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Su-il Jeong Cultural Diffusion in Ancient Civilizations E ng l i s h
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Cultural Diffusion in Ancient Civilizations (고대문명교류사) Sakyejul Publishing corp. / 2001 / 27 p. / ISBN 9788971968307 For further information, please visit: http://library.klti.or.kr/node/772
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Cultural Diffusion in Ancient Civilizations Written by Jeong Su-il 1 4 August, 2014 Sample Translation (pp. 122-152)
CULTURAL DIFFUSION AMONG ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS By Jeong Su-il
CHAPTER 3—BRONZE AND ITS PLACE IN THE WORLD
PART 1—THE MATERIAL AND CULTURAL REALITY
[Map, p. 122] Epicenters of Bronze Culture 2000 BCE
3000 BCE
EGYPT 3600 BCE
ANDRONOVO (2000-1200 BCE) BCE)
MESOPOTAMIA 4000 BCE
SIALK (3000 BCE)
LURISTAN (2500-1000
KARASUK (1200-700 BCE)
SUIYUAN (ORDOS) Ural River
YIN (1500 BCE)
Yenesey River
Indus River
THE CONCEPT OF THE BRONZE AGE
700 BCE
Euphrates River
Yangzi River
Yellow River
Nile River
Bronzeware naturally refers to implements and ornaments primarily made of bronze, which is copper alloyed with 3 percent to 18 percent tin. The hardness of bronzeware depends on the proportion of tin, ordinarily 3 to 8 percent, but 9 to 12 percent for gun metal used in castings for cannonry, and up to 13 to 18 percent for bearings. While bronze originally had to contain tin, the term currently applies as well to copper alloys without this constituent. Copper and tin are the main ingredients of bronze, but they can also be alloyed with other elements in order to effect qualitative enhancement. This so-called special bronze includes phosphor bronze, silicon bronze, and nickel bronze. Compared to brass, which is an alloy of copper and zinc, bronze is characteristically more easily workable and less subject to corrosion. Hence it has long been a highly favored material and an actively traded commodity. The ancient city of Brundisium (presently known as Brindisi), plied a vigorous trade in bronze from its location at the southeastern ‘heel’ of the Italian Peninsula, and even the word itself supposedly derives from the place’s name. As stated, bronze is a copper alloy. Through a long period of trial and error, primitive peoples were able to produce this alloy by mastering the complexities of the required metallurgical techniques. Copper was originally found in small rocks with greenish-purple and greenish-black coloration. Native copper deposits of this sort extended broadly throughout Eurasia and Asia Minor, including Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Norway, Hungary, southern Russia, and Iran. The earliest people to seek out these native deposits are presumed to have been the nomads who lived on the western shores of the Caspian Sea in the period from approximately 6,000 to 5,000 BCE. In pioneering the use of annealing as a method to forge items such as pins and awls, they took the first step toward the techniques of full-fledged metallurgy. Native copper was not in unlimited supply, however, and was gradually exhausted. The solution was to melt and smelt copper ore and forge castings made of mixed materials. It was
2
out of this process that bronze was discovered. In the course of developing the bronze alloy, native copper underwent four phases involving tempering, melting with simple forging, smelting with complex forging, and the mass production of copper.1 There is debate as to how the early melting and smelting of copper ore was accomplished. Some speculate that it was heated on open-air fires. However, even the best fuel on an open fire can only generate temperatures in the range of 600-700˚C, while at least 1,000˚C is required to melt copper and 700-800˚C for the reduction of copper oxide or copper carbonate, the two most common copper ores. Rather than open fires, the supposition is that pottery kilns were used for this purpose because of their capacity for heat retention. Excavated kilns dating from the Archaic Period of ancient Egypt and Susa in Iran were capable of firing jars and pots at 1,200˚C, and appear to also have been utilized for melting and smelting copper. Starting with the initial stage of melting, the process of developing bronze involved a range of technical innovations. Smelting and casting specifically required the knowledge and skills pertinent to various facilities and implements such as furnaces, crucibles, fire tongs, bellows, and molds. Signs of prehistoric Mesopotamian copper metallurgy dating to 4,0003,500 BCE are evident in today’s Northern Iraq at the al-Ubaid temple sites and the subsequent remains of the world’s first urban culture at Uruk. Copper metallurgy is presumed to have developed as well in contiguous locations such as the mountainous regions of Armenia and the Caucasus as well as the Persian Plateau where copper, tin and fuel resources were plentiful. Ancient Chinese writings also mention the alloying of copper and tin. One of the six chapters in Rites of Zhou is titled “Record of Trades” and details the process of bronze1
Coghlan, “Prehistoric Copper and Some Experiments in Smelting”, Transactions of
the Newcomen Society, 20 (1), 1939, Note 29.
