that might meet with his approval. They do not clash. They allow Rubruck to air his views, and next day, Mongke expresses to Rubruck what he hoped to achieve: not a win by one religion or another, but coexistence. Mongke’s sentence has the feel of an old saying, although unattested (in this largely oral culture): it is a neat formulation of an Inner Asian religious outlook.
Mongke’s debate was held in 1254. Four years on, in 1258, he assigned his brother Khubilai to adjudicate between Buddhists and Taoists in north China, again for conflict resolution – this time serious disorders. It is frequently said that Khubilai was predisposed to the Buddhist side and did not judge objectively.[11] However, these unprecedented conflicts were caused by his grandfather Chinggis Khan, and he presumably felt a duty to undo the damage. Chinggis had evinced a personal respect for Qui Chuji, head of the Taoist Quanzhen sect, and from the distance of Central Asia granted him a general ‘superintendency’ of religions in north China.[12] As a result Taoism enjoyed a short-lived heyday; a contemporary said that a fifth of the population joined the sect in Mongol favour.[13] By the time of Khubilai’s interfaith court case, Taoists had severely encroached on Buddhist rights and property, and the situation in north China had devolved into violence against religious precincts and personnel.[14] Khubilai redressed the imbalance.
There were further Buddhist-Taoist hearings and debates, but Khubilai, when khan in China, did not pursue the idea of the wide interfaith conference, in spite of the several faiths in his officialdom. Khans in Iran held debates on a reduced scale, often, seemingly, to indulge the curiosity of the prince himself; there is no sense in Mongol Iran that cross-religious discussions were staged for the harmony of the realm – in fact scholars tend to talk of them as a sports-like entertainment.[15] Mongke’s debate had public ends and he himself did not attend, although well-informed by his ‘umpires’, three secretaries of different faiths. Participants had included Catholic and Nestorian Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, shamanists and quite possibly others that Rubruck cannot identify. Nothing like that range is seen until Akbar’s House of Worship, where there gathered ‘Sufi, philosopher, orator, jurist, Sunni, Shia, Brahman, Jati, Siura (Jains), Carbak (the Charvaka school), Nazarene, Jew, Sabi (Sabians – a Gnostic tradition), Zoroastrian, and others.’[16]
Still, Khubilai, frustrated in his claims to universal khanship, increasingly a khan of China, kept a diversity of ethnic make-up in his government. The one thing he did not accede to from Confucian-minded advisors was to reinstate the examinations for civil service entry: he was determined to draw on a wider range of talents than those shaped by study of the Confucian classics.[17] In the China he took over, even diplomats were not thought to need another language; hence his reliance on a ‘steppe intelligentsia’ with language facility, Uighurs, Khitan, Tanguts, Central Asians, employed as interpreters and translators.[18]Linguistic skills were critical for Khubilai; while Akbar attempted to amalgamate religions, Khubilai, instead, tried to introduce a universal script. As outsiders, they were innovators, across cultures. Chinese officials had been previously dismayed by Khubilai’s insistence on colloquial Chinese, for ease of access; there was much hostility towards the universal script, in spite of its effectiveness.[19] Here we see innovations, attempted changes, that were defeated by traditional ways. It is worthwhile to ponder for a moment what might have come had a universal script been successfully introduced for government affairs. Change consists of failed experiments too, not only in the official halls of China; abandoned innovations testify to new ideas. Khubilai’s bold stroke of a universal script in which to write every language was a possibility open to an outsider, a result of the meeting of cultures. It should not be lost to view because it failed. Recent discoveries have proved that the script – named Phagspa after its Tibetan creator – was far more widely and persistently used than has been assumed: this is a caution not to let the master narrative erase changes, as if they never took place.[20] Chinese official histories cannot be expected to pay attention to the Phagspa script. The compiler of the Yuan history (Yuan shi), indeed, was staunchly a Chinese classicist in an essay he wrote on art – no friend to Mongol-era deviation.[21]
For Akbar, the master narrative has been the intellectual tradition – doctrinal, legal; political philosophy and ethical tract – by light of which we write our histories of statecraft and government in Islam: this is the argument of A. Azfar Moin, who writes instead an ethnographic history with eyes on the acts and practices of kings, not the prescriptive literature.[22] Akbar’s religious experimentation then falls into place with Safavid Iran and Timurid Central Asia in an age when kings and messiahs fused. Religious curiosity on Akbar’s part, even his personal quest, cannot be cleanly separated from an ideal wish to resolve or harmonise ‘the confusion of religions and creeds.’[23] His House of Worship was on a grander scale than any conference held by a Mongol prince, but these are a possible transmission line. The House was interrupted by a rebellion, after which Akbar only resumed religious inquiry in his private quarters. By the accounts of both Abul Fazl and Bada’uni, discussion at the House of Worship caused acrimony, uproar, wrangles and hostilities;[24] Akbar’s subsequent Religion of God or Divine Religion (Din-i Ilahi) took a different approach towards universalism. He sought to unify religiosity in a discipleship to himself: this transcended, rather than amalgamated teachings.[25]
As an example of continuity with ways of religion on the steppe, there is the Jesuit ordeal at Akbar’s court. It was Akbar himself, Moin persuasively argues, who urged a display or spectacle of a fiery trial by ordeal between Jesuits and Muslim ascetics.[26] He need not have heard of the judicial ordeal in Europe, as was the Jesuit explanation, or if he did, he might well have recognised a consonance: in the Golden Horde, Sufis and shamans competed against one another in just such physical ordeals, wherein they were to conquer fire.[27] It was a language both sides understood. The Jesuits did not feel themselves such wonder-working saints and declined the contest, with difficulty.
Akbar, in the spirit of the age, transcended dogma in a saintly discipleship centred on his person – not an option open to Khubilai in China. Both Akbar and Khubilai were invaders, and brought potential for change, with themes of unity and universality, of diversity and pluralism, running through their governments. They faced different fates in the cultural worlds of China and of India, but we see the persistence of a shared heritage. The interfaith debate, used to specific purpose in Khubilai’s China, went into decline as Mongols entered the spheres of world religions; but Akbar, for a few years, made an institution of it.
Image  Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Martyrdom of the Franciscans (1342), from the Commons. This intriguing Italian painting deserves a post to itself. But in short, the scene is set at an unidentified Central Asian court under Mongol rule, and this time tolerance has broken down; the visiting friars are killed. Roxann Prazniak has explored this artist’s Mongol contacts; she points to the disbelief or dismay in the reactions of the court, who are presented as poly-ethnic. Lorenzetti is commenting on religious coexistence, both at home in Siena and in the Mongol world he knew. For more, see:
Prazniak, Roxann, ‘Siena on the Silk Roads: Ambrogio Lorenzetti and the Mongol
Global Century, 1250-1350’, Journal of World History, vol. 21, iss. 2, 2010, pp.
177-217.
Footnotes[1] Books on this theme include Lisa Balabanlilar, Imperial Identity in the Mughal Empire: Memory and Dynastic Politics in Early Modern South and Central Asia, London and New York, 2012. However, she treats strictly the Timurid legacy, without attention to any memory of the Chinggisid Mongols. Another is Richard C. Foltz, Mughal India and Central Asia, Oxford, 1999, which I have not been able to consult.
[2] Iqtidar Alam Khan ‘Akbar’s Personality Traits and World Outlook: A Critical Reappraisal’, Social Scientist, vol. 20, iss. 9/10, 1992, pp. 17-18; Juvaini, Genghis Khan: The History of the World Conqueror, trans. J.A. Boyle, Manchester, 1958, p. 26.
[3] Dughlat, A History of the Khans of Mogulistan, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, London, 2012, p. 21.
[4] Michal Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitay in Eurasian History: Between China and the Islamic World, Cambridge, 2005, pp. 171-201.
[5] A. Azfar Moin, The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam, New York, 2012, p. 151.
[6] Ibid., pp. 130-69.
[7] Johan Elverskog, Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road, Philadelphia, 2010, p. 201.
[8] Devin DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tukles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition, Pennsylvania, 1994.
[9] For Jesuits, see Moin, The Millennial Sovereign, pp. 146-52; Rubruck, The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck: His Journey to the Court of the Great Khan Mongke, trans. Peter Jackson, Indianapolis and Cambridge, 1990; see p. 224 onwards.
[10] Ibid., p. 236. In order to bring out the sententious quality I alter the translation, that has been through Rubruck’s Latin too.
[11] For example, Morris Rossabi, Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times, Berkeley, 1988/2009, p. 41; George Lane, ‘Khubilai (Qubilai) Khan’, entry in Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography, 3 vols, Great Barrington, MA, 2014, ii, pp. 827-8.
[12] F. W. Mote, Imperial China, Cambridge, MA and London, 1999, p. 500.
[13] Yao Tao-chung, ‘Buddhism and Taoism under the Chin’ in China Under Jurchen Rule: Essays on Chin Intellectual and Cultural History, eds. Hoyt Cleveland Tillman and Stephen H. West, New York, 1995, p. 154.
[14] Rossabi, Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times, p. 36.
[15] George Lane, ‘Chingiz Khan: Maker of the Islamic world’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies, vol. 16, iss. 1, 2014, p. 143.
[16] Abul Fazl, The Akbarnama, 3 vols, trans. H. Beveridge, Calcutta, 1897-1939, iii, chapter 95.
[17] Morris Rossabi, ‘The reign of Khubilai Khan’ in The Cambridge History of China, Volume 6: Alien Regimes and Border States, eds. Herbert Franke and Denis Twitchett, Cambridge, 1994, p. 416, 418, 427.
[18] Ibid., p. 416; for Chinese diplomats, see the Introduction by the editors, p. 20; ‘steppe intelligentsia’ is from Igor de Rachewiltz, Hok-lam Chan, Hsaio Ch’i-ch’ing and Peter W. Geier, eds, In the Service of the Khan: Eminent Personalities of the Early Mongol-Yuan Period, Wiesbaden, 1993, pp. xiv-xv.
[19] Rossabi, ‘The reign of Khubilai Khan’, pp. 466-7.
[20] Shane McCausland, The Mongol Century: Visual Cultures of Yuan China, London, 2014, pp. 231-2.
[21] Ibid., pp. 238-9.
[22] Moin, The Millennial Sovereign.
[23] Abul Fazl, The Akbarnama, iii, chapter 100.
[24] Ibid., iii, chapter 95; Bada’uni, Selections from Histories, 3 vols, trans. George S.A. Ranking, Sir Wolseley Haig and W.H. Lowe, Calcutta, 1884-1925, ii, chapter 69.
[25] Moin, The Millennial Sovereign, pp. 138-46.
[26] Ibid., pp. 148-9.
[27] DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde, pp. 167, 243-56.


