A BIRD IN THE EAR OF A STAG: ICONOGRAPHIC LINKS FROM BEIJING TO BUDAPEST

Xian Symposium Paper 8/8/12

Dr. Mrea Csorba

ABSTRACT

In this paper I review the early 20th century discovery and assessment of synchronous sets of Iron Age (6th c – 5th c BCE) material recovered from two ends of the Eurasian steppe,

namely in China’s North Zone and in the Hungarian Carpathian Basin, in Central Europe.

In doing so, I argue for an expanded geographic framework of steppe art that stretches from Beijing to Budapest.

At the same time, I join others in recognizing the break-down of the 20th c. concept of a unified steppe culture emanating out of centralized centers in Siberia, Central Asia and the Black Sea area.

Review of the steppe styled material at the two lateral extensions of the Eurasian steppe prompts recognition of independent and regional styles of steppe art that, with benefit of recent archeological data on key steppe motifs, argues for origination points beyond recognized steppe centers highlighted by traditional 20th c. scholarship.

The reassessment of the early Chinese material--mistakenly ascribed to the Ordos region of North China--also challenges 20th c. assumptions

that cultural ideas are transmitted in a straight geographic line and that they blanket the receiving area monolithically.

Rethinking 20th c cultural definitions and approaches -- largely formulated on 18th and 19th century archeology within the heartland of the Eurasian steppe – can expand our understanding of heterogeneous mix of cultures at the peripheral edges of the Eurasian steppe.

A Bird in the Ear of a Stag: Iconographic Links from Beijing to Budapest

Intro

This paper reviews a selection of synchronously dated Iron Age material from far ends of the great Eurasian steppes.

The two distant regions make for interesting comparison due to the similarities in the nature and circumstance of their finds.

20th century discoveries in both China’s Northern Zone and the Hungarian Carpathian Basin of Central Europe are characterized by disturbed sites containing mixed inventories with heterogeneous burial practices that indicate assorted populations practicing diverse lifestyles.

The two areas experienced similar problems in the interpretation of the recovered material and integration of the representative cultures within the established constellation of steppe culture represented by well-documented centers in Southern Siberia, Central Asia and the Black Sea area.

Examination of material at the two lateral ends reveals commonalities in the distinctive use of key steppe motifs, such as the stag or birdhead motifs that link to earlier traditions outside the recognized centers of steppe culture.

The coeval use of innovative iconography at either end of the Eurasian steppe argues for the recognition of an Iron Age steppe culture that stretches from Beijing to Budapest.

At the same time the data from both ends documents independent selectivity and innovation that challenges 20th c. precepts about cultural centers and periphery, and transmission between the two across the vast expanse of the steppe.

Review of 20th c. Scholarship on Northern, Non-dynastic Art

In China, recognition of a non-dynastic steppe art began in the 1920s with the large scale acquisition of stray finds by Westerners working on engineering projects in north China.

Collectively they were given the label Ordos Bronzes which categorically, and as we will see, mistakenly, sourced all of the collected non-dynastic material into the Ordos region of northwest China.

For the next half century, Western scholarship proceeded to link this material through the Ordos corridor with similarly styled and better documented material in Siberia, Kazakhstan, and the Black Sea

area.

Scholarship in this period continued to treat the whole of China’s Northern Zone as a unit, and assumed that the directional route of cultural transmission between Russia and North China passed through the Ordos.

Without scientific data, regional differences in material culture, ethnic composition or adaptive economies could not be addressed.

Recognition that China’s frontier was not a monolithic unit, and that areas within the Northern Zone developed independently only came with archeological excavation in the late decades of the 20thc.

Today, archeology is enabling nuanced reconstruction of political and ethnic issues tempered by human agency and expansion of bioarcheology that explore gender roles.

In this paper I 1st review the mistakes of early 20th c. assessment of the so-called “Ordos” bronzes and highlights recently excavated data that differentiates the northeastern and the northwestern sections of China’s Northern Zone Bunker defines this Northeast section as East of Taihang Mtns.

Analysis that follows in 2nd part ….synchronous material in the Carpathian Basin, in Hungary.

Intriguingly, the distinctive details of iconography and style are shared by

The data from both ends highlights independent selectivity and creative innovation that challenges 20th c. precepts on cultural transmission across the steppe. (Ibid).

The Collection of “Ordos” Bronzes in North China in the early 20th c.

