Currently not on view
Chariot Yoke Ornament in the Shape of a Large Recumbent Doe
Information
5th–4th century BCE
Asia, China, China-Siberia border
This reclining female deer has its head raised and large ears attentively spread. Eyes and nostrils incised; mouth cast and touched up with incision. Its legs are folded under its belly with the foreleg hooves facing up and hindleg ones facing down. The bronze was cast using piece molds, leaving a hollow body with cross-pins between the knees at front and back. The ornament was placed over pegs on top of the yoke of chariots used in burial rituals. The particular arrangement of the hooves has earlier precedents in China, but it also occurs in the fifth-century BC in the Black Sea region.* The sudden appearance of this motif in the West and its relation to northwest China awaits further research.
This item was reportedly found in the upper reaches of Yenisei River (flows north to Arctic Ocean) at China-Siberia border in the area of Minusinsk (in present-day Russia).
<a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/83419132">Emma C. Bunker, Nomadic Art of the Eastern Eurasian Steppes (2002), p. 24.</a>
"Recent acquisitions", <em>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University</em> 14, no. 1 (1955): p. 17-19., p. 17
3782 1955
