Author: Li Yunhe
Source: "Chinese Archaeological Network, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences" WeChat public account
The original article was published in Archaeology, No. 11, 2021
Tongma stirrup Tang (excavated in Xizhuang Village, Xinzhu Township, Xi'an City, November 1997)
The origin and development of horse harnesses have received widespread attention from scholars at home and abroad, among which the origin and influence of stirrups are particularly important. The advent of stirrups made riding more convenient and stable, and made the union between people and horses more closely, thus influencing the form of war and possibly indirectly triggering a series of social changes, most notably represented by Lynn White's view that stirrups gave birth to European feudal society. Stirrups are so important, and there is a lot of discussion about it. Researchers do not agree on the origin of stirrups, in addition to the mainstream view from single stirrups to double stirrups, from China to the world, the "origin of the leather foot buckle" and the "origin of the stirrup" are also more influential. However, these two views were born earlier, and the early archaeological material of the harness was scarce and scattered. With the accumulation of information and the deepening of understanding, it is necessary to re-examine it. This paper starts from multiple angles such as the material itself, fieldwork, and harness construction, and studies the origin of stirrups, focusing on the origin of leather foot buckles and the origin of stirrups.
First, the origin of the leather foot buckle is discussed again
Among the theories of the origin of stirrups, the origin of the leather foot buckle is more influential, that is, before the appearance of hard stirrups in wood and metal, people used "leather foot buckles" to assist in getting on or riding, which is the source of stirrups, or directly regarded as the original stirrups. The inventor of the leather buckle is considered to be a Scythian, as René Grousset mentions in The Empire of the Steppes, "The Scythians and Huns were archers who wore trousers and boots... And they all use stirrups." This understanding first came from the conjecture of W.W. Arent as early as 1934, and has since been used by some researchers on the mainland.
However, some researchers have put forward different views on the origin of the leather foot buckle. For example, Wang Tieying acknowledged the existence of a harness such as a foot buckle, but pointed out that the foot buckle is not a stirrup in the true sense, because it hangs on the side of the saddle and can only help the horse. In addition, some Russian scholars, represented by Azbelev (АзбелевП.П.), believe that cortical stirrups may not have existed. Obviously, the core starting point of their question about the origin of the leather foot buckle is not consistent. Only when the authenticity of the leather foot buckle is supported by reliable evidence can it be further discussed whether it can be considered the source of stirrups. Therefore, whether the leather shoe buckle itself has ever existed has become a crucial question.
The steppe peoples represented by the Scythians were good at riding horses, leaving behind many physical harnesses or works of art showing horse riding scenes. However, due to the long age, there are relatively few organic matter harnesses that can be preserved to this day, which makes it difficult to judge the existence of leather foot buckles. Tracing the origin of the buckle, the most cited evidence is a silver vase from the Chertomlyk Barrow tomb in Ukraine (Fig. 1, 1, 2). The age of this bottle is presumed to be from the 4th century BC, and the shape and ornamentation features a distinctly Hellenistic style. The shoulders of the silver vase have a continuous bas-relief pattern, representing the scene of the Scythian horse training. One of the images depicting a horse with a saddle is depicted with a band hanging from the front of the saddle and a knot at the upper end, similar to the connection point between stirrups and stirrups, which is judged to be a leather buckle or original stirrup. Some researchers believe that this foot buckle is only attached to the side of the saddle and can assist in the horse, such as Wang Tieying's view mentioned above. Others have simply restored it to the style of double stirrups (Fig. 1, 3).
However, an analysis of the horse's entire saddle on the silver bottle, combined with ethnological fieldwork, reveals that there is still room for discussion on the point of view of the leather foot buckle. First of all, as you can see from the photo, the hanging part of the front of the saddle is more like a single-stranded strap than a ring that can be used for stepping. Secondly, although the saddle on the back of this horse has a certain thickness, there is no saddle bridge at both ends, which can be judged to belong to the typical Scythian "soft saddle", and the soft saddle must be fixed with the help of a belly belt. Studies have pointed out that soft saddles were widely popular in the Eurasian steppe and the central plains, north and Xinjiang regions of the Eurasian steppe during the Warring States Qin and Han Dynasties, and were primitive saddles. Similar saddles are still in use in some areas, for example, Tibetan herders in Dulan, Qinghai, deliberately do not use the Takahashi saddle instead of a padded saddle in order to make it easier to get on and off horses when grazing in the wild (Fig. 2). The specific equipment method is: first lay a thin blanket on the horse's back, that is, a whip, then place a specially made cushion on it; and finally tie the cushion firmly with a belly strap. This kind of soft cushion is much more rudimentary than the soft saddle of ancient times, but they are similar in assembly methods, requiring a belly belt, otherwise it cannot be fixed.