The geographic designation of the Ordos refers to a restricted area contained within the bend of the Huang He and the southern remnants of the Great Wall. But the early finds were collected from across a broad zone that stretches north of China’s agrarian Central Plains from Ningxia in the west to Liaoning in the east

The early stray finds collected by Western personnel were exhibited with accompanying catalogue at the Ostasiatiska Museet in Stockholm, Sweden.

Illustrated pieces included portable implements, belt buckles, small plaques and garment ornaments.

The material was distinguished from dynastic Chinese material by typology, animal iconography and style (Li Chi 1957; Li Chi 1977; Linduff 1979; Bunker et al 1971; Bunker 1983).

Characteristic ornamentation of frontier knives, belt buckles and plaques range in style from naturalistic to highly geometricized and feature an

exotic playlist of animals including horned ibex, rapacious birds and antlered stags. (Include Slide)

None of the pieces in the Stockholm collection were excavated and none were scientifically dated.

The stray pieces were thought to be from the later part of the 1st millennium BCE associated with the period of the Xiongnu.

A few authors suggested later dates into the 1st c and 2nd c. CE.

Comparative analysis of the early finds with excavated data now suggest that many “Ordos” pieces are not only from the northeast, but that many of the types initially thought to be from the late 1st c. BCE date centuries earlier. Some, including those pertinent to the discussion here, are now relatively dated 6th c. BCE – 5th c. BCE.

{Sl: Andersson 1932: Pl. XXI fig. 1 (K 10366), fig 2 (K 11283:50). Wapiti stag with raised head, antler stretched along back and legs pulled up under. Strong horizontal loop on back; bought in Peiping; Pl. XXI fig. 2 Two vertical loops on back (K 11283:50 Karlbeck 30/31: 50: bought in Peiping} (ftnte 3.4: Wapiti stags)

Indeed, recent archeology suggests that these pieces recorded as having been bought in Peiping (Beijing) could well have come from graves within the Beijing capital district, Hebei Province.. (Ftnte: p. 2.1, include Levy White, Sackler, etc. pieces) (Wenwu 1982.9; Wenwu chunqui 1993.2; So/Bunker 1995; Bunker 1997) The collected “Ordos” stags are similar in formal presentation and style to recently excavated pieces from Jundushan, Yanqing County north of Beijing, dated to the 6th – 5th c. BCE. (Wenwu chunqiu 1993.2 p.31, fig. 9.4; Wenwu 1982.9 p.31 fig. 25; So & Bunker 1995, Bunker 1997) (Sl: So & Bunker 1995 fig. 82.2 Jundushan stags)

The stags are presented in profile, with extended, up-turned heads and feet drawn under the belly in a recumbent pose. Some of the stags have distinctively stylized antlers (center image and drawing to right) that are organized into tangent circles across the lengths of their backs. These

excavated pieces measure 2 ¾ inches long. Few specifics of the “Ordos” bronzes are given, but when information is available, their size is consistent with these measurements. (PL. V 1129: 25 Karlbeck, bought in Peking, 82 mm: figures shown in natural size in catalogue) (See Met. Pl. 4 Cat no. 29, as well). Similar stag ornaments excavated from Ganzibao, Huailai County, Northern Hebei and elsewhere, as far as Kazakhstan and the Ukraine, suggest that the strays may have been cast in multiples and used as heraldic ornaments that decorate the clothing or body of the deceased in burial. (Sl: below)

Wenwu chunqiu 1993.2 p.31, fig. 9.4; Kazakstan stag with stone inlay.) (Ftnte: Jacobson, 1987, Bunker 1995. p. 160, So & Bunker1997, p. 171; Reeder 1999 Pl. no. 43, Bunker 1985, no. 83 Levy White

collection; Reeder 1999 no. 43; Ftnte also: Tomatcheff 1929)

The stag is a motif used in various forms across the Eurasian steppe. (Sl: Add: Stag imagry from the steppe). As currently understood, it was introduced by early Iron Age 9th c. BCE populations moving out of the northern taiga of Siberia into the grassland steppes of Eurasia (Bunker, Reeder, etc.). The particular stylized presentation of the “recumbent” stag with legs drawn up and muzzle stretch out is a standardized pose seen at major sites in Central Asia, the Scythian Sphere around Black Sea area, (Sl. Western Stags) and even, as we will see, at Tapioszentmarton in Central Europe.