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China’s ancient treasures under siege from army of tomb raiders

December 14, 2015, 8:21 am
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Historians fear looting of ancient burial sites has reached epidemic proportions as would-be grave robbers team up through social media

South China Morning Post by Celine Ge     4 december 2015

It’s perhaps not surprising that grave robbing has a long tradition in China – after all, Chinese civilisation stretches back several thousand years. But a 21st century twist is turning this age-old crime into an epidemic. Inspired by get-rich-quick yarns and a series of popular novels, young migrant workers and peasants have teamed up in the thousands through internet chat rooms to loot historic tombs in key provinces.
A band of five led by a migrant worker surnamed Nuan was among the more recent raiders. In May the gang travelled hundreds of kilometres to the drab rural township of Huixi in southeastern Zhejiang province, and made off with a carved stone horse from a 400-year-old mausoleum.
Under the cover of darkness, they drove up to the tomb of a high-ranking minister of the Ming imperial court named Qin Minglei. The complex, which had survived the Cultural Revolution campaign to destroy the “four olds” – old culture, customs, habits and ideas – was protected as an important cultural relic and guarded by surveillance cameras.
But the gang managed to turn the cameras away from the tomb and, using a crane and steel cables, lifted the two-tonne stone horse on to their truck and drove back to their home county of Ningjin in Hebei province.
The artefact was put on the black market for between 200,000 yuan (HK$242,000) and 300,000 yuan
although it was estimated to be worth more than one million yuan. Unfortunately for the gang, none of the antique dealers they approached made a bid.A police officer displays a metal detector found in the possession of three suspected grave robbers arrested in a cemetery in Taizhou, Zhejiang province.
Police eventually caught the looters and recovered the stone horse in a deserted yard in Ningjin six weeks after the mausoleum raid.
Nuan, a former handyman, told police he picked up basic knowledge about antiquities and tomb-looting techniques from reading The Grave Robbers’ Chronicles, a popular series of novels featuring an adventurer named Wu Xie, as well as online chat groups about the series.
Written by Xu Lei, the stories were initially published on a website and soon drew more than 18 million views, sparking a craze for tales combining grave robbing and the supernatural. The books started appearing in print in 2011, and spin-offs such as comic books, video games and a film and TV series followed.
Fans also set up online forums discussing topics related to the books, from bloodsucking zombies to the search for ancient treasures.
It was through online chatrooms that Nuan recruited his accomplices and even secured 2,000 yuan in financing for his scheme. His backer, surnamed Feng, also came under investigation for assisting the crime.
But this gang of five are undoubted greenhorns; experienced tomb looters would never consult a novel for tips.
Graves have been plundered for thousands of years in China, but the practice has spread at an unprecedented pace since the country opened up in the 1980s, says Ni Fangliu, a member of the Archaeologist Association of Jiangsu.
Indeed, Ni, who has written five books on the looting of Chinese antiquities, estimates there may be as many as 100,000 full-time tomb raiders in the country.

INFOGRAPHIC: Tomb raiders in China (to see the full-size graphic, click here)

In the past, tomb raiders were mainly avaricious warlords; farmers and other labourers were too bound by superstition to risk being cursed for intruding on the domain of the dead. But over the last 30 years, a ballooning army of migrant workers and peasants have joined the drive to excavate centuries-old mausoleums and ransack them for valuables.
The haul could be substantial: filled with jewellery, ceramics and bronze ware to ensure comfort in the afterlife, some tombs are so opulent they have been described as “underground palaces”.
One of the few Chinese researchers studying grave robbery, Ni says growing wealth in China has given rise to a lucrative illicit market in antiquities as collectors vie to acquire prized artefacts without considering their provenance.
Enterprising criminals have even faked an entire ancient tomb to convince buyers of the authenticity of the forged artefacts they were flogging, he adds. An archaeologist inspects hoof-shaped gold ingots in an aristocrat’s tomb that dates back to the Western Han dynasty (206BC to AD24), in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. Photo: Xinhua“There is an old saying that goes ‘grave robbing makes one a millionaire’,” Ni says. “It is often the case that the first pot of gold earned from a stolen relic is enough to start an antiques business.”
China’s new generation of tomb raiders are making use of the spread of the internet to hold consultations and recruitment online, and utilising more advanced tools such as metal and gas detectors in their search for hidden treasure.
The activity is so widespread, “in some provinces, nine out of 10 ancient tombs may have already been ransacked by grave robbers”, says Lei Xingshan, an archaeology professor at Peking University.
Among the best-known casualties of looting is the Gaoling Mausoleum in Henan, believed to be the burial site of Cao Cao, a leading ruler during the Three Kingdoms period dating to AD220. Archaeologists entering the chambers found empty packets of instant noodles, bottled water, cigarettes and buckled floor tiles – signs that multiple gangs of raiders had scoured the complex for burial objects.
Expert tomb robbers often have a good grasp of local history and the development of noble clans, which may give them clues about the value of funeral objects buried in family cemeteries. Knowledge of feng shui is also useful because the ruling classes ensured that they were buried in auspicious sites.
“Grave robbers would search the terrain for sites backing onto hills, facing streams and ideally situated on the metaphoric vessels of the ‘dragon veins’, which point to power and fortune,” explains feng shui master Sheungkoon Chi-ching. “They would also examine the surroundings, such as the flora and the colour of soil.”
Given its secretive nature, tomb raiding used to be a family business, with know-how kept within a small circle, Ni says. But the “big bang” of the internet has made it easy for individuals to team up, and for rookies to learn from more experienced raiders.
Ancient Tomb Bar, a forum on Baidu Tieba message board, gives a glimpse of the process.
“Apprentices and Partners Wanted! Those who are brave and diligent give me your contact details,” reads a post from someone using the handle Zhuanshengdianlunhui.
The writer said he had been digging huo (looters’ jargon for artefacts) for two years, and was prepared to split the profits. His post attracted 65 respondents, many of whom provided their QQ numbers, the Chinese equivalent of instant messaging screen names.
There are ongoing queries and discussions about grave robbing techniques, with topics ranging from feng shui knowledge to the selection of hi-tech probes.
Complaining about layers of stone blocking him from a tomb chamber in southwestern Sichuan, web user Huwai911, wrote “I almost give up.”
“Blow it up!” advised respondent Gebilaowang826. “My team is professional. We can help you out as long as profits are divided with us.”
Archaeologists decry the destructive impact of increasingly aggressive tomb raiders who have no compunction about using explosives to remove barriers to their path to riches.
“As those guys break into a chamber, our cultural heritage is already damaged,” says Peking University’s Lei.
As the tomb raids have escalated, Beijing has ramped up its anti-looting efforts.
In May, police detained 175 alleged tomb raiders in what officials described as China’s biggest antiquities trafficking case since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.
The operation, which involved about 1,000 police from six provinces, recovered 1,168 artefacts worth more than 500 million yuan, the Public Security Ministry said. Among the most precious was a 5,000-year-old “jade pig dragon” illegally excavated from a site in northeastern Liaoning province.
Investigators found a well-oiled network, with different tasks from site excavation to contacting traders on the black market divided between 10 teams.
“They are extremely well-organised,” Ni says. “They have a clear division of labour, and close ties with middlemen linking a stolen object to the underground market.”
To hide its origins, an illegally excavated artefact will usually change hands at least three times – going from looters at a remote rural site through a network of dealers to a regional antique hub before reaching a port to be shipped overseas, several antique dealers told the Post.
It is often the case that the first pot of gold earned from a stolen relic is enough to start an antiques business
NI FANGLIU, ARCHAEOLOGIST
Negotiations can take place in dozens of online chat groups. A trader from Zhejiang surnamed Yang invited bids for “a newly dug out bronze mirror of East Han dynasty”, with pictures of the object. “It is 100 per cent authentic,” he said. “My source is very reliable.”
Once the smuggled artefact reaches an international trading centre like Hong Kong, dealers declare it as a Chinese artefact secured overseas that can then be legally traded in the mainland.
To bypass customs barriers, smugglers may also classify a precious antique vase as a reproduction that normally sells for a few hundred yuan.
Research by Alice Lovell Rossiter, a masters student at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, found that a huge number of antiques exported from China were valued at less than half the worth they were assigned on arrival in the United States.
“Objects over 100 years of age are misclassified in order to avoid scrutiny by Chinese export officials, then reclassified properly when brought to the United States,” Rossiter wrote in her thesis published last year.
Examining records from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database from 2000 to 2012, Rossiter found a discrepancy of US$1.4 billion between the declared values, suggesting that plenty of Chinese artefacts were being shipped abroad in contravention of mainland law.
“The rampancy is boosted by huge demand,” says Lei of Peking University. “Many collectors are filling up their private museums with artefacts obtained from shady sources.”
But as ancient burial sites in Henan and Shaanxi, the historical “cradles” of civilisation in central China, are emptied out, professional looters have turned their attention farther afield.
Over the past decade, the tomb raiders have fanned out to Xinjiang in the northwest and Guangdong in the southeast, police websites showed.
“It seems [looters] are now pinning their hopes on graves damaged during the Cultural Revolution,” Ni says. “The Red Guards destroyed tomb structures above ground but usually left the chambers untouched.”
Meanwhile, popular novels portraying tomb raiders as brave, intelligent figures such as Lara Croft lead the “young and curious” into the nefarious trade, without feeling guilty about wiping out China’s cultural heritage, Lei says: “It makes us archaeologists very worried.”
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Dance at Dunhuang: Part One and Two

