Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

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 weapons and ornaments probably came from the Ordos region located in northwestern China around the great bend of the Yellow River. This area has proved a rich source of Bronze Age material dating back to the first millennium BC. Produced by nomads, Ordos bronzes mainly consist of decorative plaques that were sewn onto garments or used as horse furnishings. The points were made by a horse riding people who inhabited northern steppe lands of China and Inner Mongolia. The Chinese records, dating to the second century BCE, identify the people living on the other side of the Great Wall as the Xiongnu.

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 they 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.