CENTRAL ASIAN ARTS: PERFORMING ARTS

Performing arts: dance and theatre The performing arts have played an important role in the spiritual and social life of Central Asia, where they evolved as didactic art forms within a religious context. Performance, therefore, occurs in conjunction with some religious or special event. Two main types of performance predominate throughout Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Mongolia, and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia: those related to shamanism and those derived from Buddhism. The performing arts of the Turkic peoples of Afghanistan and Turkistan are different from these because of the influence of the Islamic religion and are discussed in the article Islamic arts: Dance and theatre. The Hindu influence found in Nepalese theatre and dance is treated in the article South Asian arts: Dance and theatre. Although primarily intended to serve the overt purposes of religion, dance and theatre in Central Asia are performing arts with covert aesthetic values. Vocal and physical expressions of appreciation by an audience attending a performance depend on the graceful and rhythmic execution of hand gestures, body movements, and footwork. Aesthetic values are best expressed in the elaborate and artistic costumes, masks, and makeup, coupled with effective though crude stage effects and props. Musical instruments play an important role in the performance of Central Asian dance and theatre. Usually a drum, but in some cases a string instrument, is used by the shaman to induce the ecstatic trance during which he symbolically journeys to the heavens or to the netherworld when playing the role of a psychopomp, or conductor of souls. Performances of the Buddhist monastic dance, known as 'cham, and the Buddhist morality plays, called a-che-lha-mo (older sister goddess), were accompanied by a variety of instruments, especially drums and horns. There were large and small drums, short horns with fingering holes, and long horns, particularly the dung-chen (great conch shell) made of brass and extending many feet. The dung-chen with a deep haunting wail accentuates the macabre that is so much a part of 'cham. The Tibetan guitar sgra-synan (pleasant sound) is a stringed instrument used almost exclusively by Himalayan peoples for folk song and dance. Perhaps because of the subjectivism of their religions, it was not the custom among the peoples of Central Asia to carry out objective studies of elements in their cultures, and, therefore, no indigenous evaluation of their dance and theatre is available. Although a few manuals for the performance of shamanic rituals, music, and the 'cham do exist, as do scripts for the a-che-lha-mo, much of the history and traditional staging of these forms of theatre and dance was handed down by oral tradition. Shamanic ritual Teachings that spirits are responsible for unexplainable phenomena, such as disease and death, and that these spirits can be controlled by an individual with special powers, such as a shaman, evolved in many primitive societies throughout the world, including those of the nomadic peoples of Central Asia. The roles of the shaman include oracle, healer, sacrificer, and psychopomp, and each role calls for the performance of specific rituals. The earliest form of theatre and dance in Central Asia, these rituals developed into an often complex genre of the performing arts. The horse-sacrifice ceremony among the Altaic peoples of east Central Asia, for example, embraces a full range of dramatic elements despite the fact that like all shamanic ritual it is essentially a one-man performance. The ceremony, which lasts two to three days, is one in which the shaman undertakes a journey to the heavens. After having set the stage, the shaman symbolically releases the soul of a real horse and then, astride a goose-shaped device, he chases the soul of the horse, all the while imitating the noises of the goose and the horse. Capturing the soul of the horse, the shaman, with help from the audience, then kills the real horse, and the flesh is prepared. The next evening, the shaman offers pieces of the horse meat to the spirits, and, amid loud drumming and chanting, symbolically goes to the heavens on the soul of the horse while ascending a notched pole. As he ascends through the higher and higher heavenly planes, the shaman communicates to the audience important information, such as predictions about the success of the coming harvest and about epidemics and misfortunes that threaten and how to avoid them through sacrifices. The ceremony is followed by merrymaking and drinking. Shamanism maintains that the soul of one who dies a heroic or violent death ascends to the heavens, but that the soul of one who dies from disease, which is caused by an evil spirit, must go to the underworld. The part of a psychopomp, or conductor of souls to the netherworld, was, therefore, another role commonly played by the shaman. The shaman guides the soul to its destination while