3
making in the Yin and Zhou dynasties. It specifies the proportion of copper to tin for various purposes, with 6:1 for bells, ritual vessels, and musical instruments; 5:1 for axes; 4:1 for spears; 3:1 for large blades; 5:2 for arrowheads; and 5:5 for mirrors. It was through a chain of learning experiences that bronze was ultimately invented, at a period generally thought to be in the latter half of the fourth millennium BCE. Historically, bronze supplanted copper for the production of tools and sharp implements, thus contributing greatly to the formation and development of ancient civilizations. While it is certain that bronze was a smelted alloy of copper and tin, some specifics of the process remain unclear. There are differences of opinion on four principal possibilities: it was made by smelting metallic copper and metallic tin, it was made by smelting crude copper and metallic tin, it was made by smelting crude copper and stannite, or it was made with a natural or artificial mix of crude copper and crude tin. A lack of definitive evidence that tin-smelting preceded bronze-making virtually rules out the first two of these possibilities, and the fact that stannite is a rare mineral also made its use implausible. That leaves the fourth method, the smelting of a mixture of crude copper and crude tin, as the most likely.2
BRONZE AGE CULTURES
Cultures of the period in which bronze was put to practical use are referred to as Bronze Age cultures. These practical items included containers and sharp instruments with a potential for use in ordinary life. The use of bronze to make such things required a significant level of technical advancement and thus represented an epochal divergence from the primitiveness of the Stone Age. However, Bronze Age cultures are not simply defined by the existence and utilization of bronze implements, inasmuch as they developed through the organic interaction 2
Kazutoshi Nagasawa, Shiruku RĹ?do Hakubutsushi, Seidosha, 1987, pp. 93-97.
4
of a variety of societal elements. In each nation or region, therefore, Bronze Age cultures were non-identical from beginning to end both in terms of attributes and scale. While the utilization of implements and vessels of bronze and other alloys was a primary feature of Bronze Age cultures, a number of other salient characteristics distinguished these cultures from previous ages. Among them were an urbanized civilization that led to the formation of city-states, the advent of sedentary farming, and the rise of religious and artistic traditions. Relics attesting to the existence of Bronze Age cultures differ from one nation and region to another, but can be broadly categorized as containers, sharp implements, ornaments, and equipment for horses and carts, all in a myriad of shapes and styles. Containers included all sorts of utensils and vessels for food, water, and wine; sharp implements mainly comprised swords, axes, spears, and arrowheads, while ornaments consisted of mirrors, pins, and so forth. Bronze fittings were a feature of the horse-drawn chariot invented by the Hittites of Asia Minor. With their decorative animal designs, these were widely favored among the equestrian nomadic tribes of Northern Eurasia.
THE ORIGIN OF BRONZE Contending theories abound in modern archaeology as to how and where bronze first originated. Preliminary research in Northern Europe by Finnish and Danish archaeologists in the early eighteenth century was followed by more intensive efforts by their colleagues in France, Germany, and Russia. After World War II, Chinese and Japanese archaeologists also made appreciable headway with their studies of Bronze Age culture in general, but concentrating particularly on the bronzeware of the Yin Dynasty. Arguments relating to the origins of bronze fall into three major divisions: singularity, plurality, and epicentrality. In the singularity theory, bronze originated only in one location
5
and was then disseminated to many other places. As to where that one location was, however, academics are not in agreement, but proponents of this theory tend to favor one of three regional possibilities: Siberia (Altai), the Near East, and the Far East. According to the Siberia sub-theory, espoused by J. R. Aspelin (1842-1915) of Finland, bronze originated in the area of the upper Yenesey River in the Altai Mountains where minerals such as gold and copper were abundant. From there it was disseminated by Hun migrants to the Ural region and thence to Finland and elsewhere in Northern Europe. The gist of this is that the Siberian Altai region would have been the homeland of bronze for the entirety of Northern Eurasia. In the Far East sub-theory advanced by J. J. A. Worsaae (1821-1885) of Denmark, 3 bronze first originated in China or India, whence it passed through the Ural-Altai mountain regions and on to Northern Europe. These two sub-theories reflect the fact that related excavation and research have primarily been conducted in Northern Europe and Siberia, and are within the context of the westward migrations of Hun tribes and the Near East-origin theory of the peoples belonging to the Indo-European language groups. However, Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890) of Germany discovered numerous copper pins and needles at the Trojan ruins in Asia Minor in 1870 and at Mycenae in 1888. Artifacts of this sort are common on sites associated with the Bronze Age in Northern Europe. This occasioned considerable academic attention to the question of the relationship between bronze in Northern Europe and the Near East. In this connection, Oscar Montelius (18431921) of Sweden wrote “The Periods in the Early Bronze Age� in which he advanced the Near East theory on the origin of bronze in the north Eurasian mainland. Accordingly, bronzeware originated singularly in Asia Minor or Mesopotamia (the Near East) and moved 3
Worsaae was an archaeologist who posited the existence of a Middle Stone Age
(Mesolithic) between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods.
