Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

From the exhibiton From the Steppes and the Monasteries: Arts of Mongolia and Tibet
Bronze Age Ornaments and Weapons

Although the Eurasian steppes—the belt of grassland that extends some 5,000 miles from Hungary in the west through Ukraine and Central Asia to Manchuria in the east—is often spoken of as one vast tract of grassland inhabited by nomads, in reality the region was much diversified, not only in terms of its geography but also in terms of the cultures of the nomadic peoples who lived there.

Based on their style, the Bronze Age ornaments on display probably came from the Ordos region located in northwestern China. The points were made by a horse-riding people, identified by Chinese records dating to the second century BCE as the Xiongnu, who lived on the other side of the Great Wall in the northern steppe lands of China and Inner Mongolia.

These areas have proved a rich source of Bronze Age material dating back to the first millennium BCE. Produced by nomads, Ordos bronzes mainly consist of decorative plaques that were sewn onto garments or used as horse furnishing and chariot fittings. These beautifully crafted pieces frequently depict animals, particularly sheep, rams, deer, horses, antelope, and ibex. While the symbolic meaning of these animals is largely speculative, archeology has shown that the animals were important economically to the peoples of the steppes, who made their living herding, livestock trading, hunting, fishing, trapping and, to a more-limited degree, farming.