Whether it was an early soft saddle or a later high-bridge saddle with a rigid skeleton, the most important accessory was the abdominal belt. Even if modern herders use a Takahashi saddle, they only need to be fixed through the abdominal belt, and only when crossing the mountains are they specially added to climb the chest and the back tweezer. With this realization, revisit the image on the silver bottle. If we consider the strap under the saddle as a leather foot buckle, the more important abdominal band is missing from the image. However, under the influence of Hellenistic art, the bas-relief image on this silver vase is depicted in such detail that even the motifs, knotted heads and the folds of the figure's clothes are expressed, and should not be careless to the point of missing the abdominal band. Another example of support is the Scythian gold medal in the Emmitash Museum (Fig. 3, 1), which is small in size and has a relatively simple image of a man and a horse, but still clearly visible in the lower part of the saddle, but without a trace of a leather foot buckle. Therefore, it can be judged that the part on the silver bottle that was once used as a "leather foot buckle" is more likely to be an extra section after the abdominal band is fixed.
As for the parts in the figure that appear to be connecting points (see Figure 1, 2), it should be a knot or buckle on the ventral belt, which is more likely. For practical reasons, the saddle belt is often fastened by a buckle to facilitate the adjustment of the tightness. There are also such parts of the saddle pottery excavated from the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Pit of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum, which are imitated by metal buckles (Fig. 3, 2). The silver bottle shows the silhouette image on the left side of the horse, and the most common way for people to stand when preparing the saddle and getting on the horse is on the left side of the horse's body, and the knot or buckle after the belt is tied will naturally be on the left side, so will the pottery horse unearthed from the Qin figurine pit, and the cushion saddle used by modern herders is also the same, which is very similar to the performance on the silver bottle. It is conceivable that if such a harness is drawn into a line diagram or made into an artistic image such as a relief, then the abdominal belt is also very easy to be mistaken for a foot buckle. Therefore, there is insufficient evidence to judge the image on the silver bottle of Cheltom Rek as a leather foot buckle.
In addition, no trace of leather buckles has also been found in the physical remains of horse harnesses from this period excavated by archaeological excavations. For example, in the Baderek cemetery in Southern Siberia and the Suberech cemetery in Xinjiang, a complete set of soft saddles has been excavated, in which organic saddle pads, straps, and ornaments have been preserved, but there are no leather foot buckles or similar parts made of other materials. Therefore, according to the existing images and physical data, the existence of the leather foot buckle cannot be confirmed, and naturally the leather foot buckle cannot be regarded as the source of stirrups or that it has an enlightening effect on the emergence of stirrups.
Second, the origin of stirrups is discussed again
The so-called stirrup is an auxiliary harness that is put on the toe, and the volume is very small. And what we generally call stirrups, whether it is a single stirrup or a double stirrup, is set on the entire foot, which is the biggest difference in size and use of the two. According to the different areas of the material, the origin theory of stirrups can also be subdivided into "Indian theory" and "Yunnan theory". Researchers such as P.K. Gode and Lynn White judged that stirrups had appeared in India around the 1st century AD, and they believed that stirrups on the toes were made of rope or leather and could play a supporting role based on relief materials and other pictorial materials from the Great Stupa at Sanchi and Mathura regions in India. Regarding the origin of stirrups, Gold speculates that stirrups may have been introduced by the Cypriots around the 1st century BC, and Lynn White believes that the earliest stirrups in China may have inspired Indian stirrups. "Yunnan Theory" was first proposed by Zhang Zengqi, in the article "War Horses, Harnesses and Stirrups of the State of Dian", he combed the image of the horse harness seen on the bronze shell vessels, brand ornaments and other relics of the Dian culture in the Warring States of the Qin and Han Dynasties, and believed that in the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, stirrups, stirrups, which were worn on the toes, were commonly used in the Western Han Dynasty; later, in the article "On the Horse Harness, Stirrup and Horse Armor of the State of Dian", he further elaborated on this view, and combined with the literature to explain the continuation of this special custom in Yunnan. However, he did not address whether there was any communication between the Yunnan stirrup and India.