December 14, 2015, 10:54 am
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Dance at Dunhuang: Part One

By Joseph Houseal
Buddhistdoor Global | 13 November 2015 
The Mogao Caves, on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert. Photo by Neville Agnew. Image courtesy of UNESCO World HeritageThe Mogao Caves, on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert. Photo by Neville Agnew. Image courtesy of UNESCO World Heritage
Over the course of several days in 2009, I had the great fortune to visit the Buddhist cave temples surrounding the oasis town of Dunhuang in northwest China with Robert Y. C. Ho and a small group of conservators. Dunhuang was a caravansary along the ancient Silk Roads, via which Buddhism was disseminated, and the 492 painted and sculpted Buddhist caves of Mogao are masterpieces of their own variously and highly stylized painting traditions.
Although Buddhism does not enjoy a reputation for being a dancing religion, it does in fact boast many dance forms, and Buddhism’s relationship with dance is ebullient in the murals of the Mogao Caves. These dance depictions were created from the 4th until the 14th century, a process outlasting a thousand years of political upheavals in both China and Central Asia. 
Map of the Silk Roads meeting at Dunhuang. By Xuan Jiao. Creative commons licenseMap of the Silk Roads meeting at Dunhuang. By Xuan Jiao. Creative commons license
Before our trip to Dunhuang, Wang Xudong, the associate director of the Dunhuang Academy, asked each of us in the small party which of the 492 caves we wished to see. I immediately contacted Mme Wang Kefen, the foremost authority on the dance imagery in the Dunhuang caves, where she had conducted research for many years, and she gave me a list of relevant caves. As nobody else submitted a list, in addition to seeing many important caves that are significant in their own right, we received a comprehensive review of the dance imagery at Dunhuang. No Western dance scholar has studied the dance imagery of the Mogao Caves in as much depth as I was allowed to do, for which I am grateful to Robert Ho, Wang Xudong, and Wang Kefen.
photo b0b5e242-36cd-423e-a3f1-f6c283db9b7c_zpsfbou4an9.jpg
Chinese dance historian Wang Kefen with Joseph Houseal. Photo by
Wang Yuxing, 2010. From Core of Culture
Now aged 90, Wang Kefen is the author of four books on dance at Dunhuang and a fellow of the Dunhuang Academy. She is also the author of respected and much-translated histories of Chinese dance. She began studying art history in 1956, and through that study and her own determination, established the field of dance history in modern China. The year after the study trip, I had the good fortune to be able to meet with her in person, in Beijing.
Communication with Mme Wang was in part intuitive, as it is with dancers, based on gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, and visual aids. Not only is Mme Wang an encyclopedia in herself, a “library on fire” as the Indonesians say, but she had an actual library of dance imagery in Chinese fine art laid out for me. Both of us being dancers, neither hesitated to demonstrate an arm or body movement. What follows is an edited version of our conversation.
Wang Kefen: Dance is an art of morphology—it defies the written word—hence artistic depictions become valuable. Dance activities have been present in every aspect of existence since primitive times, but it is only in China that the history of dance has been continuously recorded, both in words and in images. One of the challenges of translating my books is that they are full of ancient quotations, difficult even for Chinese to understand. The dance paintings at Dunhuang reveal a fixed pattern in terms of aesthetics, although they differ in costume, style, and gesture. There is inevitably at least one [painted] Buddha image in every cave, usually placed in [the midst of] a scene with adoring crowds, and a stage that is based on an emperor’s stage. I have seen this type of stage in Japan—it might have been used for Bugaku dance.*
photo 47a5ea4d-9e78-4564-8af6-cd800a2a7856_zpsm8g5meba.jpg
Court scene (detail of dancing musician and stage), Mogao Cave 112,
Dunhuang. Tang dynasty (618–907). Image courtesy of Wang Kefen.
From Core of Culture
photo aaa40cf0-6f02-4b4c-aa0c-7737f4dcee79_zpsa93yjxgz.jpg
Bugaku stage at Istukushima Shrine, Miyajima, Japan. Copyright
Hatsukaichi City Department of Environment and Industries. From
Core of Culture
Joseph Houseal: I have seen inside the Forbidden City, the World Monument Fund’s restoration of the Qianlong emperor’s [r. 1735–96] private stage for an audience of One. That two-part stage was nearly identical to the depictions in the caves, and indeed to any number of Japanese Buddhist temple stages, which designs are Chinese in origin. In fact, the same Japanese ruler, Shotoku Taishi, in the 7th century was responsible for importing Buddhism, Bugaku, and architectural styles into Japan from China. 
The Qianlong emperor’s private stage, Forbidden City, Beijing. 1771–77. Image courtesy of World Monuments Fund and Palace Museum. 2008. From Core of CultureThe Qianlong emperor’s private stage, Forbidden City, Beijing. 1771–77. Image courtesy of World Monuments Fund and Palace Museum. 2008. From Core of Culture
WK: There is a recurring image of the Western Paradise at Dunhuang in which an elevated Buddha is attended by holy courtiers, entertainers, musicians, and dancers, painted lower down. Right at the top, “sky spirits” called feitian fly, doubtless in imitation of old dance forms. These dancing images are found not only at Dunhuang, they are all over China in many cave sites. I have traveled and studied the Indian Buddhist cave sites at Ellora and Ajanta—no flying feitian! The movement of these airborne devas and their invention originate in Central China.
<i>Feitian</i>, flying spirits of the air, Mogao Cave 286, Dunhuang. Western Wei dynasty (534–57). Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Foundation. From Core of CultureFeitian, flying spirits of the air, Mogao Cave 286, Dunhuang. Western Wei dynasty (534–57). Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Foundation. From Core of Culture
JH: Could the feitian in general possibly be related to archaic Daoism and the traditions of the Daoyin tu** energetic gymnastics? Those exercises were certainly practiced in court by the time of the Northern Wei dynasty [386–535], when there were already feitian at Dunhuang. There were Chinese Buddhist aristocrats in the 3rd century who were well versed in the Daoist physical arts, and Daoist visualization methods attained a refined articulation with the Shangqing school of Daoism in the 4th century, emphasizing a visualized microcosm and an inhabited mystical heaven with visualized characters moving about within it. Some of the feitian movements are strikingly similar to Daoyin tu gymnastics. 
<i>Daoyin tu</i> diagram of energetic exercises. Excavated in 1972 from Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan Province. Western Han dynasty, c. 168 BCE. Creative commons licenseDaoyin tu diagram of energetic exercises. Excavated in 1972 from Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan Province. Western Han dynasty, c. 168 BCE. Creative commons license
WK: Interesting idea. No one really knows the precise origin of the feitian movements. For many decades now, the idea in China has been that “folk dances” represent the ordinary people, and so they should be done “only by the best” and have been adapted into a professionally trained culture of “folk dances” for the stage, with dancers trained at dance academies. This is what the Chinese people know as folk dance. But attitudes toward the minority nationalities in China are really changing, and nowadays the emphasis is on giving the dance back to the people and bringing forward real village level transmission of old dances.
JH: Do you think there is a connection between China’s minority nationalities and the dances depicted at Dunhuang?
WK: Everything you see in the Dunhuang caves has been shown to be based on real life examples. All the instruments have been carefully reconstructed and shown to be real. I believe the dances are real, too.
JH: There seems to be at least two, maybe three, basic categories of dance depictions: the early Wei dynasty depictions, the Tang dynasty [618–907] heavenly court scenes, and scenes that look like village people dancing. Was there some kind of actual aristocratic dance assimilated from folk dance and other practices? That, after all, is how classical ballet came about in the West. 
photo d4309138-887f-449d-ad8e-d359c066f691_zpslbowkexq.jpg
Court scene (detail of Central Asian dancer), Cave 25, Yulin, showing
standardized style of painting dance. Tang dynasty, 781–847. Image
courtesy of the Dunhuang Academy. From Core of Culture
WK: It’s complicated. The Chinese have been performing collections of dances since the ancient Shao dance written about by Confucius, so assimilation of different dances generally is an issue and one that is based, primarily, on people’s taste and desire to see new dances. The celestial dances at Dunhuang are both Buddhist and aristocratic assimilations. Did you see one scene where a nomadic dancer spins on a small circular carpet off to the side and below the Buddha? And another, “the brown family,” where a family is dancing? There is no audience, so that is a real life dance. Folk dance doesn’t have an audience, it just has “folk.” The audience is key. From ancient times, the emperor had his own dancers—lots of them. Aristocrats had their own dancers—lots of them. Even well-off poets and gentlemen had their own dancers. The dancers were mostly, but rarely entirely, of the same ethnicity as their owner. 
“The Brown Family,” dancers and musicians, Mogao Cave 297, Dunhuang. Northern Zhou dynasty (557–80). Image courtesy of Wang Kefen. After <i>The Complete Collection of Dunhuang Grottoes</i>, Vol. 17, <i>Paintings of Dance</i>, The Commercial Press, Hong Kong, 2001, p. 59“The Brown Family,” dancers and musicians, Mogao Cave 297, Dunhuang. Northern Zhou dynasty (557–80). Image courtesy of Wang Kefen. After The Complete Collection of Dunhuang Grottoes, Vol. 17, Paintings of Dance, The Commercial Press, Hong Kong, 2001, p. 59
Line drawing of “The Brown Family,” Mogao Cave 297, Dunhuang. Northern Zhou dynasty (557–80). Image courtesy of Wang Kefen. From Core of CultureLine drawing of “The Brown Family,” Mogao Cave 297, Dunhuang. Northern Zhou dynasty (557–80). Image courtesy of Wang Kefen. From Core of Culture
JH: Owner?
WK: The Wei and Tang were slave societies, and the dancers were slaves. They did the dances their owners wanted, whatever their origin. In some of the Tang paintings you will see an audience, a courtly one and a celestial one. The courtly audience looks down, just as in a court. Each patron likely used their own dancers as models, part of the overall flavor of an individual cave. It was not until the 9th century that the stage was elevated and the courtly audience looked up. 
Mural, Cave 25, Yulin, showing standardized placement of Buddha, courts, stages, and artists. Tang dynasty, 781–847. Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Academy. From Core of CultureMural, Cave 25, Yulin, showing standardized placement of Buddha, courts, stages, and artists. Tang dynasty, 781–847. Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Academy. From Core of Culture
JH: So why do the Tang celestial court dancers look so much more standardized than the Wei dynasty images, which also coincides with slave society?
WK: The Wei dynasty images are not slaves; they are real Silk Road dancers. The Wei painters introduced the architectural placement of dancers with flying feitian at the top, in heaven; praising, deified dancers in the middle, on earth; and people at the bottom, in “low-earth.” I say “deified” in the sense that the entire scene is deified [by the presence of the Buddha]; gestures themselves become deified. These early paintings reveal a mutual influence. Central Asian depictions of Chinese feitianappear, and newly refined Chinese-inspired depictions of nomadic dancers. These express the first shock meeting of Chinese and Silk Road dance influences. The nomads, including the Mongolians, did not have a stable court life or culture. It is fair to say that a new Buddhist style was created when the nomadic dancers gave inner expression and a kind of realism, while the Chinese dancers gave refinement.  
photo 12bc4290-5ee7-497c-a56f-f2cafc94936c_zpsedkb2jqs.jpg
Silk Road dancer, Mogao Cave 435,
Dunhuang. Northern Wei dynasty, 485–534.
Freedom of movement is matched by
freedom of expression in one of many
choreographically intriguing dance images
from the Wei dynasties. Image courtesy of
Wang Kefen. After The Complete Collection
of Dunhuang Grottoes, Vol. 17, Paintings of
Dance, The Commercial Press, Hong Kong,
2001, p. 27
*Repertoire of dances of the Japanese imperial court, derived from traditional dance forms imported from China
** Daoyin tu literally means “Diagram of Guiding and Pulling”; daoyin is a traditional type of Chinese breathing and energetic exercises, with the earliest forms being codified during the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE–9 CE). The Daoyin tu was discovered among the burial objects at Mawangdui, near Changsha in Hunan Province, and dates to around 168 BCE.