narrating details of its journey to his audience. In some cultures, such as that of the Lolo, or Yi, in the mountains of southwestern China, the souls of all the dead are led in this manner to the underworld; while in others, such as that of the Tungus, a subarctic forest people of eastern Siberia, the shaman is only called upon to act as psychopomp if the soul of the deceased continues to haunt his residence. The shaman also serves as the repository of tribal folklore and beliefs. Through dance and dialogue, he instructs the audience in the traditional teachings of their ancestors, and by passing his knowledge and techniques down to his successor, those teachings remain intact for future generations. Rituals for curing the sick, guiding the soul of the dead to the netherworld, invoking a deity, or visiting the heavens are performed by the shaman in a state of trance induced by frenetic dancing to the music of a drum or a string instrument. Elaborate, symbolic costumes and ritual objects that are used in the ceremony provide a dramatic and mystic spectacle. The expectations of the audience are directly connected with the purpose of the shamanic performance; but whether it is the hope that the patient would be cured or that the oracular communication be auspicious, those attending the shamanic performance do so with the expectation that the ritual will be an entertaining religious experience. Before the introduction of Buddhism in shamanic Central Asia, there were no centres for the performing arts in the usual sense of the word. Each shaman performed his dramatic arts at his own residence or environs as the occasion demanded. He had his own ritual costumes and paraphernalia, which displayed regional variations, particularly in ornamentation. The representation of animals and birds is common, and metallic objects, which are thought to possess a soul and do not rust, are also important. For example, the costume of a Siberian Yakut shaman must have from 30 to 50 pounds (15 to 25 kilograms) of iron to be efficacious, while a Siberian Buryat shaman, except for an iron casque, or helmet, wears mostly furs. The metal ornaments represent such diverse things as the internal organs, bones, a woman's breasts, the Sun, or the Moon; but the object common to all shamans is a metal mirror, in which the shaman can see the souls of the dead. Regardless of the variations in dress, the purpose and performance of the rituals remain essentially the same, whether carried out by a Buddhist monk among the Sherpas of Nepal or by a true shaman among the Siberian Yakut. The shamanic rituals of the steppe and desert peoples have analogies among the dramatic arts of the Himalayan kingdoms, where, because of the tolerance of local beliefs and rituals, many shamanic practices were adopted into Tibetan Buddhism. For example, the State Oracle of Tibet, a monk whose oracular powers were exercised on behalf of the government and the monastic system, was regarded as a high-ranking ecclesiastic, yet his ritualistic performances were no different than those of shamanic mediums throughout Central Asia. The adaptation of the psychopompic role of the shaman into Tibetan Buddhism resulted in the recitation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead to the corpse. This book describes in detail the frightening apparitions the deceased encounters day after day while in the 49-day interval between death and rebirth, and its reading is analogous to the shaman's narration of his journey to the underworld. Visual arts Parthia The Parthian empire came into being in Khorasan during the reign of Seleucus I, 358281 BC, following the absorption by the Parthians of Parni (Dahae) tribesmen. The caravans traversing their territory brought them wealth and ideas from abroad. The figural art of the Hellenistic world made an especially strong impression on them. The finest Parthian objects come from Old Nisa, a town situated on the edge of the Karakoram Range, some 11 miles (18 kilometres) south of Ashkhabad in Tajikistan, close to the later town of New Nisa. Old Nisa was founded around 171 BC by Mithradates I to serve as a royal Parthian residence and necropolis, as well as the kingdom's capital. It contained several fine temples and an impressive palace built around a vast central hall, the roof of which was upheld by wooden supports set in stone basesa practice followed in the town's larger houses. Life-size clay statues of men and women stood between these supports. The royal treasuries contained many valuables, including silver and silver gilt statuettes of local Parthian deities and of Greek gods, bronze and iron weapons, burnished and painted pottery, glass, and cast bronze animals, such as griffins. The most significant of these treasures, however, is a series of ivory horn-shaped drinking vessels, or rhytons. Some are embellished with paste inlays and precious stones, others have a carved frieze or band encircling their open ends. One rhyton (State Hermitage Museum) has a frieze