The motif is rich with associations for migratory populations. The deer--or more specifically the Watipi elk shown here (ftnte The elk or wapiti (Cervus canadensis) is one of the largest species of deer in the world; Close relative….)--inhabits vast territories down from the Siberian taiga and across the Eurasian steppe. It is a roving animal known to move seasonally across grasslands and up mountain slopes seeking young tender shoots. The annual shedding and regrowth of its antlers lends itself to concepts of regeneration whether from wounds in the battlefield, or passage, in death.

But, as Emma Bunker points out, the particular form seen in the excavated pieces from the northeast--as well as the illustrated pieces reportedly bought in Beijing--is categorically different from that of stags now ascribed by archeology within the Ordos region. (So & Bunker 1995, Bunker 1997; Sl.

(left) Excavated Ordos deer images; Ftnte: re: style of Ordos stags) Not only are stags from the northeastern part of the Northern Zone different, Bunker argues that the source of the recumbent stags from Hebei sites does not come through the Ordos. (Bunker 1995, So & Bunker 1997). Instead, Bunker argues, the stags from Northern Hebei are derived from carvings of deer seen on large, upright stones in the Altai region of Northeast Asia (So & Bunker 1995, Bunker 1997). (Sl: Siberian Yenesei stag; Mongolian deer stone).

Carvings of cervid of the Wapiti species, are found on large upright stone slabs dating from 1000 BC in the Altaic border region of the forested Siberian taiga and northern Mongolian steppes. (Ftnte: Wapiti species…) The Bronze and Early Iron Age carvings typically show multiple deer figures arranged vertically in a diagonally upward-slanting formation.

The composition suggests a “synchronized flight” of a row of attenuated forms with up-lifted heads and long, flowing antlers (Powell 2006). Curiously, the snouts of the elk seem to transform into long bills of water birds. Esther Jacobson and others interpret the haunting

formations as depicting archaic themes of Siberian shamanism with the transformational features representing animals changing form as they pass through barriers of air, water and other mediums (Fritzhugh 2005, p. 9; Jacobson 1984, 1993, 1999; Reeder, 1999; Sl: Reeder fig. 4, rock carving; Archeology 2006 deer stones).

Consensus is building among scholars in various fields that the Northeast Asian carvings of flying cervids represent an early form of animal style art that is transferred onto the Eurasian steppe in the early centuries of the 1st M. BCE (Fitzhugh 2005 p. 8, Reeder, 1999, Bunker 1997, So & Bunker, 1995 and Jacobson…, Minaev 1992)

It is on the basis of formal similarities between the “flying deer” and the Hebei stags seen in the profiled presentation, recumbent pose and rendition of antlers as tangent circles (see illus. below) that Bunker links the stags in the northeastern burials to deer stone prototypes in Northeast Asia (So & Bunker 1995, Bunker 1997; ftnte: growing consensus that Northeast Asian carvings are an early form animal style art transferred onto steppes in the early centuries of the 1st M. BCE. See Fitzhugh 2005 p. 8, Reeder, 1999, Jacobson (multiple dates), Minaev 1992) ). Noting a position taken by Russian archeologist Sergei Minaev (1992), Bunker posits that the transmission of the deer image from the northern reaches of the steppe into Northeast China may be via the Amur River, Heilongjiang Province. (See map below, page 7) .

A small, but significant detail seen on the Jundushan plaques strengthens Bunker’s argument for a North Asian connection. Some of the stags from the Jundushan site have up-turned tails that terminate in a stylized raptor head. Others (note tail of stag on the left) suggest a fuller, more naturalistic form of a bird. (Sl: Bunker 1995 figs. 121 photo and drawing with raptor head tail, on right)

According to Bunker, the abstracted rendition of a rapacious bird head is also derived from Siberia. The source for the ornithological motif is itself associated with ancient depictions of Siberian shamanism that may date into the Bronze Age. Ancient carvings that show fringed costumes on shamans have been interpreted with the shaman’s ability to fly, there-by penetrating into the upper spheres of the cosmos and connecting with

divine powers. (Neil Price ed. 2001: Devler p. 44) (Ftne Long history of raptor images. Other images of rapacious birds seen from ancient Egypt, etc; Ziwiye treasure: raptor head terminal..cauldron handle, 6th. C. BCE possibly earlier, Pl. 47, Jettmar 1964, p. 222) As with stags, the transformational note inserted by the bird head motif is consistent with the burial context of the metals. Like the stag, Bunker believes that the raptor head may have been introduced into China along the same Amur route. (Sl. Map, below)

Citing the 6th c. BCE date of the Jundushan site, Bunker establishes the use of raptor heads as terminals in Northeast China two centuries earlier than their documentation in Northwest China. (So & Bunker 1995, p. 193.) (Ftnte 4. 1) This allows Bunker to argue that both the stag and the raptor head

finial was 1st introduced into northeast China. This again corrects the 20th c. assumption that diffusion of steppe art was channeled through the Ordos corridor and spread directionally west to east across the Northern Zone.

