The Saksanokhur gold buckle is an ancient belt buckle in gold '' repoussé'', discovered in the

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

archaeological site of Saksanokhur, South Tajikistan. The plate represents a nomadic horserider spearing a boar, set within a rectangular decorative frame. The buckle is generally dated to the 1st-2nd century CE, although Francfort dates it earlier to the 2nd-1st century BCE, as do the curators for the

Guimet Museum The Guimet Museum (full name in ; ''MNAAG''; ) is a Parisian art museum with one of the largest collections of Asian art outside of Asia that includes items from Cambodia, Thailand, Viet Nam, Tibet, India, and Nepal, among other countries. Found ...

, and the

National Museum of Antiquities of Tajikistan National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

Horserider

The horserider is generally only described as a "nomadic hunter". He wears a large robe with ample sleeves, held by a fine belt, over ample trousers reaching to the ankles. He was holding one or two spears, fragments of which remain. His hair is tied into a bun. The right side of his face has been damaged. His horse had elaborate trappings, the tail is covered and tied with a knot at the end, the mane is curt short. More specifically, according to Francfort, the plate may have been made for a patron related to the

Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...

, and may be dated to the 2nd-1st century BCE: the rider wears the steppe dress, his hair is tied into a hairbun characteristic of the oriental steppes (as also seen in the ''Boar hunter''), and his horse has characteristically Xiongnu horse trappings (as also seen in the ''Plaque of the wrestlers''). Some of these characteristics might also possibly be related to the

Yuezhi The Yuezhi were an ancient people first described in China, Chinese histories as nomadic pastoralists living in an arid grassland area in the western part of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, during the 1st millennium BC. After a major defea ...

Authorship

The treatment of the figure as well as stylistic elements such as the frame using a Hellenistic

egg-and-dart Egg-and-dart, also known as egg-and-tongue, egg-and-anchor, or egg-and-star, is an Ornament (architecture), ornamental device adorning the fundamental quarter-round, convex ovolo profile of molding (decorative), moulding, consisting of alternating ...

pattern, suggest a Hellenized artist. The site of Saksanokhur itself is otherwise known for many Hellenistic architectural remains, such as pillar and capitals.

Parallels

Decorated belt buckles and plates are a common feature of

Central Asian art Central Asian art is visual art created in Central Asia, in areas corresponding to modern Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and parts of modern Mongolia, China and Russia. The art of ancient and medieval ...

in the period, but various materials can be used, such as horn or bone. These works of art typically represent nomadic figural scenes, with fighting or hunting episodes. Some of the most famous of these work of art are the Orlat plaques, or the plaques discovered at

Takht-i Sangin Takht-i Sangin (") is an archaeological site located near the confluence of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers, the source of the Amu Darya, in southern Tajikistan. During the Hellenistic period it was a city in the Greco-Bactrian kingdom with a large te ...

. Various stylistic similarities have been found between the Orlat plaques and the Saksanokhur hunter, such as the position of the toes of his right foot, the mane of the horse with the forelock, the cover on the horse's tail, the tasseled horse harness, or the phalerae. The style of the Saksanokhur belt buckle is also very similar to several of the gold objects of Tillya Tepe, particularly regarding the Hellenistic style and the framing egg-and-dart motif. File:MenInArm4.JPG, Men in armor, in Greek fighting gear. Tomb III. Gold ''repoussé'' artifact from Tillya Tepe, probably

File:Orlat plaques.jpg, Orlat plaques, with fighting and hunting scenes, generally attributed to the

Kangju Kangju (; Eastern Han Chinese: ''kʰɑŋ-kɨɑ'' standard Chinese ''Kāngjū''), proposes that it was an Iranian word meaning "stone", and compares it to Pashto ''kā́ṇay'' "stone". Joseph Marquart, Omeljan Pritsak and Peter B. Golde ...

File:Right hunter detail, Takht-i Sangin, Temple of the Oxus, 1st century BCE- 1st century CE.jpg, Hunters in an ivory plaque from

, with design comparable to the hunting scenes of the Orlat plaques.

References

{{Central Asian history Archaeological sites in Tajikistan Belt buckles Saka Sogdians Yuezhi Xiongnu