For example, Sun Ji quoted the material of stirrups in the "Han Dynasty Material Culture Information" as enlightening to the improvement of stirrups in the Central Plains, but at the same time pointed out the limitations of the function of stirrups. There are also those who affirm the existence of stirrups but believe that it does not belong to stirrups, such as Wang Tieying mentioning both Indian and Yunnan materials, and rejecting the origin of stirrups from the conceptual definition of stirrups, the main basis of which is also the limitation of stirrups. In addition, while questioning the existence of leather shoe buckles, Azbelev questioned the existence of stirrups and whether they were universally used, arguing that there was "no evidence of the widespread popularity of stirrup prototypes (including leather foot buckles and stirrups) that existed in India, the Kushan Empire, and the Yunnan Kingdom." It is not difficult to see that similar to the origin theory of the leather foot buckle, the stirrup theory is widely influential but also controversial. It is still necessary to go back to the original material, re-explore the process of generating this hypothesis, and then explore whether the stirrup can be regarded as the source of stirrups.
First, let's look at the Indian material. Relief materials cited by Gold et al. in the past include high reliefs on the Stone Arch of the Great Tower of Sanchi (Fig. IV, 1), and stone bas-reliefs excavated from the Matura region (Fig. IV, 2). In both works, a rope is attached from the horse's back to the horseman's foot, which is similar to stirrup leather. Another important piece of material is a copper vase excavated from the Kulu region of India, whose abdomen is engraved with dense ornamentation to represent the travel scenes of the nobility, in which two men ride horses as guides for the team, and their feet have similar rope images (Figures 4, 3, 4).
The "stirrups" represented by these two types of materials are similar in appearance and similar in age, both around the 1st century BC. However, in comparison, the image on the copper bottle is too flat, and it is limited to the size of the picture and cannot show more detail, so the focus is on stone relief. In the past, when there was not much material, these ropes connected to the feet of horse riders could easily be interpreted as stirrups or primitive stirrups with the same function. However, there are still some problems with the structure and stress – when people use stirrups, stirrups straighten and are located on the inside of the leg due to pedaling force. However, on the high relief of the Sanchi Tower, the rope is obviously located on the outside of the leg and shows a certain curvature, which is very abrupt and unreasonable in structure.
By investigating more archaeological material, it will be found that the so-called Indian stirrups and real stirrups are very different in both structure and function, and it is likely that the same as the "leather foot buckle" is also a misjudgment of the material. There are many examples of horseback riding images on the stone arches around the Sanchi Tower, and the posture of people and horses is not the same, and many details can be observed. For example, in a sculpture on the Stone Arch of the North Gate of Sanchi, the rider also has a rope on the calf, also located on the outside of the leg, but instead of putting it on the toe or the whole foot, it continues downwards, directly bypassing the horse's belly (Fig. 5, 1). Obviously, this is inconsistent with the description of the shape and function of the stirrup in previous studies. Coincidentally, a horse with a full set of harnesses but not ridden is carved on the stone archway of the East Gate of Sanchi, which more clearly shows the full picture of the harness of this era - the horse's back is covered with a large blanket, similar to the later tweezers, and a rope is tied to the front part, which fixes the blanket on the horse's back or acts like a belt (Figure 5, 2).
It can be seen that the rope-like harness that was judged to be stirrups in the past is actually a rope ring on horseback, and people can insert their feet and calves into the sides of the rope ring when riding, which may be able to help balance or relieve fatigue to a certain extent, but its effect is difficult to compare with real stirrups, and it cannot be used for horseback. The pattern on the copper pot unearthed in Kuru should also show this rope ring. However, such a style of riding may not have been widespread during the same period, and in Sanchi's sculptures, more cyclists have their legs in a naturally drooping posture, even with rope rings, such as the riders carved on the Stone Arch of Sanchi's Simon (Fig. 5, 3). It can be seen that for the horseback riders at that time, whether to use this rope ring as an auxiliary for riding was a choice. All in all, the current material does not yet prove the existence of ancient stirrups in India.
Let's look at the materials in Yunnan. The evidence of the so-called "stirrups" in Yunnan comes from bronze shell containers of the Dian culture excavated from Shizhai Mountain in Jinning and Lijiashan in Jiangchuan. A copper shell vessel lid excavated from Shizhaishan M13 shows a war scene, with a knight with a whole body gilded in the center, possibly a leader-level figure. The saddle of the warhorse is complete, and the knight's left thumb and toe are connected to a rope that leads to the horse's back (Figure 6, 1). The Lijiashan M69 unearthed a bronze shell vessel depicting a sowing sacrifice scene, with two horsemen on the top edge of the lid, who also wore similar rope loops on their large thumbs on their left feet (Fig. 6, 2).