Supporting this claim is overlooked evidence of the use of the raptor head as a terminal motif at an earlier site in northeastern China, indeed,

from a Beijing district site near Jundushan. Excavation of two well preserved burials at Changping Baifu contained a frontier style knife and dagger each with hilts terminating in a raptor head. (Beijing 1976). (Sl: Changping Baifu raptor headed knife and dagger).

The bird head terminal motif of the dagger (M3. No. 22) is naturalistic in form; the rendering of the motif as the ornamental finial of the knife (M2 no.

40, pictured below) is abstracted into a linearity similar to the depiction on the Jundushan stag. Significantly, both the naturalistic and stylized renditions of the Baifu and Jundushan examples have curved beaks and incised round eyes-- distinct characteristics of steppe-style raptors. In the original archeology report, the Baifu site was designated as Chinese due to a mixed inventory that was heavily Chinese, and dated to the beginning of the Zhou period. The graves have been reclassified as a non-dynastic frontier site based on the ritual placement of diagnostic implements such as the raptor-headed knife and dagger (Csorba 1996). That the iconography of those key implements derives from steppe art reinforces the re-attribution of the burials. (Ftnte) The use of the raptor head motif at this excavated northeastern frontier site, and its early 11th c. BCE date, strengthens Bunker’s thesis that the raptor head used as a terminal motif is first introduced into the eastern part of China’s Northern Zone.

Coeval Iron Age finds from the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe with North Asian affinities

The heraldic stag motif is at the center of two Iron Age burials excavated by Hungarian archeologists in the 1920s at the other end of the Eurasian

steppe. (Illus. below, left)

The disturbed burials were recovered in an area of Hungary called the Nagy Alfold, or “Great Plain,” a grassland extension of the Eurasian steppe which spreads across the Carpathian Basin to the Danube River in central Hungary. (Map above, right):

First to be excavated was a longish burial mound, in Tapioszentmarton (1923) 2 meters high, with a fire pit at its center. (Ftnte: The recovery team was led by the highly respected Nandor Fettich, from the Hungarian National History Museum.) Its principal artifact, a large stag plaque was found folded up and off to the side of the pit. (Sl: Stag image)

The excavators suggested that a cremation ritual at burial may have crumpled and dislodged the ornament from its original placement. (Fettich 1927) A conical earring was also found. Both plaque and earring is an electrum alloy of gold on silver. The plaque measures 22.7 cm. (9 inches) in length. Based on its large size, the piece is identified as a shield ornament.

The stag is heavily antlered with a rack of 5 paired tines stretching across its back. A set of brow tines curve forward and are anchored by a bar above the muzzle of the animal. (Ftnte: Tines define Wapiti stag: Bunker). Prominent detailing, including roping, define the tail and the

shag of the legs. An ornamental line defines the strong “S-curves” of the antlers and body parts. Eyes and ears are constructed with fosses which may have once contained decorative stones, now missing.

The second stag plaque was found a few years later at a site 100 km. away. The gold hammered Zoldhalompuszta stag (1928) was found

under a cremation mound, together with an 8 stranded gold chain decorated with 3 lions, 163 gold buttons and a gold pendant. (Deer Plaques and other artifacts. left)

The gold chain had been severed, as was the stag plaque. The plaque is unusually large; the two preserved

sections measure 37 cm, or 14 inches long. Excavators report that the plaque and the decorated chain were probably cut by local workers as they inadvertently shoveled into the ancient grave: part of the gold chain and a mid-section of the plaque of undetermined size remain missing. Like its counterpart, the Zoldhalompuszta stag is heavily antlered and has a distinctive set of brow tines. It retains a blue stone inlay in its ear, though the inlay for the eye is missing. In addition to the damage by the workers, the stag plaque showed signs of wear suggesting long use. The assigned dates for the two burials is 6th c. BCE, coeval with the Jundushan and Ganzibao, Hebei burials and equivalent to Hungary’s Middle Iron Age period (Ftnte: Gyucha, carbon dating to be done).