Dance at Dunhuang: Part Two – The Case for the Feitian

By Joseph Houseal
Buddhistdoor Global | 2015-12-11 

From: Buddhist Door Global by Joseph Houseal       11 December 2015

<i>Feitian</i> (“sky spirits”) on a ceiling wall along with mythological creatures and archaic deities, Mogao Cave 285, Dunhuang. Western Wei dynasty (535–57), mural painting. Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Academy. From Core of CultureFeitian (“sky spirits”) on a ceiling wall along with mythological creatures and archaic deities, Mogao Cave 285, Dunhuang. Western Wei dynasty (535–57), mural painting. Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Academy. From Core of Culture
More dance styles are depicted in the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes than at any other archaeological site on earth. Dance imagery animates nearly every cave. The wall paintings—a veritable encyclopedia of movement traditions spanning eight centuries—convey a native Chinese genius for dance that absorbed influences and choreography from bordering Central Asian cultures as well as from cultures far away. The Great Wall of China kept people out; Dunhuang let people in. This stream of growing cosmopolitanism matched the spread of Buddhism. 
Siddhartha crossing over the palace wall at night, with <i>feitian</i>, mythological creatures, and archaic deities, Mogao Cave 329, Dunhuang. Early Tang dynasty (618–704), mural painting. Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Academy. From Core of CultureSiddhartha crossing over the palace wall at night, with feitian, mythological creatures, and archaic deities, Mogao Cave 329, Dunhuang. Early Tang dynasty (618–704), mural painting. Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Academy. From Core of Culture
Dance has its own history and evolution within the growth of Buddhism, and the cave paintings at the Mogao Grottoes provide more details to complement what any official dance history could provide. Like martial arts and meditation, dance is a transmitted art, person to person, and has its own way of remembering. Music, dance, meditation, martial arts, and ritual etiquette are all intended in the classical Chinese sense of a movement tradition. The great records of ancient Chinese dance are called “Books of Music.” Many depicted dancers in caves surrounding Dunhuang are playing instruments.
<i>Feitian</i> playing a flute, Mogao Cave 249, Dunhuang. Western Wei dynasty (535–57), mural painting. Image courtesy of Wang Kefen. After <i>The Complete Collection of Dunhuang Grottoes</i>, Vol. 17, <i>Paintings of Dance</i>, The Commercial Press, Hong Kong, 2001, p. 15Feitian playing a flute, Mogao Cave 249, Dunhuang. Western Wei dynasty (535–57), mural painting. Image courtesy of Wang Kefen. After The Complete Collection of Dunhuang Grottoes, Vol. 17, Paintings of Dance, The Commercial Press, Hong Kong, 2001, p. 15
It helps to forgo some of our habitual understandings of what dance is, and does, in order to see how it functions in Buddhism, for that itself absorbed and involved a range of very different ideas. The Dunhuang grottoes are a Rosetta Stone of ancient dances, dance being the oldest language, the pre-language. Since most Central Asian cultures had no written language until the 7th century, Dunhuang’s depictions of performing arts from distant areas are invaluable for cultural understanding. The painted murals portray real clothes, weapons, and instruments, and the dances, too, are taken from life. It has been suggested that the dancer paintings were modeled on the patrons’ own dancers. Many actual historical incidents are recorded in the murals and also many religious stories such as the Jataka Tales, the Life of the Buddha, and those told in the Buddhist sutras.
Story of the 500 bandits who converted to Buddhism, Mogao Cave 285, Dunhuang, with large <i>feitian</i> and archaic deities at the top, monks meditating in caves in the mountains, smaller <i>feitian</i> flying above the spiritual event, and the story itself at the bottom. Western Wei dynasty (535–57), mural painting. Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Academy. From Core of CultureStory of the 500 bandits who converted to Buddhism, Mogao Cave 285, Dunhuang, with large feitian and archaic deities at the top, monks meditating in caves in the mountains, smaller feitian flying above the spiritual event, and the story itself at the bottom. Western Wei dynasty (535–57), mural painting. Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Academy. From Core of Culture
The spread of Buddhism along the Silk Road into China, from the days Dunhuang became a Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) garrison town after Emperor Wu’s (r. 141–87 BCE) expedition to the western regions in 118 BCE, to its flowering as a center of the refined, exotic culture of the Tang dynasty (618–907) centuries later, has left the world a touchstone of one of the most diverse cultural exchanges in world history; a period when Buddhism and cosmopolitanism grew together. Depictions of dance in the caves around Dunhuang are an unbroken, if overlooked, chronicle of this.
The Tang capital, Chang’an, was the largest, most cosmopolitan city in the world at the time. It was peopled by traders, entertainers, and religious practitioners, both lay and ordained, from places as far-flung as Syria, Oman, Iran, Japan, Korea, Sogdiana, Khotan, Tibet, Turkestan, Champa, India, and yet more. Religions coexisted and inspired one another. There were Muslims, Jews, Manicheans, Zoroastrians, and Nestorian Christians. Daoism, the indigenous religion of China, was always practiced and respected. 
Ceiling showing the archaic deity servant of the King of the East, Mogao Cave 249, Dunhuang. Western Wei dynasty (535–57), mural painting. Image courtesy of Wang Kefen. After <i>The Complete Collection of Dunhuang Grottoes</i>, Vol. 17, <i>Paintings of Dance</i>, The Commercial Press, Hong Kong, 2001, p. 16Ceiling showing the archaic deity servant of the King of the East, Mogao Cave 249, Dunhuang. Western Wei dynasty (535–57), mural painting. Image courtesy of Wang Kefen. After The Complete Collection of Dunhuang Grottoes, Vol. 17, Paintings of Dance, The Commercial Press, Hong Kong, 2001, p. 16
There were as well many Buddhist monasteries of all schools, some of which were great centers of scholarship; some were Theravada Buddhist, whose puritanical practices rejected dance as suitable activity for monks, while in others the monks themselves danced with perfect canonical propriety. Because Theravada Buddhist monks did not dance, it was left to lay people and developed as an offering akin to incense and flowers, and so the sky was the limit as to how exotic these dances could be. To this day, Buddhist Kandyan dancers from Sri Lanka do back flips in the air as part of their rhythmic approach to the altar. The dances depicted in the Dunhuang caves reflect the various forms of Buddhism. 
Pyramidal ceiling, Mogao Cave 329, Dunhuang. From the outside edges of “thousand buddhas” pattern moving inward and upward: <i>feitian</i> flying, holding offerings, and playing instruments; Central Asian motif pattern; <i>feitian</i> enciricling a mandala of highest heaven. Early Tang dynasty (618–704), mural painting. After Fan Jinshi and Zhao Shenglian, <i>The Art of the Mogao Grottoes</i>, Homa and Sekey Books, Princeton, NJ, 2004, p. 157Pyramidal ceiling, Mogao Cave 329, Dunhuang. From the outside edges of “thousand buddhas” pattern moving inward and upward: feitian flying, holding offerings, and playing instruments; Central Asian motif pattern; feitianenciricling a mandala of highest heaven. Early Tang dynasty (618–704), mural painting. After Fan Jinshi and Zhao Shenglian, The Art of the Mogao Grottoes, Homa and Sekey Books, Princeton, NJ, 2004, p. 157
The making of the caves and the styles of the early art depicted in them came from the Silk Road, originating in the Kushan Empire wherein Greco-Roman influence met Persian, Afghan, and Central Asian motifs. This included oasis kingdoms like Khotan, Turfan, and other cities where Buddhist monuments and painted caves existed. This was a meeting of styles and customs, where the Silk Road and Chinese cultures came together to produce the syncretic style unique to the caves around Dunhuang.
Lintel of a sculptural niche on the south face of square central pillar, Mogao Cave 7, Dunhuang, showing Buddha flanked by two kings, with <i>feitian</i> flying, holding offerings, and playing music. Tang dynasty, 628, mural painting. Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Research Academy. From Core of CultureLintel of a sculptural niche on the south face of square central pillar, Mogao Cave 7, Dunhuang, showing Buddha flanked by two kings, with feitian flying, holding offerings, and playing music. Tang dynasty, 628, mural painting. Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Research Academy. From Core of Culture