Compared with the rope rings in India, this auxiliary facility set on the toes is closer to the stirrups of later generations, which can be called "stirrups", and its structure may be a small rope ring formed by simply knotting at the end of the rope, or it may be a small ring made of rattan, wood, etc. However, the number of stirrups should be rethought, as they are not assembled with one on each side of the saddle, as is the case with mature stirrups. In the past description and restoration diagram, it has been pointed out that there is a stirrup hanging on each side of the saddle, such as the researchers describing the Lijiashan copper shell container as "the thumbs of both feet are also extended in the rope ring stirrups on both sides of the saddle", and then the researcher drew a line diagram of the knight of the Shizhaishan copper shell container, and the knight obviously has a stirrup on his right foot (Figure 6, 3). However, it can be seen from the physical photos that there are no traces of rope rings or stirrups on the right foot of these knights (Fig. 6, 4, 5), and the three knights on the two copper shell vessels are the same, which can basically rule out the possibility of later damage and mutilation. That is, this stirrup is only attached to the left thumb of the rider. Since the only stirrup materials that can be seen so far are these, it cannot be judged with great certainty as "single stirrups", but in any case, the restoration of such stirrups to "double stirrups" lacks strong evidence to support it.
Of course, it is not difficult to think that even if only the stirrup is equipped on the left side of the saddle, it can give the rider a certain support and help him maintain balance. If the right side is not equipped with stirrups, it may be to make it more convenient when dismounting. At the same time, it should also be pointed out that most of the sculptures and plaques representing horseback riding scenes in the Relics of the Dian Culture do not have stirrups on them, such as the knight's legs on the bronze shell vessel of the four-ox gilded knight excavated from the M10 of Shizhai Mountain (Fig. 6, 6), which is the same as the riding posture of the pottery riding figurines excavated in the Central Plains of the same era. This indicates that the use of stirrups at that time was far from popular and was still in the stage of experimentation.
Since the stirrup of Yunnan Dian culture can be confirmed to exist, can it be determined that it has some internal relationship with the appearance of stirrups? Or can the stirrup be considered the origin of stirrups? We believe that the stirrups are very different from the real stirrups in terms of the method of use and the mechanism of generation, and the correlation between them needs to be discussed again. First of all, in terms of method of use, as previous generations have pointed out, the toe stirrup structure is special, can not assist the horse, and is only suitable for people who are accustomed to tiptoeing, so it is difficult to promote. For the people in the vast central plains and northern regions of the same era, the foot cannot become the norm, and the practicality of this horse harness is indeed not high. Secondly, in terms of production mechanism, although the stirrups and the original stirrups are only assembled on the left side of the saddle, the appearance of the stirrups is to assist the balance when riding, and it is not used when riding; and the single stirrup is to facilitate the riding, not used during riding, and the basic design ideas of the two are completely different. In addition, in terms of the time of appearance, the Stirrup materials of the Dian culture are all around the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, and the earliest single stirrup materials that are currently recognized come from the riding figurines excavated from the Yongning Second Year Tomb of the Western Jin Dynasty in Changsha, and there is a time difference of more than 400 years between the two. If we think that stirrups have had an impact on stirrups in the Central Plains and northern regions, then the lack of evidence in the middle is larger. These issues cannot be overlooked when exploring the relationship between stirrups and stirrups in the Central Plains and Northern Regions.
Third, the internal relationship between the saddle structure and the stirrup
Regarding the opportunity and motivation for the emergence of stirrups, some researchers believe that the original intention of inventing the single stirrup was to adapt to the change of saddle, that is, the emergence of the Takahashi saddle. There are also those who disagree, such as Azbelev's view that "the invention of stirrups has no necessary causal relationship with the emergence of a hard saddle". This problem can be examined from two aspects: the appearance time of stirrups and the functional structure of the harness.
The earliest evidence of double stirrups seen so far comes from a pottery horse excavated from the Eastern Jin Tomb at Xiangshan No. 7 in Nanjing, with a triangular stirrup carved on each side of the saddle, which is speculated to be a single stirrup riding figurine excavated in 322 AD or later, slightly later than the Western Jin Tomb in Changsha. Researchers have pointed out that the basic form of single stirrups and double stirrups is consistent, and the evolutionary context from single stirrup to double stirrup is also relatively clear, and this change occurs in a short period of time. The development process of stirrups from scratch and from single to double coincided with the improvement of saddles- the low-flat soft saddles that had been popular during the Warring States And Han Dynasties were replaced by Takahashi saddles with wooden skeletons during the Wei and Jin dynasties. This synchronization is not just a coincidence, but has deep-seated functional and structural reasons.