6
northward to Europe along the Danube River or, alternatively, spread to Siberia and China through southern Russia. Rejecting singularity, the theory of plurality maintains that bronze appeared independently in several locations. Its proponents characteristically refute any correlation among bronzeware from multiple places and emphasize the uniqueness and spontaneous origination of each, without denying that mutual influences could have occurred in the course of its development. This theory also has some regional variants. First are the Altai and Ural sub-theories. In accordance with the singularity theory mentioned above, bronze originated in the Altai region and then spread to the Urals before the formation of the bronze culture of Northern Europe. In the plurality theory, however, bronze appeared independently in each of these two cultures without regard for dissemination and correlation as factors. A. M. Tallgren (18851945) of Finland undertook three exploratory journeys to Siberia and in 1911 published The Copper and Bronze Age in Northern and Eastern Russia. In this work, he counters the Altaito-Urals dissemination of bronze in the singularity theory advanced by his mentor Aspelin, maintaining that Ural bronze developed separately from Altai bronze on the basis of an indigenous Neolithic culture. The Ural and Altai cultural spheres were thus viewed as having formed independently of each other. Taking his case yet a step further, Tallgren introduced a counterproposal to the effect that the Siberian bronze culture was undoubtedly formed under the influence of the Ural bronze culture. After an exploratory journey to the Minusinsk region of Southern Siberia in 1915, he put forth a new view that the Minusinsk bronze culture was initially formed under the direct influence of the middle period of the Ural bronze culture, on the basis of which it proceeded to develop independently. Also integral to the plurality theory is the independent development of bronze in
7
China. The considerably sophisticated materials, shapes, and designs of the first Chinese bronzeware excavated at the Yinxu (Yin Ruins) at Anyang in the province of Henan are hardly indicative of an early stage of development. The issues of their origin and early development have thus been open to debate and remain unresolved. Even though Yin bronzeware was highly developed and in various respects suggests a resemblance and correlation to that of North Eurasia and West Asia, we cannot conclude that this correlation pertains to origin. Arguments on the theory of independent Chinese development of bronze as maintained by some scholars, primarily in China, will likely be guarded until more artifacts (particularly early ones) are excavated and further research is pursued. Meanwhile, with the unearthing of the chronologically oldest bronze artifacts in West Asia, scholars are agreed that this region can be regarded as another place of origination. Hence the plurality theory appears to be grounded on bronze having originated in four places, namely, the West Asian, Altai, Ural, and Chinese locations. From a chronological point of view, it is a fact that there is considerable disparity among these four, but the theory’s proponents maintain that it cannot be refuted solely on this basis. As neither the singularity nor the plurality theory is fully persuasive, debate continues on the pros and cons of each. Out of a welter of opinions has come the so-called epicentral theory as a compromise between these two views.
According to this theory, after
bronze was developed in one primary location it then spread to several secondary locations and from each of them to tertiary locations. As mentioned above, the antiquities thus far excavated indicate that the earliest copper smelting occurred in the mountainous regions of Armenia and the Caucasus and the Persian Plateau where copper, tin, and fuel were plentiful. Each of these regions is therefore acknowledged as having acquired the metallurgical techniques for the production of bronze, whence it spread to form a primary location in Mesopotamia and then secondary and tertiary locations in Asia Minor, the Urals in Europe,
8
the Altai region in Siberia, and China. These in turn became bases for still further diffusion. Given the inadequate theoretical justification for singularity and plurality, along with the paucity of convincing artifacts and corroborative chronology, the theory of epicentrality is gaining acceptance as a better way to explain bronze in terms of its technical development and material proliferation.4 9 THE BRONZE AGE IN QUESTION Generally, the period when bronze was widely used is referred to as the Bronze Age, having occurred between the Neolithic Age and Iron Age, but with substantial regional differences in duration and chronology. The archaeological divisions in Thomsen’s three-age system of classification5 are the Stone Age (later subdivided into Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic), the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, with the Stone Age and Bronze Age described as prehistoric and the Iron Age as historic. Commonly accepted though this still is, a careful consideration of subsequent excavations and research has inevitably led to questions being raised as to whether the Bronze Age was actually a pervasive period in the human experience. The first reason for such questions lies in the fact that the Bronze Age was quite short in duration, and thus somehow less epochal in nature. In comparison with two million years for the Stone Age, the span of two to three millennia for the Bronze Age does not seem like much at all, and is only about half the five-millennia length of the Iron Age. In light of the chronological imbalance versus the previous and following periods, some think the 4
Masao Mori, Ed., Kan to Rōma, Heibonsha, 1970, pp. 84-98.
5
As curator of the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, Christian Jürgensen
Thomsen (1788-1865) devised this three-part nomenclature while organizing the museum’s collection. In classifying artifacts as belonging to the ‘pagan’ Stone Age, or the Bronze Age, or the Iron Age, he laid the academic foundation for research on ancient societies.
denomination of a specific age for bronze ought to be reconsidered. Secondly, as the Bronze Age was a transitional period, it is not rigorously definable. To be sure, it was the first age in which metals were used. Bronze did have a leading but not exclusive role, as it was used in parallel with a variety of other metals such as gold and iron. And given the fact that vestiges of the long-running Stone Age culture were still apparent, the period could well be renamed the Metallithic Age or the Multi-metallic Age. With the ascendancy of complex transitional cultures, it is in fact hard to find a purely bronze culture anywhere. Thus it is difficult to draw a clear line of division between the bronze and stone/earthenware cultures and the bronze and iron cultures. In many cases they intermingled for long periods of time and in some places there were virtually no signs of a discrete Bronze Age. The third and actually the most important reason for questioning the Bronze Age as an entity is the fact that there is a lack of the so-called elements of universality and commonality. This is because the bronze artifacts thus far discovered from ancient civilized states such as Mesopotamia, Persia, and China are almost entirely confined to ritual objects, ceremonial vessels, and ornaments required solely for the activities and lives of the upper social classes. Without utilitarian value to society as a whole, including the lower classes, universality and commonality do not apply. But commonality is a definitively essential factor in the denomination of a culture. Since this is missing with regard to bronze, doubts arise about using it as the tag for an entire age. In certain special cases such as that of nomadic equestrian tribes, however, the use of bronze was indeed widespread. With herding as their livelihood, they were constantly on the move, and encounters with farming tribes often involved warfare.
For them, therefore,
bronze implements were indispensable. It has been generally accepted that, because these peoples had no written records, they had a long prehistoric and therefore primitive existence.