One compelling, and often seemingly otherworldly, being that is depicted in the Buddhist murals throughout the 800 years is the feitian (in Chinese), or “sky spirit.” The feitian does not seem to come from the western regions, but makes its appearance at Dunhuang early on. The world expert in Dunhuang dance depictions, Mme Wang Kefen, has determined that feitian are Chinese in origin and are not apsara (Sanskrit), as feitian is usually translated into English. In fact, the Dunhuang Academy has adopted the use of apsara, and so here I humbly make a case for the feitian being its own being and representative of a spiritual dimension between levels of existence. The feitian may in fact be a symbol of Buddhism’s ability to absorb the ancient religions it encountered rather than annihilating them. I agree with Mme Wang and add my thoughts here. Apsara is in general use as a catch-all term. 
photo e975fef6-dd59-4059-a8ae-5da033c5133f_zpsibgo3mw7.jpg
Apsara taking flight, Borobudur Temple, Java, Indonesia. 9th
century, stone. Creative commons license
It may be the case that the feitian slowly evolved into more apsara-like beings by the time of the Tang dynasty. Apsara are beautiful flying women, known to seduce; they are associated with watery things: ocean, rain, clouds. Apsara derive from Hinduism and Theravada Buddhist cultures. These were cultures, such as in Cambodia, Burma, Ceylon, and Siam, where kings kept large groups of dancing girls—one king was reputed to have had 30,000. As Buddhism came to be the adopted religion of these places, it was easy enough for the court dancing girls to wear small wings and instantly become heavenly maidens, retaining all their sex appeal and coy ways. This could not be farther from the expression of dance performed by ordained monk-dancers. Apsara are derived from these dancing girls.
Feitian, by contrast, are of both sexes, and are not as interested in this world as being a bridge to another one. Their aesthetic evolution over many centuries is a study in freedom, beauty, and power. This topic allows me to share a number of amazing images of feitian from the Mogao Caves. Their origin is murky Chinese ancient belief, and their movements are related to ancient forms of mythology, dance, exercise, and breath control. We can see, in a Han dynasty casket of a nobleman unearthed at Mawangdui in 1972, swirling patterns and gravity-defying deities cavorting within them, dancing, fighting, running. These Han figures are strikingly similar to feitian. Feitian come from archaic Chinese movement traditions.
Nobleman’s casket, showing archaic Daoist deities cavorting in a primordial swirling pattern. Excavated in 1972 from Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan Province. Western Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE). After Fu Juyou, Cheng Songchang (Zhou Shiyi, Chen Kefeng, trans.), <i>The Cultural Relics Unearthed from the Han Tombs at Mawangdui</i>, Hunan Publishing House, Changsha, Hunan Province, 1980, p. 6Nobleman’s casket, showing archaic Daoist deities cavorting in a primordial swirling pattern. Excavated in 1972 from Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan Province. Western Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE). After Fu Juyou, Cheng Songchang (Zhou Shiyi, Chen Kefeng, trans.), The Cultural Relics Unearthed from the Han Tombs at Mawangdui, Hunan Publishing House, Changsha, Hunan Province, 1980, p. 6
Detail of casket from Mawangdui showing archaic Daoist deities and mythological creatures dancing, playing music, fighting, and frolicing. After Fu Juyou, Cheng Songchang (Zhou Shiyi, Chen Kefeng, trans.), <i>The Cultural Relics Unearthed from the Han Tombs at Mawangdui</i>, Hunan Publishing House, Changsha, Hunan Province, 1980, p. 10Detail of casket from Mawangdui showing archaic Daoist deities and mythological creatures dancing, playing music, fighting, and frolicing. After Fu Juyou, Cheng Songchang (Zhou Shiyi, Chen Kefeng, trans.), The Cultural Relics Unearthed from the Han Tombs at Mawangdui, Hunan Publishing House, Changsha, Hunan Province, 1980, p. 10
Feitian serve many functions, for all their mystery. They are the nameless “Greek chorus” to nearly every event. Their ability to move their bodies in acrobatic ways allows them to be ideal for design development: they can be made to fit in any space. Being always seen with billowing silk, Chinese dance historians look to feitian for evidence of the development of their ancient silk scarf dance. The Chinese invented the production of silk.
In Dunhuang art, feitian inhabit their own level of reality, making a distinct division between other areas of the mural: they are at the top, in the air, in images where hierarchies of divine beings are presented surrounding a central Buddha. They are not the bodhisattvas attending the Buddha, nor are they the humans often seen at the bottom, on the earth. Feitian symbolize the most rarefied level of being. They are often seen painted among archaic Daoist deities, such as the similar-looking gods of thunder and lightning. They come in different sizes even in the same mural. Some feitian appear as archaic deities themselves. 
photo image021_zps2ebmjsdu.jpg
Pyramidal ceiling wall showing archaic god of
thunder and mythological beast, Mogao Cave
249, Dunhuang. Western Wei dynasty (535–57),
mural painting. Image courtesy of Wang Kefen.
From Core of Culture
Nothing dances or moves like a feitian. They can do anything. At times their aerial behavior is reminiscent of Giotto’s expressive angels. At other times they seem indifferent, symbols of a level of being untouched by human emotions and worldly powers like gravity, silent reminders that there is a larger reality at play. 
<i>The Mourning of Christ</i>, detail from <i>Scenes from the Life of Christ</i> by Giotto (1266/7–1337), Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy, showing angels lamenting in the sky. 1304–6, fresco painting. From www.wga.huThe Mourning of Christ, detail from Scenes from the Life of Christ by Giotto (1266/7–1337), Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy, showing angels lamenting in the sky. 1304–6, fresco painting. From www.wga.hu
Most significant, though, is where the feitian are placed architecturally. They serve as quantum dividers: a border between historical events and sublime higher realities. Or again, they appear as the personification of the highest reality, swirling above the central Buddha in an ascending pyramidal ceiling, distinct from the behavior and understanding of the humans below. 
Buddha and bodhisattvas in front of a “thousand Buddhas” patterned mural, above which is a pyramidal ceiling with flying <i>feitian</i> and patterned design, inside which are more <i>feitian</i> dancing around a central mandala, Mogao Cave 305, Dunhuang. Sui dynasty (581–618). Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Research Academy. From Core of CultureBuddha and bodhisattvas in front of a “thousand Buddhas” patterned mural, above which is a pyramidal ceiling with flying feitian and patterned design, inside which are more feitian dancing around a central mandala, Mogao Cave 305, Dunhuang. Sui dynasty (581–618). Image courtesy of the Dunhuang Research Academy. From Core of Culture
The cave murals depict activities occurring within them, such as monks meditating in hewn-out cubicles. The first small caves at Mogao were for monks in meditation. Later, assembly caves were made, enabling rituals and teaching and circumambulation to take place. Walls covered with the “thousand buddhas” design are thought by some to be visual representations of the repeated chanting of sutras and mantras.
A teacher could tell a story by referring to a mural. A monk could lead a sutra recitation by following the patterns on the wall. In Buddhist caves, among historical stories, religious stories, human devotional practices, and abodes of the Buddha, this is where the divine acrobats, the sky dancing warriors, the heavenly musicians, the feitian, are found, where they soar in their own distinct dimension.
Buddha and bodhisattvas, with <i>feitian</i> flying in the sky above, set within “thousand Buddhas” design, Mogao Cave 249, Dunhuang. Western Wei dynasty (535–57), mural painting. Photo by Clarkson Lee. Used with permissionBuddha and bodhisattvas, with feitian flying in the sky above, set within “thousand Buddhas” design, Mogao Cave 249, Dunhuang. Western Wei dynasty (535–57), mural painting. Photo by Clarkson Lee. Used with permission
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New Evidence on Cultural Exchange between the Roman and Indic Worlds

