Bronze Plaques From Northern Kyrgyzstan With Representations of Horsemen

Abstract

We describe bronze plaques representing armed horsemen, found in the Issyk-Kul Basin and in the Chuya valley, northern Kyrgyzstan, and owned by public and private museums in Bishkek. Similar plaques from southern Siberia and Central Asia were described by many Russian, Kazakh, Kirghiz, and Mongolian historians and archaeologists. A formal classifi cation of plaques is proposed, and their chronology, cultural attribution, and function are assessed. Such items, associated with early medieval Turkicspeaking nomads of Tian Shan and Semirechye, are similar to those worn by the Yenisei Kyrgyz of the Minusinsk Basin in southern Siberia, by the Kimek of the steppe Altai and the upper Irtysh in Kazakhstan, by the Qarluq of southwestern Central Asia, and by other Turkic tribes inhabiting areas from the Ural to Mongolia.

Shared Skin: The Slow Intimacy of Horse and Rider

“…When we think 'horse culture', we might think of Scythians, Sauromatae, Saka, and Sarmatians, nomads of Mongolia and Kazakhstan (Borisenko and Hudiakov, 2018), Bedouins (Lange, 2019), Yakuts of Northern Siberia, Boer commandos (Swart, 2003), gauchos, vaqueros, buckaroos (Clayton, Hoy and Underwood, 2001;Slatta, 1991), the urban cowboys of Compton (Rabitsch and Salisbury, 2021), the Blackfoot of the Western Plains, Spanish Riding School of Vienna, we might think of globalised racing (Cassidy, 2007), eventing, dressage, polo, or we might think of tough little pony-mad 'horsey gels' who have to stand on buckets to groom. These cultures are obviously contoured by prevailing societal norms and concomitantly gendered (as well as classed and raced).…”