10
Actually, the facts that they had developed a bronze culture and were quite early to utilize iron implements and gold objects attest to the fact that this was not the case. In view of these peculiarities of bronze cultures, there is room for discussion on the issue of denominating a specific Bronze Age. Yet it is undoubtedly clear that bronze culture did have a characteristic brilliance and contributed greatly to universal cultural development. Both in archaeology and in the study of civilization, the discovery as well as the development and dissemination of bronze are regarded as historically factual, and efforts have been made to formulate an applicable chronology. Such a chronology would offer relative and comparative insights into the broader spectrum of its discovery and development. As shown in Table 3-1, bronze was discovered and developed at different times in different places. In addition, there are various classifications and terminologies pertaining to the development of the Bronze Age per se. In the systemized archaeological research of West Europe and West Asia, the Bronze Age is usually divided into two or three stages, and occasionally highlighted by further subdivisions. While bronze was certainly developed in Mesopotamia and China, there are still places where its status is neither clarified nor classified but does appear under a particular period or dynasty. Although there are regional inconsistencies in the chronology for the Bronze Age, a comprehensive view of all regions on the Eurasian landmass indicates a span ranging from 4.000 to 1,000 BCE for a maximum duration of three millennia.
Table 3-1
Chronology of the Eurasian Bronze Age6
PART 2—THE EURASIAN DIFFUSION 6
Refer to Segye Baekgwa Dae Sajeon, Vol 18, Gyoyuk Doseo, 1988, p. 164.
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BRONZE IN THE NEAR EAST The first epicenter was in the Near East, where copper metallurgy and bronze production were developed at a formative stage. As an outgrowth of copper-making, the production of bronze began in Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BCE. A variety of related artifacts remain from al-Ubaid,7 which existed until approximately 3,200 BCE, and from the later city of Uruk,8 both of which were early bronze cultures. There is evidence of a stone resembling native copper having been used in the Halaf culture which predated al-Ubaid, where the use of copper shovels was evident. By the time of the urbanized Uruk culture, various bronze vessels and seals were in use along with pictographs and clay tablets.
Illustration 3-1
Bronze axe with eyelike openings (circa 3,000 BCE) excavated in
Mesopotamia, and bronze vessel (circa 1,000-700 BCE).
Approximately three millennia BCE, at the time of the Jemdet Nasr culture (northwest of Uruk in east-central Iraq), bronze was used to produce sharp implements such as axes with openings for handles as well as a variety of vessels as shown in Illustration 3-1. These were made in volume by specialized artisans. Along with copper and bronze, there is 7
Located in southern Mesopotamia, al-Ubaid has been the site of numerous excavations
since 1919, yielding artifacts from the prehistoric First Dynasty of Ur. Prominent among its remains is the temple of Ninhursag, where a number of bronze items have been discovered. 8
Also in southern Mesopotamia, Uruk corresponds with Erech in the Old Testament and is
the world’s oldest known urban site. Its modern name is Warka. Excavations tentatively begun in 1849 were carried out on an ambitious scale in the period from 1913 to 1939. Within a 10km perimeter were found the remains of grand temples and towers as well as pictographs, clay tablets, seals, and bronzeware.
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also evidence of silverwork. Bronze culture developed and flourished throughout Mesopotamia during the nearly 2,000 years from the establishment of the first rulerships around 2800 BCE, followed by the Akkadian period, the first dynasty of Babylonia, and up until the Assyrian dynasties of the first millennium BCE, all the while exerting a great influence on neighboring states. With the ascendency of Assyria, however, the introduction of iron metallurgy gradually lowered the curtain on the age of bronze. First to be influenced by Mesopotamian bronze were the most geographically close eastern Mediterranean coastal regions of Syria and Palestine, where bronze made its debut around 3200 BCE. As this area lies between the two major ancient cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt, it was influenced by both and gave rise to distinctive hybrid cultures, of which their particular adaptation of bronze was a characteristic aspect. In Egypt, a paragon of ancient civilization, native copper was collected from sites in Sinai and elsewhere as early as the fourth millennium BCE, and smelting techniques at the time of the early Gerzeh culture in approximately 3600 BCE enabled the making of copper pins and needles. Because Egypt lacked tin ore, its copper culture persisted longer than in other regions. By the time of the Middle Kingdom (2050-1780 BCE) and the establishment of a centralized absolute monarchy, the nation occupied territory as far north as Palestine. This afforded access to tin deposits, thus resulting in the production of bronze. But as early as 3,000 years BCE, some say more or less, bronzeware was commercially imported from Mesopotamia for about a millennium before it could be produced independently. Having relied on imports for so long, Egypt was late as a manufacturer of bronze, but its advanced cultural development provided a basis for a number of innovations. For example, in succeeding to the earlier Stone Age practice, their daggers featured better-fitting handles of wood or ivory instead of following the Mesopotamian method of attaching a metal haft
13
directly to the blade.9 From early times, a variety of bronzeware had also been produced in Persia. The oldest items have been discovered at the site of Sialk, located in an oasis in the western part of the country’s central desert region. Spanning the Neolithic to the Late Bronze Ages (50002500 BCE), the Sialk relics of the first two periods are typically Neolithic, while the third period (3000 BCE) was contemporaneous with the Uruk culture of Mesopotamia when bronze appeared.10
Illustration 3-2
Bronze objects excavated at Luristan in Iran.
The Luristan culture succeeded that of Sialk and is typified by the substantial variety of bronzeware that was produced, examples of which are seen in Illustration 3-2. Situated in the Zagros Mountains of southwest Iran, the place known as “The Gateway to Persia,” Luristan is also a region midway between the Persian Plateau and Mesopotamia.