December 15, 2015, 7:50 am
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From the site of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

Osmund Bopearachchi, Director of Research, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, delivers the Annual Lecture on South and Southeast Asian Art.

His lecture, "New Evidence on Cultural Exchange between the Roman and Indic Worlds: The Discovery of the Second-Century BCE shipwreck at Godavaya, Sri Lanka," focuses on a recently found shipwreck that has revolutionized the current understanding of maritime trade history and the circulation of luxury goods in South Asia, particularly between India and Sri Lanka.

Christopher Lightfoot, Curator, Department of Greek and Roman Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, delivers a response to the lecture.

Recorded March 15, 2013
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Archaeologists unearth 1,000-year-old sphinx statue in ancient Chinese tomb

December 16, 2015, 12:56 pm
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- Relic was discovered in Ningxia, north China, along the ancient Silk Road
  • - This popular route was used for trading between the East and the West
  • - Sphinx had features considered rare for Chinese tombs during that period

Excavators in Ningxia, northwest China, have unearthed what they believe to be a Chinese sphinx in a tomb that dates back to the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD).
The burial chamber is located along the ancient Silk Road, thought to be established during the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD). It's a network of routes that run through a large portion of Asia, connecting western and eastern cultures for trading.
A total 29 tombs have been excavated in the area so far this year to make way for a local water plant, reports The People's Daily Online.
This tiny delicate statue of a Chinese sphinx was discovered in China by Archaeologists in Ningxia
This tiny delicate statue of a Chinese sphinx was discovered in China by Archaeologists in Ningxia
Historians believe the original half-human, half-lion sphinx was built by the Egyptians around 5,000 years ago
Historians believe the original half-human, half-lion sphinx was built by the Egyptians around 5,000 years ago
The tomb with the Sphinx reportedly belonged to Chinese scholar Liu Jun and his wife. 
More than 150 funeral items were found in the different burial chambers along with the sphinx, including pottery and other items made out of bronze, iron and jade stone.
There were also nine carvings found made of white marble, which is hard to find in this part of China, suggesting the statues had come from elsewhere. 
Speaking to reporters, Fan Jun, head of the excavation team working on the project said: 
'The style of the carvings had features from the west and are considered rare for ancient Chinese tombs during that period, the white marble material was also rarely seen in north China.' 
A rare well-preserved marble sphinx carving has been unearthed dating back more than 1,000 years
A rare well-preserved marble sphinx carving has been unearthed dating back more than 1,000 years
The well-preserved marble sphinx which is delicately carved is 14 inches tall with a base that's eight inches long and five inches wide.
According to the report, Historians believe the original half-human, half-lion sphinx was built by the Egyptians around 5,000 years ago.
The rare Chinese Sphinx that's more than 1,000-years-old was excavated in November but widely reported in Chinese media today because of its rarity and size.
Scientists hope to get a better understanding of how objects were transported along the Silk Road from the recent excavations in Ningxia. 
The sphinx was excavated from a tomb in Ningxia, north China, along the route of the ancient Silk Road
The sphinx was excavated from a tomb in Ningxia, north China, along the route of the ancient Silk Road

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Exhibitions incl Silk Road in Berlin Dahlem Museum will close on 11th Jan 2016 due to move to Humboldt Forum

December 18, 2015, 7:07 am
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Abschied auf Raten: Die Sammlungen von zwei der drei Staatlichen Museen in Dahlem müssen bis 2018 im Humboldt-Forum sein. Im Januar beginnt der große Umzug. 

Blick auf die drei Museen in Dahlem.Bild vergrößern
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Blick auf die drei Museen in Dahlem. - FOTO: SMB / ACHIM KLEUKER

Die Boote sind das Schwierigste. An Ort und Stelle in Dahlem müssen sie zerlegt, gelagert, untersucht und restauriert werden, eine langwierige und komplizierte Prozedur. 2018 müssen sie im Humboldt-Forum sein, dann können dort die Mauern geschlossen werden. Die Seefahrerei passt durch keine Tür, kein Tor.
Und so schließt die Südsee im Ethnologischen Museum am Abend des 10. Januar 2016. Dahlem als Ort der Weltschau und globalen Erfahrung nimmt Abschied auf Raten. Die Zukunft liegt in Mitte, im Neubau des Stadtschlosses. Dessen Innenleben wird als Humboldt- Forum zum außereuropäischen Gegenstück der Museumsinsel. Geplante Eröffnung: September 2019.

Für die chinesische Kizil-Höhle müssen Wände aufgebrochen werden

Das sind im Maßstab eines Großmuseums, das nach Jahrzehnten umgesiedelt und neu organisiert wird, sehr kurze Zeitspannen. Und wenn die Traumschiffe von den pazifischen Inseln Umzugsprobleme schaffen, dann gilt das ebenso für die chinesische Kizil-Höhle mit ihren reichlich tausend Jahre alten Wandmalereien im Museum für Asiatische Kunst. Um das mächtige Objekt auf den Weg ins Humboldt-Forum zu bringen, werden in Dahlem Innen- und Außenwände aufgebrochen. Auch hier ist der 10. Januar der Stichtag. Im Museum für Asiatische Kunst wird an diesem Tag das Erdgeschoss geschlossen, also auch die indische Abteilung. Michael Eissenhauer, der Generaldirektor der Staatlichen Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, drückt es so aus: „Die Umzugsvorbereitungen laufen schon längst. Aber jetzt wird es für das Publikum sichtbar.“
Auch in der Mesoamerika-Halle: Der vordere Teil mit den hohen Stelen aus Guatemala bleibt 2016 noch offen für Besucher, im hinteren Drittel beginnen auch für diesen Teil der Welt, der Alexander von Humboldt besonders am Herzen lag, die Reisevorbereitungen. Sichten, sortieren, reinigen, packen. Insgesamt 17 500 Stücke in Dahlem. Ein jedes wird von den Kuratoren, Restauratoren und Depotverwaltern in die Hand genommen. Und später im Humboldt-Forum wieder ausgepackt und vorbereitet für die neue Präsentation. Dafür wird viel Geld gebraucht, etliche Arbeitsplätze für Spezialisten werden geschaffen. Man rechnet in den kommenden vier Jahren mit 32 Millionen Euro umzugsbedingte Kosten.
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Humboldt - Forum in Berlin: This castle gets a real divine dome

December 19, 2015, 7:17 am
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Berliner Kurier, 9 August 2015 von Gerhard Lehrke

Berlin -Über Ihnen dreht sich sacht der wolkenlose Sternenhimmel der Wüste. Es ist windstill, eine Pforte lockt Sie in eine Höhle. Männer mit Schwertern treten Ihnen im Dämmerlicht entgegen. Doch ein Buddha lächelt beruhigend. In welche Zeit und wohin hat es Sie verschlagen? Ins Jahr 2020, unter die Kuppel des Humboldt-Forums, in die Welt der „Seidenstraße“.
Der Raum unter der Kuppel des Schlosses - entworfen von den Ausstellungsmachern Ralph Appelbaum Associates / malsyteufel – wird einen der großen Berliner Museumsschätze beherbergen: Wandgemälde und Skulpturen aus Höhlen und Tempeln am Fuß des Himmelsgebirges, am Rand der höllischen Wüste Taklamakan. Sie wurden im ersten Jahrtausend nach Christus geschaffen, entlang eines Arms der „Seidenstraße“, die etwa zwischen dem ersten vorchristlichen Jahrhundert und bis ins 15. Jahrhundert ein viel benutzter Handelsweg zwischen China und dem Mittelmeerraum war.


