Horsemen in Three-Horned Headdresses at Chinese Rock-Art Sites and Their Siberian and Central Asian Affinities

Abstract

Six horsemen and one standing man carved at the Wujiachuan rock-art site in the Gansu Province of China are wearing headdresses resembling a crown with three ‘horns’. The standing figure from Wujiachuan can also be perceived as a seated one if its very long, downward ‘arms’ are to be considered as the outline of a wide-brimmed robe, and the carved lines within it are the ‘real’ arms folded on the chest or on the stomach. This interpretation corresponds with ancient Turkic images of Gorny Altai and other regions. In the Kudyrge burial ground in Altai, a boulder was excavated, on which the so-called ‘knee bending scene’ was engraved. A seated woman in a three-horned headdress with a child is depicted, before whom three much smaller in size dismounted horsemen are bowing. The middle horseman is also wearing a three-horned headdress. Engraved images of women in three-horned headdresses were also met on rocks and bone artefacts from Kirgizia, Kazakhstan and Khakassia. P. P. Azbelev interprets the ‘knee bending scene’ from Kudyrge as a reflection of the Christian (Nestorian) narrative of worship of the Magi. It can be assumed that the horsemen in horned headdresses depicted at Wujiachuan, grouped in threes are rushing to worship the standing (or rather sitting) figure to their left also in a three-horned headdress. This personage, just like on the Kudyrge boulder, surpasses both riders and even their horses in height. Rock carvings of riders in three-horned headdresses have also been found in the Badain Jaran Desert in the west of Inner Mongolia and in Zhongwei County of the Ningxia Province. Wherever met, they mark the Ancient Turkic period.