On the one hand, when using a soft saddle, a person trained in riding only needs to press the horse's back to jump on, which has long been accustomed to. After the appearance of takahashi saddle, the difficulty of getting on the horse increased sharply, requiring the help of some auxiliary equipment. Although the use of items such as stepping stones or the support of others can play a role, auxiliary equipment is inconvenient to carry, especially for cavalry on the battlefield, these methods are not very practical. Naturally, people will try to fix the equipment that assists the horse, and the stirrup that can be suspended on the side of the saddle for stepping on when the horse is mounted will come into being. Therefore, in terms of function, the change of saddle has spawned the demand for stirrups, and the new saddle is the opportunity for stirrups to be produced.
On the other hand, the emergence of stirrups, which was only possible by the emergence of high-bridge saddles with a hard skeleton, was the structural guarantee for the use of stirrups, an angle that has rarely been touched upon in previous discussions. The biggest difference between the soft saddle and the high bridge saddle is that the angle between the two soft saddle pads cannot be fixed due to the lack of saddle bridge constraints. This results in soft saddles not being as stable as Takahashi saddles. Assuming that the soft saddle is also equipped with stirrups, it is easy to cause the saddle to slip sideways when stepping on the horse, which is very dangerous. Only when the saddle can be fixed stably can it withstand the force exerted by stirrups and stirrups.
In this way, when we consider saddles and stirrups as a system, the evolution of harnesses is easier to understand. In the era of soft saddles, there was no strong demand for stirrups, and the structure of the saddle was not suitable for stirrups or harnesses with similar functions, so whether in the Eurasian steppe or the central plains of the mainland, there were saddles and no stirrups for a long time, and even the facilities that assisted the horse such as "leather foot buckles" probably did not exist. As for the Yunnan region, the saddle of the Warring States Qin and Han Dynasties has not yet been found in the local area, but from the sculptural image on the Bronze Ware of the Dian Culture, the saddle used at that time was relatively low and flat and the front end was obviously divided into two halves (Figure 7), which was very similar to the appearance of the soft saddle in the Central Plains and the northern region, and it can be preliminarily judged that it also belongs to the soft saddle system. In fact, the Dian culture has had quite close exchanges with the vast Central Plains and the northern region in the field of harness, and the Physical Objects of Harnesses such as Danglu and Ma Ke of the Dian Kingdom have been excavated in the Central Plains and even Lelang in the same style. Because the saddle structure is not strong enough, the unique local stirrup can only assist balance to a certain extent, and cannot be used for mounting. By the Wei and Jin dynasties, the high-bridge saddle, which could provide a solid support for the rider, replaced the soft saddle, and the demand for stirrups and the stable structure that could assemble stirrups appeared at the same time, which immediately led to the improvement of the entire set of harnesses and promoted a series of other military and social changes.
Fourth, the aftermath
Past studies have had many problems not only because of misjudgments about the material, but also because of the failure to examine multiple harnesses as a system. If you only focus on the stirrup itself and ignore its intrinsic connection with the saddle in terms of function and structure, you may advance the appearance of stirrups based on some unreliable evidence, such as the hypothesis of "leather foot buckle" mentioned above, and speculate that stirrups were used at that time based on the posture of the rider in the Han Dynasty murals and the vague stroke lines on the soles of the feet, which lack sufficient persuasion. In addition, some researchers have also cited the "fragments of stirrup pedal model fragments" published by Mongolian archaeologists excavated from the Hun era tomb of Duulga uul, believing that this is an empirical evidence that stirrups originated in the Mongolian plateau, dating from the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC (Figure 8). If it is really a relic of stirrups from the Xiongnu era, it is much earlier than the riding figurines excavated from the Western Jin Tombs in Changsha. However, a re-observation of this "stirrup model" can be seen that only a small piece of iron remains, and the shape of the original instrument is not easy to judge, but the restorer has mirrored and copied it according to the imagined stirrup form, and imagined to supplement most of the other missing parts. Such a restoration plan is obviously not scientific enough, and whether the residual iron sheet is stirrup is also debatable. In the absence of the exact age of the tomb and the specific hierarchical relationship of the "iron stirrup", it is not appropriate to regard it as the earliest stirrup evidence.
In short, through the analysis of the previous traceability, it can be seen that among the several old theories about the origin of stirrups, the Scythian "leather foot buckle" and the Indian "stirrup" that were once regarded as the source of stirrups probably did not exist; the stirrups with unilateral assembly appeared in the Yunnan region around the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, which can play a certain auxiliary balancing role, but the limitations in function and use methods are strong, and there is no correlation with the stirrups that appeared and matured during the Wei and Jin dynasties. The origin of stirrups is closely related to the improvement of the saddle structure, and the most likely development vein is still the evolution from a single stirrup to a double stirrup that can play a role in both the loading and riding process.
Author Affilications:School of Archaeology, Peking University
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Editor: Xiang Yu
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