Its original
inhabitants, the Lurs tribe, were chiefly nomadic herdsmen. Excavations conducted at sites in Luristan since the 1920s have yielded a large volume of bronze artifacts bearing inscriptions of animals such as sheep, goats, and horses. When these began to be traded on the antiquities market, they attracted considerable academic interest and were studied and compared with bronze objects used by the Scythian nomads to the north. In 1931, André Godard collated and published “The Bronzes of Luristan” as a record of the excavated objects.11 Sir Marc Aurel
9
Ajia Rekishi Jiten [Encyclopedia of Asian History], Vol. 5, Heibonsha, 1985, pp.
193-194. 10
Op. cit., Vol. 4, “Record of Sialk Relics”, pp. 113-114.
11
A. Godard, “Les Bronzes du Luristan,” Art Asiatica 17, 1931.
14
Stein also visited this location in 1935 and explored sites at Rumishkan, Hulailan, and Girairan. He concluded that a certain tomb containing ornate bronze funerary objects must have belonged to a nomadic conqueror and could thus attest to links between these areas and northern tribes. Luristan bronze was used along with iron, and some objects that looked like iron tended to be dated at the Late Bronze Age. Fittings for horses and carts were common and characteristically featured designs of actual horses, cattle, goats, and boars, but there were also many fanciful figures. One particularly suitable for a nomadic people is the image of a winged beast with a human face on a bull’s head, clearly evincing influences of the lamassu in Mesopotamian mythology. A host of other artifacts include weapons such as hilted swords, axes, pikes, and arrowheads; personal items such as pins, bracelets, and mirrors; vessels such as pots with beak spouts and cups with wing handles; and statues of guardian beasts and goats. Some similar shapes have also been found in earthenware from the first and second periods of the Sialk culture, which points to Luristan as its probable successor. As for the chronology of Luristan bronze, there is still much debate. M. I. Rostovtzeff and André Godard maintained that it did not extend earlier than 1000 BCE. Claude Schaeffer, on the other hand, divided it into three periods, with the early period in 2500-2100 BCE, the middle period in 2100-1700 BCE, and the late period in 1700-1200 BCE. Other scholars such as Roman Ghirshman said it should be in the eighth to the seventh centuries BCE. Their contention is that it was then that the Scythians and Cimmerians (Gomerites) were heading for Egypt and the Near East from the Caucasus, and the Medians intercepted them at Zagros, where they settled and gave rise to a bronze culture akin to that of the northern nomadic tribes.12
12
Roman Ghirshman, “Le tresor de Sakkez, les Origines de l’art méae et les Bronzes
15
BRONZE IN EUROPE After the European Bronze Age first began around 3000 BCE in Greece, the closest point to the Near East, it spread throughout the Continent during the ensuing two millennia or so. Although there are contentions that it was produced independently in the Urals and some other locations, it nonetheless came under the influence of bronze from the Near East, and current thinking is that it developed in the course of trade. As in other prehistoric periods, the European bronze culture did not attain particular brilliance, but archaeological advancements have nonetheless resulted in a division into periods and general typifications which shed some light on related socio-cultural diversity within this period. Viewing the results of excavations conducted thus far, the manufacture of bronze implements in Northern Europe was quite developed and included scythes and various other farm tools. In Central Europe, meanwhile, a range of bronze personal items such as belts, bracelets, necklaces and safety pins have been found along with burial mounds and funerary urns characteristic of the cultures of that region.
BRONZE IN SIBERIA In the third to the early second millennium BCE, the tribes that inhabited the steppes of Southern Siberia formed a culture known as Afanasevo. They mainly engaged in hunting and gathering, while also raising horses, sheep, and cattle. Their metallurgy was sufficient to make adzes and small hand knives, but there is no sign that they had bronze at that stage. By the time of the early second millennium BCE, in the so-called Andronovo culture, there may have been more of a shift to regular farming and herding. Bronze metallurgy made
du Luristan,� Artibus Asiae 13, 1950: Ajia Rekishi Jiten Vol. 9, p. 338.
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its appearance, thus resulting in the production of sharp implements such as blades, daggers, axes and sickles, as well as a large variety of personal accessories. In this cultural period in particular, the axes featured various geometric patterns including dotted lines and parallel incised lines. Rectangular houses were built of clay, with ample floor space and a fireplace in the center. Burial practices involved the building of mounds and flexed positioning of the tomb occupant. Near Alekseevskoe in the Kostanay region of Kazakhstan, there are many remains of settlements as well as altars and mounds. The overall expanse of the Andronovo culture extended from the Ural River in the west past the eastern shore of the Aral Sea, eastward through Minusinsk at the midpoint of south-central Siberia, and up to the Altai region, thus occupying a broad swath between 55˚ and 45˚ north latitude. It was this culture that opened the door for the Bronze Age in Central Eurasia.13 By approximately 1200 BCE, however, the Andronovo culture declined and gave rise to the new Karasuk culture from the Kazanov Plains. Tombs built in a distinctive style have been found in the region of Kakhassia along the Karasuk River, from which the name of the culture was derived.14 Previously, in the Andronovo period, there would be groups of 10-15 tomb mounds, whereas in the Karasuk culture there were concentrations of over 100 mounds. a
b
Illustration 3-3 a, b:
c
Northern-type copper swords
Tajik swords from an excavation site
c:
Bronze daggers from Siberia’s Karasuk culture
d:
Bronze daggers unearthed in Inner Mongolia
13
14
d
Masao Mori, Ed., op. cit., pp. 92-93.
Chinese histories claim Karasuk means “East,” and refer to it as Dingling.