Buddhistische Mönche lebten hier, brachten ihren Glauben nach China: Er war aus Indien über beschwerliche Handelsrouten über Pamir und Hindukusch nordwärts an die Seidenstraße gelangt, breitete sich anschließend ostwärts aus. Die Indologin Dr. Caren Dreyer vom Museum für Asiatische Kunst: „Die Seidenstraße war wie ein Band der Zivilisation, an dem Klöster und Mönche ein Auskommen fanden.“ Und Machthaber, die an Neuem aus dem Westen interessiert waren.


Diese örtlichen Fürsten bezahlten Künstler, die auf Lehmputz Buddhas, Fürsten, Krieger oder Dämonen malten, aus Sand und Erde Skulpturen formten. Daneben gibt es Werke der christlichen Ostkirche und Kunst einer untergegangenen Offenbarungs-Religion, dem Manichäismus. Besonders häufig wurden die Werke in Höhlen gefunden, die in Felsabhänge geschlagen wurden.


Um das zu erklären, muss man gut 100 Jahre zurückgehen: Nach Entdeckern des 19. Jahrhunderts machten sich Forscher aus verschiedenen Staaten auf den Weg nach „Ost-Turkistan“: Russen, Schweden, Japaner, Briten, Amerikaner. Im ersten Jahrzehnt des 20. Jahrhundert kamen die Deutschen: Zwischen 1902 und Anfang 1914 unternahmen die Berliner Wissenschaftler Albert Grünwedel und Albert von Le Coq vier Expeditionen – jeder leitete zwei.


Im heutigen Xinjiang, dem abgelegenen Nordwesten Chinas, machten sie sich mit russischer, britischer und chinesischer Unterstützung auf die Suche – bei den ersten drei Expeditionen geschützt durch chinesische Pässe, bewaffnet und unter abenteuerlichen Umständen. Sie heißen Turfan-Expeditionen, weil erstes Ziel die Oase Turfan war.


Mithilfe des aufs Land zurückgekehrten Kapitäns Theodor Bartus als Techniker und einheimischen Helfern erforschten sie Bauten und Höhlen am Rand der Taklamakan: Grünwedel zeichnete und notierte wie besessen. Er ließ Hunderte von großflächigen Fotos anfertigen, ließ Bartus Wandgemälde herausschneiden.
Bei dieser Arbeit wurde er von Le Coq noch übertroffen: Kisten über Kisten schickte der nach Deutschland. Daneben sammelten die Forscher uralte Manuskripte in vielen Schriften und Sprachen, die noch heute in Berlin erforscht und übersetzt werden. Botschaften von untergegangenen Völkern wie den Tocharern, verwirrend, weil indische, persische, sogar hebräische Schriften gefunden wurden, die aber nicht unbedingt die dazugehörige Sprache wiedergeben.
Es war Arbeit unter Gefahr. In Kyzil entging Le Coq bei der dritten Expedition knapp dem Tod: In einer Höhle fiel Putz herab, und dann „schwang sich plötzlich ein ungeheuerer Steinblock vollkommen aus der Wand heraus und stellte sich wuchtig unmittelbar vor die Spitze meines rechten Fußes.“
Aber Le Coq war hart im Nehmen: „Die Verpflegung war außerordentlich einfach, es gab Reis mit Hammelfett oder Hammelfett mit Reis.“ Bei irrer Hitze von 55 Grad ist eine Diät so wenig erfreulich wie die Kakerlaken, die er beim Aufwachen auf der Nase vorfand.
Sehr gütig fand sich Le Coq, weil er „nur einmal“ einen „Eingeborenen“ auspeitschte: Der Mann, sein Quartiergeber, hatte von Leuten Eintritt genommen, die bei den deutschen „Doktoren“ Hilfe suchten, weil sie sie für Ärzte hielten. Le Coq teilte dann tatsächlich Medizin aus. 
Die vierte Expedition war ein teilweiser Misserfolg: Die Chinesen, die sich zuvor nicht für die fremden Kulturen an der Seidenstraße interessiert hatten, wollten nach der Revolution 1911 nicht mehr, dass Kulturgüter ihr Land verlassen. Le Coq und Bartus, ohne Visum eingereist, wurden mit Schikanen und dann Druck zur Umkehr genötigt. 
Mit Genehmigung des Gouverneurs von Kaschgar kamen sie allerdings bis Kutscha „und nahmen von dort mit, was sie bekommen konnten“, sagt Caren Dreyer, „denn Le Coq fürchtete, dass diese wissenschaftlichen Schätze sonst dem Untergang geweiht seien.“ Die Zeiten waren unsicher, und Einwohner fürchteten sich oft vor den Ruinen und Kunstobjekten, was gegen ihre Erhaltung sprach.
Im Museum werden die Werke jetzt auf den Umzug ins Humboldt-Forum vorbereitet: Restauratoren setzen Wandbilder zusammen, füllen Risse mit Lehm, decken Farbe darüber. Gerade sind vier Männer aus der „Höhle der 16 Schwertträger“ dran, die im Humboldt-Forum nachgebaut wird. Chefrestaurator Toralf Gabsch: „Wenn man die Bilder aus einiger Distanz betrachtet, sollen sie eine Einheit bilden, aber die Restaurierung erkennen, wenn man herantritt.“
Für diese Technik interessiert sich auch China. Seit 2011, als ein Vertrag zwischen dem Museum und der Kucha Forschungsakademie geschlossen wurde, hat sich ein reger Austausch entwickelt. Die Berliner sehen diese Kooperation mit chinesischen Forschern als sehr wichtig an. Kuratorin Dr. Lilla Russell-Smith, im Museum für die Seidenstraßenfunde verantwortlich: „Diese Menschen haben aus Sand und Erde wunderbare Sachen gemacht.“ 
Wegen der Empfindlichkeit ist sie zwar besorgt vor dem Umzug nach Mitte – und dennoch euphorisch: „Es wird ein Ort der Begegnung mit den Kulturen Zentralasiens und ihren Menschen: Wir werden 50 Statuen-Köpfe verschiedener Völkerschaften präsentieren, die Grünwedel und Le Coq im Schutt fanden: Im Humboldt-Forum werden sie den Besuchern ins Auge sehen.“

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To understand the dynamics of the Golden Horde, we need to disregard national borders

December 19, 2015, 11:36 am
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Should historians serve the nation?

Posted on  by Mary Favereau in Geschiedenis

Should historians serve the nation?

If we want to understand the dynamics of the Golden Horde, we need to disregard national borders.

To disregard contemporary borders is the only way to understand the relations that integrated peoples in the past. Until today, the perception of peoples’ history remains complex when it calls into question too often assumed notions of border and nation.
It is essential to remember that borders were not always where we see them today. State frontiers are never inherently natural; they are the manifestations of politics. One of the major commitments of historians is to write the histories of fluid spaces of exchange which only recently have been cut into strictly bordered spaces.
One such history is that of the Golden Horde which succeeded the Mongolian empire founded by Genghis Khan. Originating in the thirteenth century, it lasted for three hundred years. It was multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural. As nomadic elites converted to Islam, the Horde became a major hub of the Islamic world. During this flourishing epoch, cities and villages burgeoned on the banks of the Volga, attracting wandering scholars and craftsmen from Anatolia, Central-Asia and Egypt.
“Horde” comes from the Mongol orda, a dual term signifying both the place and the people of the nomadic encampment. Yellow was the colour of imperial power, recalling the gold leaf that covered the throne of the ruler and his magnificent tent. The Horde encompassed the steppes where the nomads managed huge herds of cattle, camels and horses. It was also a very active commercial centre where the sedentary subjects and neighbours came to trade. The scope of the Horde’s influence went far beyond its frontiers. It is thus not by chance that the term permeated Russian, Arabic, Persian and all European languages from the time of Genghis Khan’s conquests.
On maps depicting the medieval era, the Golden Horde stretches from Lake Balkhash to the Black Sea, a region that nowadays has no political consistency as it is currently split between Russia (including Tatarstan and Crimea), Ukraine, Bulgaria, Moldavia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
None of these modern nation-states can singularly claim the Horde’s territorial legacy without overflowing into the territories of neighboring nations. This fact makes the Horde improbable to fit the history of the Golden Horde with national teleologies, and much less manageable for scholarly circles grounded by modern national borders. This explains why it has been ill-studied for so long or simply erased from school text books.
National historiographies are inclined to distort history, to create and disseminate self-serving clichés. The first task of historians is to debunk such tropes, and to avoid inaccurate terminology such as “the Tatar Yoke”, in order to encourage inquiries into more important questions: how to deal with the notion of a collective history when it crosses the borders of modern nations? What then is the legacy of such an entity as the Golden Horde?
The modern Tatars and other Muslim peoples now living in the Russian Federation consider the Golden Horde a key formative period in their history. Their narratives of origin go back to the time when the Horde’s rulers converted to Islam. Indeed, the islamization of the Eurasian steppes, Crimea and Eastern Europe is one of the Golden Horde’s most important legacies. It meant that diverse communities accepted rules, practices, and social rituals that allowed them to live together. It was a unifying force and a vehicle of social integration.
The Golden Horde is thus constituent of the collective past of the Ukrainians, Russians, Tatars, and others, when they were once under the administration of Genghis Khan’s descendants.
The Crimean Tatars are a case in point. During the Soviet Union, they had to fight to exist despite forced migrations and the interdiction of all forms of political expression. When they were allowed to go back to Crimea in 1989, after decades of exile and silence, the new generations discovered a land that was completely different. Cemeteries were emptied and mosques were erased, making it impossible for them to identify the places to which their families had once belonged. They knew their heritage only through the narratives of their parents.
The task of returning a past to those who have lost theirs rests upon the shoulders of archaeologists and historians, unearthing remains and delving through texts, to elucidate and disseminate knowledge of the cultural past of these areas in which various peoples lived. In doing so, religions are phenomena of great significance for historians as they typically transcend borders
The Golden Horde is only one example among others. The Xiongnu, the Khazars, the Mamluks, or the Comanche, deserve the same interest. Universities have a crucial role to play in expanding and furthering fields of research beyond nationalist agendas. They need to facilitate more international exchanges, especially during periods of diplomatic tensions, if only because historical research is a collective undertaking that crosses borders.