of a procession that includes a Greek god. Conceived in the purest Hellenistic style, the frieze contrasts sharply with the rhyton's horned, lion-griffin-shaped terminal ornamentation, which is admirably modelled in the round, in accordance with the Scytho-Altaic tradition. Visual arts The kingdoms of western Turkistan and Afghanistan Skill in irrigation, with the resulting expansion in agriculture, encouraged urbanism and the growth of states, changes that coincided with the rise of nomadism. While the nomadic cattle and horse breeders took over the steppelands, the culturally distinct states of Sogdiana (part of Uzbekistan and much of Tajikistan), Fergana (the greater part of Uzbekistan), Chorasmia (the Tashkent region), and Bactria (mainly Afghanistan) were established. At times independent, at other times reduced to vassaldom, the first three states were centred on riversSogdiana around the Zeravshan and Kashkadarya, Fergana on the lower Syr Darya, and Chorasmia on the Amu Darya's basin. (The earliest references to these states are to be found in the Avesta, the principal scriptural work of the Zoroastrian religion, and in the inscription cut by order of the Persian king Darius I [reigned 522486 BC] on the face of the rock of Bisitun in the Kermanshah province of Iran.) Bactria extended from the Syr Darya to the Hindu Kush (southern Tajikistan and Afghanistan) and is rich in unexplored mounds. Excavations at Balkh show that its first inhabitants settled there when others were doing so at Afrasiab (Samarkand) and Merv. The political and economic changes that developed in the 4th century BC, following the Macedonian Greek king Alexander III the Great's conquest of these states and their incorporation in the Seleucid empire, and the conquests made, in turn, by the Parthians, Arabs, Turks, and Mongols are reflected in the regions' arts. The city of Alexandria-Kapisu Bagram, founded by Alexander the Great, became the clearinghouse for India's western trade. India's religious beliefs, especially Buddhism, and the scriptural style that evolved in Gandhara (an area situated between the Qonduz and Indus rivers in the lower Kabul valley of northwestern Pakistan) and Mathura (in the Punjab region of northwestern India) followed along the trade routes and reached not only Bactria but also, at times, Kashmir, Tibet, China, and even the remote oasis towns of the Tarim Basin in Sinkiang. At the same time, Seleucid support resulted in the introduction of Greco-Roman art forms in Bactria, Kapisu, Taxila (Rawalpindi), Gandhara, Mathura, and, after 30 years, even into Seistan. Sogdiana Sogdiana, with its capital of Afrasiab, was already noted for the sophistication and number of its towns when Alexander the Great conquered it in 328 BC and opened it up to Greek soldiers and administrators, and eventually to Roman traders. The Sogdians resented being governed by Alexander's successors, the Greek kings of the Seleucid dynasty. It is difficult to establish their relationship with their Seleucid suzerains and still more so with the later Kushans, but there is ample evidence to show that neither group of conquerors hindered the rise in both Sogdiana and Chorasmia of a local feudal nobility and class of rich farmers. A considerable amount of secular and religious pottery sculpture dating from the early Christian era to the Arab invasion of the 8th century has been found at Afrasiab. The more interesting examples consist of statuettes of clothed women, some of them representing Zoroastrian deities such as Anahita. They have foreshortened bodies and large heads with a withdrawn expression on their faces and wear tiaras, hats, or hoods sewn to their cloaks. When the cloaks are sleeveless, they are worn over straight, long-sleeved robes instead of draped garments. All the figures hold a piece of fruit, a symbol of fertility. Statuettes of the 3rd4th centuries from the fortified town of Tali Barsu, to the south of Samarkand, depict Syavush, the god of annual death and spring rebirth, as a musician. Statuettes of women flutists, riders, animals, and the Iranian semihuman-semianimal demigod Shah Gopat have also been discovered there. In the 7th and 8th centuries, sculpture, whether in clay or alabaster, was highly developed at Pendzhikent, a site some 40 miles (60 kilometres) east of Samarkand, where Indian influence was often felt. The earliest of Turkistan's mural paintings have been found in its eastern section. Those at Niy date from the 2nd century AD, those at Miran from the 3rd. The inspiration for both stemmed from Rome, whereas Buddhism provided the impulses for the slightly later murals at Bamian and Kizil. In the eastern zone the paintings were designed as backgrounds for sculpture, and, as in western Turkistan, they were executed in tempera. Some very high quality murals recently discovered in western Turkistan are dated slightly later. The oldest ones, which are extremely fragmentary, are from the Varakhsha, a princely residence to the northeast of Bukhara, now