17
Karasuk excavations have brought forth artifacts large in volume as well as variety, including daggers (Illustration 3-3), knives, spears, bracelets, necklaces, and rings. The production technique was mainly forging and thus more advanced than the Andronovo method that used both forging and casting. Stone carvings were also a distinctive part of their relics and typically included monuments bearing images of human faces, cows, deer horns, and snakes, in addition to younger and older female figures. Flourishing in the middle reaches of the Yenisey River (the Minusinsk region) centered around the Karasuk River and the Altai, the Karasuk culture exerted influences on the Ural region to the west, the Baikal region to the east, and even as far as the Mongolian region. In particular, once it spread beyond the Altai region to west and central Mongolia, the process of cultural diffusion involved Chinese bronze and ultimately reached the Korean Peninsula. In terms of production techniques and designs, therefore, Karasuk bronzeware bears some resemblances to that of Yin Dynasty China.
BRONZE IN CHINA The first discovery of bronze fragments in China was in 1899 at Anyang in the province of Henan, spurring the excavation of a palace site measuring 700 meters north-south by 300 meters east-west and now known as the Yinxu (Yin Ruins). Since then, many more Chinese bronze artifacts have been discovered, but the fact that they belong to the late Yin period (c. 1400-1000 BCE) leaves us with a truncated chronology. Notwithstanding the proposal of a theory for the independent development of bronze in China, the theory of importation had for some time been regarded as convincing. There has been considerable discussion of links with the bronze cultures of Andronovo and Karasuk, and it is thought that they were influential in the development of bronze in China.
18
Yet in 1973-1974, bronze wine vessels (jue) were found on the site of an ancient city (measuring 2km north-south by 1.7km east-west, with rammed-earth walls rising 20m in height) excavated at Erlitou in Yanshi Prefecture, Honan Province. In 1974, two massive bronzes (ding, Illustration 3-4) standing 1m high and weighing 82.4kg were unearthed successively on another site at Zhengzhou Erligang in the same province. This inevitably cast new light on Chinese bronze as a whole. All these artifacts have been dated as belonging to the early Yin Dynasty, and judging from their exquisite workmanship, Chinese archaeologists are uniformly of the opinion that bronze forging technology had already appeared in the previous Xia Dynasty. But the fact that bronzeware has not been recovered from the Yangshao and Longshan cultures in the Zhongyuan (Central Plain) region, and considering the chronology of artifacts that have been unearthed, Yin bronze would clearly have come later than either West Asia or Andronovo (2000-1200 BCE). Illustration 3-4
Chinese Yin Dynasty bronze (fangding)
Yin bronzes bear the greatest resemblance to those of Karasuk. Long-handled weapons such as ge (a kind of halberd), sword pommels with animal patterns, and bowshaped objects such as those excavated in China have all been found on sites of the Karasuk culture as well. Based on the similarity or commonality of such discoveries, the influences the two bronze cultures may have had on each other can be debated. There is persuasiveness to the argument that Yin bronze was somewhat earlier and influenced Karasuk bronze. Of course there were differences between them, such as the fact that Karasuk had daggers and Yin did not. But, as mentioned above, the common element of the animal designs on Yin and Karasuk bronzeware also appearing on Persian artifacts from Luristan (2500-1200 BCE) would indicate that they were produced with forging technology that originated in West Asia. Hence, some scholars refer to them as “twins� born when West
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Asian metallurgy moved East.15 According to the twins idea, bronze metallurgy which had flourished on the Persian Plateau and Central Asia around 3000 BCE spread by one route to the region of Minusinsk in Southern Siberia during the early second millennium BCE, and somewhat later by another route to the Zhongyuan region of China. One noteworthy point here is that the methods for bronze casting used in Zhongyuan and the frontier regions were different. Favored in Zhongyuan was the more precise lost-wax method, while in Wuwei, Huangnyangnyangdae, Jinweijia and other areas of Gansu Province, the piece-mold method was mainly employed. Another point to be noted is that awls, buttons, earrings and other bronze artifacts discovered on sites in frontier areas such as Gansu have much in common with those found in the bronze cultures of Central Asia and Andronovo. Examples of the locations of such findings include the post-Hongshan stone tombs at Chifeng in Liaoning Province and the stone tombs of Xiaogongzhuang in the city of Tangshan in Hobei. One can say this suggests a certain linkage among these regions.16 Further to this, there arose the so-called Suiyuan or Ordos bronze culture in the region of Suiyuan, which lay between Minusinsk whence came the Karasuk culture, and the Zhongyuan region of China. This was an important constituent of China’s bronze culture. It is largely divided into two periods. The first period is considered to have been contemporaneous with the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, with which there was an association, while belonging to the same category as the Siberian Karasuk culture and the Hongshan culture of Chifeng. The second period belonged to the same category as the Tagar culture (600-100 BCE) of the Minusinsk Basin in Siberia, the Maiemir culture of the Altai Mountains, and the Saka culture of the Tianshan region while also being associated with the Scythian culture of South Russia
15
Kazutoshi Nagasawa, Shiruku RĹ?do Handobukku, Yuzankaku, 1982, pp. 126-127.
16
Op. cit., pp. 127-128.