The sensational gold finds are the pinnacle of Iron Age inventories consisting of bronze weapons, horse bits, mirrors and some gold jewelry recovered from 2500 sites from the Danube to the Tisza rivers in Hungary’s Carpathian Basin (Sl: Scythian-style Hungarian bronzes, below right : Salvage operations recovered.. including horse burials (see detail at left of slide)

The bronzes are clearly linked in typology and style to material excavated from mounded Scythian burials around the Pontic and Kuban area of the Black Sea area and Dnieper and Dnester area of south Russia.

The stylistic affiliations of the gold pieces from the two cremation burials are more difficult to pinpoint. We know the heraldic stag is a key motif of the Iron Age steppe culture extending across the steppes to the frontier in Northeast China. Decorative elements such as the lion heads on

the Zoldhalompuszta chain have associations with Greek, Ukrainian, Thracian and even Iranian art. Stone inlay decorating the Zoldhalompuszta stag is seen in Scythian art from Kazakhstan, and Sarmatian art from Central Asia (Slide: highlighting eclectic features with cultural affinities).

Despite the sizable body of Iron Age pieces that have accrued, efforts to integrate the material into the larger corpus of Eurasian steppe art has proven to be problematic due to the limited contextualization of the data. As illustrated by the circumstance of the discovery of the gold – and not unlike the circumstances confronting early 20th c. discoveries in China’s Northern Zone--the finds in Hungary are mixed in style, recovered without pottery or known settlements and lacking the broader context of group cemeteries. Isolated burial sites exhibit heterogeneous ritual practices that—like across the Northern Zone–suggest ethnic pluralities.

(Gyucha 2010) Harmatta, Sulimirski: ala Gyucha 2010). (Ftnt: Settlement patterns are being archeologically reconstructed from Hungarian Bronze Age: P. Duffy’s dissertation 2010, John O’Shea 1996).

Hungarian scholars debated ethnic and ethnographic issues throughout the 20th century. Their misguided, and in the end, unproductive investigations could not reconstruct the link of the Hungarian bronzes to Scythian material and the ethnic and cultural affiliation of the Hungarian migrants to the Royal Scythians, and others to the east. (Aspelin, Hampel: Gyucha, 2010, Fodor 2009; Tibor 2009). International interest in the gold flagged and the Hungarian material was relegated to an appraisal of incidental finds from a dead end extension of the Eurasian steppe. (Ftnte 6:1 Although the gold finds stirred interest initially (Andersson 1932, 1933; Jettmar 1964) international interest in the finds ebbed in the last half century). But, in light of the iconographic details seen on the Northeastern Chinese stags, a new look at the Hungarian stags yields intriquing results.

Formal and Iconographic Analysis of the Carpathian stags

The Hungarian stags are broadly similar in presentation and form. Both feature a single, isolated image of a heavily antlered stag in a horizontally profiled relief. This conforms to the heraldic rendition of Iron Age stags that we have already seen in Northeast China and Kazakhstan. The pair also has iconographic and formal affinities with celebrated Western stag ornaments excavated in the 19th c. from Scythian burials BCE around the Black Sea area. (Illustrations below)

Krostromskaya stag 7th – 6th c. BCE (12”), left; Kul Oba stag, Kerch 4th c. BCE (12 3/8th”), right

But the two Hungarian plaques are markedly different from each other and more importantly, from other Western counterparts. The

Tapioszentmarton stag draws its feet up in a recumbent pose, while the Zoldhalompuszta stag stands on three legs in an ambivalent pose in which it is either pawing the ground in a potent rutting ritual or sinking in a collapse.

Stylistically, the body of the Tapioszentmarton stag is differentiated from the compact, robust form of the Zoldhalompuszta stag. Its form is

also markedly different from the sharply facetted, geometricized forms of the Black Sea stags. As Fettich points out in his initial report (Fettich, 1923), the elongated and attenuated form of the Tapioszentmarton stag is close in form to stags depicted on Altaic rock carvings (Sl: Rock carving of recumbent stag, Early Nomadic Period, 900 BCE, Altai Mountains, Mongolia: Reeder 1999, p. 61.) left)

Indeed, a further connection can now be made between the Tapioszentmarton stag and the “flying deer” of North Asia: the serpentine line of the antlers of the Tapioszentmarton stag seems to recall the formation of ducks in the water. Arguably, the layering of a metaphysical theme of transformation onto the heraldic motif of the Hungarian stag is appropriate and consistent with its burial context. The ornithological motifs on the metamorphic stags provide an indirect link between the Hungarian plaque and the Jundushan stag with a bird head tucked into its tail. (Sl: earlier Bunker illustration)