lying in the desert; they date from the 3rd to the 4th century AD. Murals discovered at the beginning of the 20th century at Samarkand, which are almost contemporary with those at Varakhsha, have been lost. The importance of these murals is wholly eclipsed by the slightly later works discovered recently in Sogdiana, such as the 7th-century works at Varakhsha. Some of the rooms in the main apartments of the Varakhsha Palace (which consisted of several detached buildings) are decorated with high-relief alabaster stucco panels and carved woodwork, as well as with paintings. Benches are inserted into the walls of one room, the area above them divided into two registers, or horizontal rows, both painted red. In the upper register was a procession of animals, little of which survives, and, in the lower, splendidly attired hunters seated on elephants pursued spirited leopards and creatures of the griffin family. Some 200 miles (300 kilometres) east of Samarkand, in a once fertile, now desert tract of land, the ruins of the great feudal castle of Mug survive. Among the objects excavated there was part of a wooden shield with the painted figure of a rider (State Hermitage Museum), which foreshadows a type commonly found in Islamic Persian book illumination. Mounted on a splendidly caparisoned horse, he wears a tunic of local cut and is equipped with a long sword, two daggers, two bows, and a quiver full of arrows. He is wasp-waisted in the manner of figures depicted in murals of Varakhsha and Pendzhikent. At Pendzhikent, a site close to Mug, and some 40 miles (60 kilometres) east of Samarkand, Sogdian architecture can be seen to advantage. The desert-engulfed city contained several large temples built of rectangular adobe bricks and blocks of beaten clay. The bricks were used for vaults and domes, while the flat sections of the roofs were made of rafters supported by wooden pillars or piers, some of which had been set in stone bases. Many of the more important houses were two-storied. A square room measuring 26 by 26 feet (eight metres by eight metres) had served as a temple sanctuary. Although, in a series of rooms connected to it, some fragmentary religious paintings survived, the paintings in another temple are better preserved. They depict the death, the Sogdian burial rite, and the rebirth of a youthful Syavush. More than 50 figures of this vast composition survive, some representing Sogdian noblemen, some a group of Turks. A number of the Sogdians are seated cross-legged in the Oriental manner and hold gold and silver vessels of Sasanian shape in three fingers of one hand. The men's single, close-fitting Sogdian tunics resemble garments depicted in paintings of the Buddhist temples of Bamian and eastern Turkistan, notably at Kizil and Kuca. The style and, in some cases, the subject matter of these Sogdian scenes must have influenced the illuminators of such Islamic Persian works as the Shah-nameh. Another set of murals is unusual in that it was executed in high relief and then coloured. It shows human beings, sea monsters, and fish, with the waves of the sea rendered in lower relief than the figures. Yet another mural depicts a feast against a black background: a king and several priests sit cross-legged under a canopy; a woman harpist, some musicians and dice players, and a procession of elephants complete the scene. By placing light figures against dark or vivid backgrounds, Sogdian artists evolved a distinct form of perspective. A study of the religious paintings shows that Central Asian Zoroastrianism retained elements from the earlier indigenous cult of the Sun and Moon. Some of the scenes in the secular works are linked by their subject matter (but not their style) to a small group of older Siberian gold and bronze B-shaped buckles and to the Siberian and Ordos plaques that are thought to illustrate local epics. Other secular scenes give full expression to Sogdian interest in the splendour of contemporary court life and prowess in hunting and warfare. The love of overall decoration and of animal motifs is as prevalent as in nomadic art. Details incorporated in Sogdian paintings proclaim the eclecticism of the society they depict and for which they were created. Sasanian influence from Persia is seen in crowns trimmed with ribbons, veils, and bells; in the styling and trimming of hair and beards; and in many of their vessel shapes. The helmets worn by the warriors in the Pendzhikent libation scene resemble those depicted in the murals of eastern Turkistan. The clothes follow local fashions, and certain horse trappings display disks the shapes of which recall nomadic types. Sogdian textiles are known to have been in great demand among their neighbours. Sasanian motifs must have reached Sogdian weavers by way of imports from Persia, indirectly routed through Parthia, and also from Zoroastrians seeking protection in Sogdiana from Persian persecution. These motifs often figure both on surviving textiles and on those recorded in the paintings. The