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and the Sarmat culture around the Caspian Sea and Kazakhstan, collectively referred to as quasi-Scythian or Scytho-Siberian cultures. To put it briefly, one can say the Suiyuan bronze culture was the easternmost manifestation of a quasi-Scythian culture. As the earliest nomadic equestrian tribal culture established on the steppes of the Eurasian landmass, the quasi-Scythians found bronze implements had become indispensable for grazing and riding purposes. It is self-evident that there would have been exchanges among the Suiyuan bronze culture, being at the eastern extremity of a pan-Eurasian culture, and others of its type. It also bears mentioning that relics of the same kinds have been found at Hittite excavations in Asia Minor, far to the west of the Suiyuan region. In both locations, these included small copper swords and double-winged arrowheads. As these are Hittite in origin, they are thought to have entered China by a route traversing the steppes. It may thus be concluded that, while the Yin, Suiyuan, and Karasuk cultures each independently absorbed bronze from West Asia, the process of diffusion operated among them to the effect that the bronze cultures created in all three were distinctive. Not confined to Zhongyuan and Suiyuan, China’s bronze culture also spread south of the Yangzi River in the eighth century BCE after the Western Zhou Dynasty. An example of this movement is the tonggu (bronze drum). Thought to have evolved from another metal musical instrument known as the chunding, it spread throughout Southwest China, the Indochinese Peninsula, and as far as Indonesia, thus supposedly giving rise to the bronze drum culture of Southeast Asia.
BRONZE IN KOREA Not much research has been done on the bronze culture in Korea primarily because, when the Japanese occupied the country from 1910 to 1945, their scholars propagated the notion that it did not exist. According to their line of thinking, with hardly any bronze of indigenous
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manufacture having been excavated on the Korean Peninsula, there was no archaeological evidence for a bronze age and no historical proof of a bronze culture. Instead, there was supposed to have been a heteromorphic “Metallithic Age,” a hypothetical period between the Neolithic and Iron Ages when both stone and metal were used in parallel. But actually, if metal (iron) was being used, then it was no longer the Stone Age but rather the age of metals such as copper and iron. Surely it could not have been a hybrid of the two. Then after World War II, when bronzeware was excavated in the northern half of Korea but not yet in the south, there emerged the theory of “localized existence” according to which bronze did exist for a time but only in the north. However, after the 1960s, as bronze artifacts were discovered successively in numerous places in the south, the above two ideas were at last found to be fallacious and left without a leg to stand on, thus leading to a recognition that a bronze age and culture did exist on the whole of the Korean Peninsula. Furthermore, with research being undertaken on questions regarding the origins and archetypes of the Korean bronze culture, the true reality of its existence is gradually becoming known.17 Throughout the Korean Peninsula, excavations have yielded a large quantity and variety of slender-bladed copper swords and spears, axes, knives, arrowheads, long-handled lances, buttons, bells, gongs, and other such relics. These have mainly come from different types of burial sites constructed of earth, stone and jars. Also among them are variously shaped items of plain stoneware, including polished swords and half-moon knives.
17
Major studies on Korean bronze include “An Historical Examination of Korea’s
Bronze Culture” by Kim Jeong-bae (Han’guk Saron Munseonjip 1, Seonsa Pyeon), “A Study of Korean Bronze Artifacts” by Yun Byeong-mu, and A Survey of Korean Archaeology by Kim Won-yong.
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Bronze is thought to have appeared in Korea in the seventh century BCE, 18 supposedly under the influence of the northern stream from Karasuk and others related to the Tagar culture of Minusinsk in Siberia. This period is referred to as the first or former bronze culture, during which there were clear influences of the early bronze culture of northern nomadic equestrian tribes. Later, in the fourth to the third centuries BCE, Chinese bronze culture spread through the northwest down to the southern tip of the peninsula. This period is referred to as the second or latter bronze culture. The Chinese state of Yan had a bronze knifeshaped currency known as mingdaoqian that was used during the time of the Warring States (475-221 BCE), and discoveries of it in Korea attest to a complex relationship with the ancient Chinese bronze culture. This currency has been unearthed over a widespread territory, from the far northern frontier of the peninsula to Gangjin-gun in the province of Jeonnam in the deep south.19 As for the origins and archetypes of Korean bronze, there have not been sufficient studies to make definitive statements. Nonetheless, some comments can be attempted with regard to external relationships that may have been involved in several respects. First, bronze swords and buttons were found in the characteristic stone tombs of both Korea and the Karasuk area of Siberia, thus suggesting a process of diffusion between these two cultures. In examining the stone tombs and associated bronze artifacts that have surfaced thus far on the Korean Peninsula, we note the first excavation of a cist grave was in 1939 at Pungyong-ni, Eorwe-myeon, Ganggye-gun in the province of Pyeongbuk (now known as Yanggang). Among the items discovered at that time were stone implements and bronze buttons. Later, bronze swords were also recovered from stone tombs in a succession of 18
Kim Won-yong, Han’guk Munhwa ui Giwon, Tamgudang, 1964, p. 43.
19
Jeong Su-il, Silla-Seoyeok Gyoryusa,
474.
Dangook University Press, 1992, pp. 473-
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locations including Sacheon-ni, Pangok-myeon, Yeongdeok-gun in Gyeongbuk; at Sindongni, Sagi-myeon, Guseong-gun in Pyeongbuk; and Cheon’gok-ni, Seo’gwang-gun in Hwanghae. This indicates the excavation of stone tombs throughout the Korean Peninsula, with a consistent yield of bronze swords, arrowheads, and buttons. Additionally, there have been discoveries of similar stone tombs and bronze burial objects in the various parts of China where proto-Korean peoples settled or had some sort of presence. For example, the Beishan stone coffin at Saodagou in the northeastern city of Jilin has yielded stone implements along with bronze axes and buttons. Also, a bronze pot as well as stone axes and copper rings were found in the Xiaoguanzhuang stone tomb at Tangshan in North China. Bronze buttons were likewise discovered in a stone tomb uncovered at Baicaogou in Wangqing-xian, located in the Dumen River Valley.20 Stone tombs are found and excavated in an extensive span of territory from the Transbaikal region through Mongolia and Northeast China to the Korean Peninsula, suggesting that the Korean bronze culture did not have a direct relationship with the HanChinese culture of that period. Accordingly, it can be said that the formation of the protoKorean culture before the Bronze Age owed more to the relationships with Siberia and Mongolia. The Taiwanese-American scholar Kuang-chih Chang was of a similar opinion, having pointed out that there are virtually no archaeological signs of Yin-Shang influence in the regions of Balhae and South Manchuria, and that it was not until the Eastern Zhou period (770 BCE) that Han-Chinese influence became apparent.21 As examined above, the stone tombs that were a characteristic of the Karasuk bronze culture have been unearthed along with bronze burial objects in numerous regions where 20
Jeong Su-il, op. cit., pp. 218-219.