Marie Favereau is member of the research project: Nomadic Empires: A World-Historical Perspective (2014-19).


Marie Favereau

Marie Favereau, Research associate at the University of Oxford
Marie Favereau

Marie Favereau obtained her Ph.D. in History from the University of La Sorbonne-Paris IV and the Università degli Studi di San Marino. She was a member of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology (Cairo, 2005-2009) and a Fulbright visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, 2009-2010). In 2011-2014 she held a post-doctoral position at Leiden University. She is currently research associate at the University of Oxford and member of the major research project: Nomadic Empires: A World-Historical Perspective (2014-19).

Marie Favereau’s research investigates the connections between Europe, the Middle East and Asia from the 13th to the 16th centuries. She specializes in the history of the ‘Golden Horde’ – the western part of the Mongol Empire which stretched from the Ural Mountains to the Black Sea. Her last publications reflect her interest in alternative forms of historical writing and in social and political implications of historical discourses.

Selected Publications
  • La Horde d’Or. Les héritiers de Gengis Khan. Text: Marie Favereau/ Photos: Jacques Raymond. Editions de la Flandonnière. 2014, 240 p.
  • Gengis Khan. Collection: Ils ont fait l’Histoire. With Denis-Pierre Filippi and Manuel Garcia. Paris: Fayard-Glénat. 2014, 56 p.
  • “De la mise en scène diplomatique au rituel dynastique : retour sur la nature des liens entre la Pologne-Lituanie et le khanat de Crimée: à propos du livre de Dariusz Kolodziejczyk”, Turcica 44 (2013), 335-347.
  • “Pervoe pis’mo khana Berke sultanu Bejbarsu po mamljukskim istochnikam (661/ 1263g.)”, Zolotoordynskaya Civilizaciya 4 (2011), 101-113.
  • “Il Khanato dell’Orda d’oro” in Encyclomedia – Il Medioevo”, ed. Umberto Eco, Milano: Motta Editore, 2009, 337-347.
  • “1391 : première incursion ennemie au cœur de la Horde d’Or. Guerre et diplomatie chez les khans mongols" in Histoire du monde au XVe siècle, ed. Patrick Boucheron, Paris: Fayard, 2009, 285-290.
  • Les conventions diplomatiques dans le monde musulman. L’umma en partage (1258-1517). Annales islamologiques 41., ed. Marie Favereau, Cairo: Ifao, 2008.
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The T'ang Shipwreck - Singapore

December 20, 2015, 1:41 am
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From: "Waymarks", a blog written by Tim Chamberlain


The T'ang Shipwreck - Singapore



Sometime around 830-840 AD a merchant ship set sail, most likely from the Chinese port of Yangzhou, or perhaps from Guangzhou further south, following a well established maritime trade route through southeast Asia, via Java, towards the Arabian Gulf, where it was probably heading towards Basra, then the principal port of the Abbasid Caliphate, in modern day Iraq. The ship was carrying a large cargo of ceramics – some 70,000 pieces were tightly packed inside its hold, along with other, more precious goods such as finely crafted items of gold and silver, plus 29 bronze mirrors, as well as more perishable commodities, such as spices and probably textiles too (silk was certainly used as a currency at this time). However, the ship never reached its intended destination, as it was wrecked en route in the Java Sea, some 600 km south of Singapore.

The wreck was discovered in 1998, not far from the Indonesian island of Belitung, by fishermen diving for sea cucumbers. Given that the wreck was located in shallow waters and less than 3 kms from the shore it was very vulnerable to looting and accidental destruction, consequently the Indonesian government authorised a salvage company to recover the 9thcentury ship’s cargo. This recovery operation took place over two seasons. The importance of the wreck, despite its having been subject to commercial salvage rather than a more scientific programme of archaeological excavation, was noted and hence, in order to preserve the assemblage as a whole, the cargo was purchased by Singapore with the purpose of making it available to the peoples of the wider Southeast Asia region in a public museum. Accordingly, the contents of the wreck were first put on temporary display at Singapore’s Art Science Museum in 2011 (you can read an interesting and thought-provoking review of that exhibition, and the controversial issues surrounding the original acquisition of the wreck’s contents, by Rachel Leow on her blog here and here). Now, nearly five years later the Belitung shipwreck has at last found its final berth in a new permanent gallery at Singapore’s excellent Asian Civilisations Museum. This new display was opened to the public last month by Ms Grace Fu, Singapore’s Minister for Culture, Community and Youth. I was lucky enough to be invited to the opening ceremony. 






For anyone visiting Singapore who has an interest in art and archaeology, the Asian Civilisations Museum is a must-visit site. Built in 1865 the Neoclassical building, which originally housed the offices of the British colonial government, has recently been undergoing a transformation. Last month saw the opening of the first of the Museum’s “New Spaces” with the T’angShipwreck gallery as its centrepiece. The shipwreck is clearly being showcased as an important marker for modern Singapore’s 50th anniversary celebrations. As one of the texts accompanying the display attests: “Singapore lies between two oceans, along a busy sea route running from the Middle East to India, Southeast Asia, and China. This network rivalled the more famous Silk Route through Central Asia. Glass was brought from the Middle East, cotton from India, spices and wood from Southeast Asia, and ceramics and silk from China. These economic ties led to the exchange of artistic ideas, and to contacts between peoples of different cultures.
            The Tang Shipwreck reveals that Singapore’s region lay at the heart of a global trading network in the 9th century. The success of Singapore as an exchange point of global shipping thus has ancient roots. The beautiful objects of exceptional rarity testify to the ingenuity of artists and merchants, and show that exotic objects have long been appreciated by the world’s consumers.”



Paeans to ancient precursors of modern consumerism and political agendas aside (see here for a recent article on maritime archaeology and modern day nationalism), the actual analysis of the antiquities recovered from the Belitung shipwreck has revealed some fascinating information. It is claimed that “not a single nail or dowel was used to construct the ship,” instead it was made from wooden planks which had been sewn together with rope made from coconut husks and caulked with wadding and lime. Scientific tests have shown that the wood came from Africa, and that later repairs were made in a variety of materials sourced from other far distant places, such as India and parts of Southeast Asia. All this suggests that the ship was a dhow, plying a trade route of immense distance from the Arabian Gulf to China, returning with a cargo which gives us a window onto the commercial web which networked the Abbasid and Chinese Empires together, most likely via the maritime hub of Palembang, the capital of Srivijaya in Sumatra (Java) – arguably the Singapore of its day.






The ship’s cargo attests to the almost industrial scale of output from certain Chinese kilns of the period, particularly that of Changsha in Hunan province, of which, some 57,500 pieces have been recovered from the Belitung wreck. Plus highly prized celadon wares, green-splashed wares from the Gongxian kilns of Henan, and beautiful white-glazed wares from the Xing kilns of northern China, all of which have also been discovered at other sites in Asia and the Islamic Middle East. Many of these ceramics were packed into larger ceramic vessels, tightly coiled and padded out with straw, these jars contained up to 130 bowls each. This method of packing was highly successful and undoubtedly also ensured that many of the ceramics remained preserved intact on the seabed. In total the ceramics from the ship weighed around 25 tons. 

  




Many of these bowls are now on open display in the gallery, but why they have been mounted on long metal stems making them look like a large abstract field of poppies, or so many plates spinning on poles, is a modern design mystery which no one I asked could fathom. Thankfully the displays and accompanying texts give adequate context and explanation. The spacious gallery is light and airy with large windows looking out, rather appropriately, onto the waters of nearby Boat Quay, where on my first visit I saw dragon boat races being held. I’m told that once all the redevelopments are complete this area will become the new entrance to the Museum, hence the T’ang shipwreck will be the first gallery the visitor encounters.









The rest of the Museum is filled with a wonderful array of artefacts from many different cultures and wide-ranging regions across Asia. The sculptures of the Ancient Religions room, including several pieces from the ancient cultural crossroads at Gandhara (in modern day Pakistan), such as the magnificent monumental terracotta head of a bodhisattva with a mass of curly hair, are not to be missed. Plus, the two Southeast Asia rooms are crammed with such a variety of fascinating treasures that I became completely engrossed and lost all track of time. The room dedicated to the“Chinese Scholar” is an exquisitely evocative new addition to the Museum too. I’m looking forward to returning next summer to see what other transformations will have taken place by that time. 













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