In contrast to the delicate form of the Tapioszentmarton, the Zoldhalompuszta stag is compact in form, heavily muscled and powerfully built. In size and form it is closer to the recumbent gold stag

excavated from the

Kostromskaya barrow on the eastern shores of the Black Sea (between the Black and Caspian seas) dated to the late 7th -6th centuries. (Sl. Kostromskaya stag Met catalogue, Pl. 3)

But these two are differentiated in key features of form and style, as well. Though both are strongly articulated in form, the Kostromskaya stag is beveled while the Hungarian stag is rounded and more naturalistic in body contours. The arrangement of the antlers is different. The Zoldhalompuszta stag’s antlers are short and sharp; the strong serpentine curve of the Kostromskaya stag’s antlers is closer in the rendition of the Tapioszentmarton stag and the later 4th c. BCE stag excavated from Kul Oba close to Kostromskaya in the Black Sea area. More notable—and anatomically unlikely—the antlers of the Zoldhalompuszta plaque angle sharply forward like a wing rising in the wind.

Arguably, the Kostromskaya stag is the most celebrated of all extant stag ornaments. It is a scientifically excavated piece, unique for having been found in situ lying on an iron shield, giving clear context for its use (Artamonov, Reeder 1997). But the Zoldhalonmpuszta stag is singularly in specific features and should be recognized for powerful inventions that add to and broaden our understanding of steppe art in the West, beyond the Black Sea area.

Noteworthy as well is that, at 14 inches, the Zoldhalompuszta stag is larger than the Kostromskaya stag by a full 2 inches. Indeed, the

Hungarian stag is the largest among all the extant animal ornamented shield plaques. Unique, too, is its “standing” position -- with one foreleg raised in a perfectly counterbalanced pose -- that simultaneously suggests rising up or sinking into a collapse. (Csorba 2011) (Ftnte: 8.1) This pose has no known counterparts among heraldic stag ornaments. And the standardized composition among heraldic stags of this period is with head looking forward.

(Ftnte: Ornamental plaques of stylized deer with neatly stylized returned heads in North China are dated centuries later. (Sl to be added: range of deer with returned heads)

The dramatic strut of the animal and the triangulation of its antlers streamlined in the opposite direction impart an energized effect despite the ambivalence of the pose. Given that the piece was cut apart by the shovel of workmen before excavation, it may be that the missing section originally contained another animal that introduced a steppe-style animal-combat narrative (Csorba 2011). The plaque can suggests, and may anticipate, this later stylistic development if we read the raised foreleg as a stumble; together with the startled look of the stag; and the backward whip of its head, as seen in later Scythian art.

(Ftnte: 8:2 Mortal combat is not introduced into Scythian art before the 5th c. BCE: Reeder, 1999).

Without precedents among extant pieces, the distinctive features of the Zoldhalompuszta must be ascribed to local invention. It must be noted that the extent of the artist’s apparent inventive creativity is unusual in the corpus of steppe art which sees the repetition and duplication of favored forms across the wide-ranging cultural zone. From what has been discussed here, clearly the Zoldhalompuszta stag does not represent an eclectic, dead-end form of art in a cul-de-sac of the steppe.

But there is one more small, but significant detail. Although a vanquishing foe cannot be documented in the existing pieces of the Zoldhalompuszta plaque, a small raptor-head is present just below the alert, forward-inclined ear of the stag.

Highly abstracted, with incised eyes and a hooked beak, the bird head is executed in the precise style of raptor heads we’ve seen in Northeast China. The source for this motif, as Bunker suggested, may lie in Northeast Asia. Its muted presence attached to a small but vital sense of the animal gives the bird head a talismanic power that may harken back to ancient shamanistic narratives spun in the Altaic mountains of North Asia

All in all, the idiosyncratic mix of the eclectic material is enigmatic. The Greek-worked chain with lion figures may be war booty or tribute from a Black Sea source. The shield plaque with its signs of long use must be an item of personal significance. Given its large size and prestigious medal, it may be an identity marker advertising the pedigree or rank of its owner. Its size and singular iconography may also serve as a visual passport that advertises ethnic affiliations or political alliances in the Nagy Alfold or in distant travels elsewhere.. The owner may be a diplomat, envoy or scout sent to survey or quell distant lands. In battle,

the talismanic amulet of the bird head on the stag may offer a veneer of protection. It death, it may offer guidance through metaphysical space.