21
K. C. Chang, The Archaeology of Ancient China, Rev. and Enld., Yale University Press, 1968, p. 359.
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there was a proto-Korean presence. This would be an indication of a relationship between the bronze cultures of Korea and Karasuk as well as other peoples of North Siberia. Also excavated in Korea have been slender-bladed ornithomorphic antenna swords which presumably represent a hybrid of the bronze swords of Northern Eurasia and an earlier indigenous form. The name antenna sword refers to the fact that each side of the pommel has a protruding extension that resembles an insect antenna or a curled fern bud; sometimes the two meet at the center to form a circle. This type of sword was originally favored in Central Europe from the Late Bronze Age (Hallstatt Phase B, ninth to eighth centuries BCE) through to the Iron Age. And these particular bronze swords are called ornithomorphic antenna swords because they are the original Korean slender-bladed type but fitted with a bird-shaped grip. While swords with this configuration have been excavated in China, Korea, Japan and elsewhere in this part of the world, there are two theories as to their origin. One is that they originated in Asia, and the other maintains that they originated in the Hallstatt culture of Europe. Since neither has predominated, the swords are also generically referred to as “northern style.” Exemplary objects of this type that have been unearthed in Korea are a bronze sword grip from Pyongyang and another related relic from a tomb on Mt. Waryong in Bisan-dong, Daegu. The Pyongyang artifact is 3.2cm long and features two ducks with heads turned backwards toward each other and bills touching their backs so that the necks form an irregular circle. There are two small triangular openings on the right and left sides, and one small hole in the middle. As for the bronze sword from Daegu, its discoverer describes it as also having a twin duck design on the end of the grip.
22
22
The bird designs on both artifacts
Kim Won-yong, “Questions on Slender-Bladed Bronze Swords of the
Ornithomorphic Antenna Type,” Han’guk Saron Munseonjip 1 (Seonsa-pyeon),
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are not stylized but realistic in appearance. A bronze antenna sword 57cm in length and bearing a stylized ornithomorphic design has been excavated at the Xichagou earthen tomb cluster in Xifeng-xian, Liaoning Province, which is an area of China known for proto-Korean connections. Discoveries of similar antenna swords, also with bird shapes and stylized designs, were made in Japan. One from a location near Korea was a sword 15.1cm long found at Minemura Mine on Tsushima Island; another, 26.5cm in length, was found in northern Kyushu at Kashiwazaki in the city of Karatsu, Saga Prefecture. These artifacts excavated in China, Korea, and Japan are estimated to date from a period of 300 to 400 years between the third century BCE and the first century CE. Generally, swords are understood to have originated in Europe. It was about 2000 BCE when the longsword was first used as a weapon in the region of the Aegean Sea, and by the fifteenth century BCE it had spread throughout the north and central regions of the Continent. In the Late Bronze Age, it was introduced into Germanic territory, where it was developed further. The oldest German longsword is of the Riegsee style, with rounded pommel and knobby grip, dating to the Bronze Phase D of the thirteenth century BCE. During Hallstatt Phase A1, in the twelfth century BCE, this developed into a handle with three ridges or bands, resulting in the so-called Dreiwulstschwert. By the tenth century BCE, or Hallstatt Phase B1, the pommel on this type of sword had become a saucer-like shape known as Schalenknat. In the same period, this would gradually be transformed into the larger MĂśriger style, resembling a crescent, which was the prototype of the antenna sword pommel. The last step in actually becoming an antenna sword occurred in the ninth century BCE (Hallstatt Phase B2) when the two sides of the earlier crescent-shaped pommel were coiled like fern buds, which is also known as the ZĂźrich style. In passing eastward to Central Asia from its place of origin in northern Germanic pp. 237-238.
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territory, the antenna sword became a model for modification of the pommel on the Akinakes dagger of the Scythians.
From there this hybrid of the Akinakes sword and antenna pommel
was introduced to Mongolia, North China, and even Japan. However, in traversing Central Asia and Siberia, the sword came under the influence of the animal designs prevalent in those regions, particularly with the application of bird shapes. Then east of Liaoning and into Korea it entered the realm of the slender blade, with further influences being brought to bear and finally resulting in a slender-bladed bronze sword with a distinctive antenna pommel and bird-shaped designs. It was this new style that made its way to Japan, thus completing a cultural loop that also included Northeast China and Korea in the world of the thin bronze sword with birds and antennas. By way of review, the course of cultural diffusion that led to this outcome began with the antenna sword of Germanic origin which acquired bird-shaped designs after converging with the Scythians of Central Asia and Siberia, traversed Mongolia and North China, reached Korea where it was melded with an existing slender-bladed sword, and ultimately landed in Japan. This progression affords a glimpse of the diffusion of bronze culture that transpired between Korea and Northern Eurasia. ***********************
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