The Ordos Plateau was historically an area where the Xiongnu were active, and tribes such as Lou Fu and Lin Hu were active here for hundreds of years, leaving many cultural relics.
Tombs are also one of them, and there have been many Xiongnu tombs in the history of this area, such as the ancient warring states tomb that was inadvertently discovered in Aruchaiden in 1972 by a sheep herding baby.
When the archaeological team archaeologized these tombs, they found a common phenomenon in the excavated burials, and in the tombs of the same period, many decorative artifacts of monster images appeared.
To be precise, this time is in the late Warring States period, that is, more than 2,000 years ago.
There are three most representative places: the M2 tomb of the Xigou Bank of the Zunger Banner of the Inner Mongolia Yikezhao League, the Aruchaiden Warring States Tomb of the Hangjin Banner of the Yikezhao League, and the Warring States Tomb of Narin Gaotu in Shenmu County, Shaanxi.
These are the tombs of Xiongnu nobles in the late Warring States period, and the monster image relics unearthed in them are also very representative.
An upright monster pattern gold ornament in the M2 tomb by the West Ditch is impressive.
It is cut from a round gold sheet, 12 cm long and 10.2 cm high, with several nail holes in the feet and the edges of the body.
From the composition, it has an eagle beak, antlers, tiger body, horse hooves, and horns in a continuous ring, reaching the tail. This image, which combines the characteristics of multiple animals and is clearly not a real creature, was named an upright monster pattern gold ornament.
Several other artifacts decorated with monster motifs unearthed in this tomb are similar to them, all of which are virtual monster images. They are decorative gold ornaments on belt buckles or sword scabbards.
Upright monster pattern gold trim
In another Aruchaiden Warring States Xiongnu tomb, a set of tiger bird pattern gold plaques was unearthed, a total of 12 pieces.
The plaque consists of a tiger and antlers forming the main body of the monster, and 8 bird heads are decorated on the top of the antlers and the tail of the tiger, and the bird's body has been simplified to an S shape. Among them, the tiger-shaped motif is dominant, with open mouth and teeth, limbs bent forward, and inlaid with red and emerald gemstones.
In the Naling Gaotu Warring States Tomb, a pure golden eagle-billed deer-shaped beast body monster was unearthed.
It is 11 cm long, 11.5 cm high and weighs 160 g. The monster is composed of an eagle's rim, deformed antlers, a horse's head, a sheep's body and a sheep's tail, and the tail of the monster is an eagle's beak-shaped animal head, but the shape is short and rolled up, which is a typical sheep's tail feature.
The images of these monsters are similar, and have not been found in previous tombs, why they suddenly appeared in the ancient tombs of the Xiongnu in the same period, and what meaning they embody, experts have a lot of speculations about this.
Royal artifacts said
The owners of these three tombs are all nobles of the king level in the Xiongnu tribe, and there are many exquisite gold and silverware, gold crowns, crowns, etc. unearthed together in the tomb, and it is obvious that the tomb owners are of prominent status and heavy power in their hands. According to the research, they should come from the two branches of the Xiongnu Lin Hu and Lou Fu, probably the nobles such as the Lou Fu King and the White Sheep King recorded in the "Records of History".
In the same period, similar monster image ornaments were not unearthed in the ordinary Warring States tombs, because other tomb levels were not enough, and these images could only appear on the special artifacts of the royal family, indicating the honor of the identity of the tomb owner.
Totem worship said
The use of monster images to decorate crowns, belts and sword scabbards is a product of ancient totem worship.
For example, in the Shang Dynasty, with the Xuan bird as a totem, the merchants used bird feathers as headdresses to decorate themselves; the Xianbei people worshipped the sacred beasts that "resembled horses and sounded like cattle", and they decorated the belt plaque with minotaur antlers or horse-headed antlers, and decorated the belt plaque with the sacred beast motifs of the wings and long horns. From this, it can be inferred that the monster images in these Xiongnu tombs are the totem images used for decoration.
For the Xiongnu, such a combined monster also has its own significance. The Huns gradually developed from loose tribal alliances to powerful kingdoms, but still retained the characteristics of tribal alliances.
The combined monster image symbolizes unity and is a totemic image of a tribal alliance that reflects the fusion process of the northern peoples.
The monster image is a consortium of several animal features, meaning "alliance", reflecting that tribes with a single animal as a totem eventually form a tribal alliance group.
Using monsters as totems is in line with both the trend of tribal unity and the function of the totem. It can be seen from the monster images unearthed in the three tombs that although they are all combined images, they are different in the content of the combination, each with its own characteristics, and its form is a composite image with multiple functions and the advantages of many animals.
The most characteristic parts of the animal's body were thus combined to form the totem image of the tribe. Such as the ferocity of the tiger, the swiftness of the horse, the agility of the deer and the sheep, the cooperative spirit of the wolf, the flying ability of the eagle, etc., are vividly reflected in the image and play a role in condensing the unity within the clan.
Altai culture said
The animal ornamentation of northern China in the late Warring States period absorbed some styles of Altai art, and there were monster patterns and animal figures with flipped bodies in the second half.
This image of the monster and the animal with the body flipped upwards in the second half of the body appeared in the middle of the Bazerek culture, that is, the Bazerek period, dating from the first century BC, apparently before the emergence of such patterns in northern China.
This shows that during the first century BC, there was frequent contact between the early nomadic peoples of the steppes of Eurasia, and it was necessary to influence and learn from each other in terms of culture and artistic style.
Compared with the image of the Ordos monster and the image of the Baselek monster, it shows the consistency of the combined content and the difference in the modeling style.
It can be seen from this that although the Ordos monster is influenced by the Bazelek monster to a certain extent, this influence is not a simple imitation, but a formal reference.
After that, it gave this combined monster a new life, a new connotation, that is, borrowing the meaning of "union" and "mighty" in the monster image to create its own totem image.
The above are several mainstream interpretations of the Ordos monster gold jewelry cultural relics, each of which has its own reason, perhaps combined with them, it is the complete information that the cultural relics pass to us.
The monster images unearthed at the three sites of Ordos are basically the same in form, all of which are composed of common animals on the grassland, but there are slight differences in the composition content, the monster on the west ditch is a combination of eagles, deer, tigers and horses; the Aruchaiden monster is a combination of tigers, deer, birds or eagles; the Nalingao rabbit monster is a combination of eagles, deer, horses and sheep, thus forming their own different modeling characteristics, but also explained
piece
The composition of tribal confederations varies.
Some of the contents are overlapping, such as the combination of eagle, tiger, and deer, which has appeared in the monster images of various places, indicating that the tribal alliances living on the Ordos plateau are closely related, and there is a kinship between you and me, and I have you.
It is worth noting that the Chronicle of History? The totem-related animal images recorded in the "Four White Wolves", "Four White Deer", "White Sheep King" and "Bird Meat Flying on It, Wolf to Milk" recorded in the Biography of the Xiongnu almost all appear in the constituent factors of the Ordos monster, which is not a coincidence, it should be regarded as the image of the monster unearthed in Ordos in line with the actual situation at that time.