murals at Varakhsha, for example, include motifs taken from textiles, and a 5th-century mural from Balalyk Tepe displays the head of a tusked, boarlike animal set in a roundel that is almost identical to that on a Sasanian fabric found at Astana in eastern Turkistan. Between the 5th and 7th centuries, the Sogdians made dried-brick caskets shaped like rectangular rooms to contain ossuaries, or urns for the bones of the dead. The sides and lids of the ossuaries were decorated. The ornamentation on an ossuary from Bia Naiman (State Hermitage Museum) has so many points in common with the decorations on a series of silver vessels that were, until recently, assigned to Bactria that the latter have come to be accepted as Sogdian. Several ewers have niches containing nude women rendered in a markedly Indian style, thereby recalling many a carved ivory plaque from Bagram. Very similar niches adorn the Bia Naiman ossuary, but these contain crowned figures. In both cases the niches owe their form to Western influence, but those on the ossuary are formed of columns surmounted by capitals upholding pearl-studded arches, while on the ewers the Central Asian rosette replaces the capitals and the pearls. Sculpture, both in relief and in the round, was widely produced in Sogdiana. Much of the earlier work takes the form of panels or friezes made of alabaster, stucco, and wood. Rosettes, roundels, disks, and vegetation provide the chief motifs. Audience chambers and large reception rooms often contained statues in the round. Even the statues attached to the wall had the appearance of being worked in the round. The earliest wooden caryatids, or columns in human form, are found at Pendzhikent. The caryatids in the form of women have their hair elaborately dressed, and, although nude at the waist, they wear boleros, as well as close-fitting, heavily trimmed skirts and splendid necklaces of Indian appearance. Once again, these figures recall those on Bagram's ivory plaques and Buddhist statuettes of the 1st to 5th centuries. Visual arts Kushan The Kushans replaced the Greeks in Bactria about 130 BC. They are thought to have been of Yeh-chih stock with a strong admixture of Hephthalites, Saka, and Tocharian. One branch of this group migrated to the Tarim Basin and founded a short-lived empire, while the other, under the name of Kushan, gained control of Central Asia. Capturing a section of the great trade route leading from India and China to the west, the Kushans derived much of their revenue from the transit dues they exacted from the caravans crossing their territory, which often were carrying supplies of Chinese gold, silver, and nickel from the Tarim oasis towns to the Seleucid Persians. About 106 BC the first caravan to carry silk from China direct to Persia passed through territory that had belonged to the Seleucids but was now divided between the Kushans and Parthians. Kushan art reached its fullest development in the 2nd century AD, when the great king Kaniska is believed to have reigned. A magnificent, almost life-size, now headless sculpture of Kaniska (Archaeological Museum, Mathura) shows him wearing an elegant version of nomadic dress. His kingdom extended from Central Asia to include Gandhara and Mathura, where the Seleucids had so firmly established Hellenistic art that Western influence continued to maintain its hold even in the reign of the first members of India's Gupta dynasty. When Mahayana Buddhism reached Gandhara during the 4th and 5th centuries AD, its sculptors turned to the Hellenistic world as a matter of course for a visual conception of Buddha and quickly evolved several Hellenistic versions. In the popular Apollo version, Buddha is long-faced, long-nosed, and has wavy hair. This type survived into the 5th century and penetrated as far as Kashmir and Turkistan. A school of religious sculpture equal in importance to that of Gandhara developed almost simultaneously at Mathura. Its earliest Buddhist images are virtually contemporary with the earliest ones produced in Gandhara, but, in Mathura, Indian influences predominate. The portrayal of Buddha in the Mathuran style is softer yet more direct. The features are more Eastern; eyebrows extend in a continuous, sinous line; hair is straight; the earlobes are elongated; and an enigmatic smile replaces the withdrawn expression of the Hellenized Buddhas of Gandhara. While the sculptors of Mathura used a red sandstone, the Gandharans worked in limestone or a local gray schist. They generally chose the latter for the small, uniform-sized panels with which they faced their stupas and vishanas, carving them with scenes of Buddha's life. On the panels, the story unfolds from left to right, each scene being framed within either trees, leaves, or Corinthian columns sometimes linked by arches. These religious narratives often include furniture and details drawn from contemporary life. The figures, which use gestures of Indian origin to convey emotion, display racial characteristics that range from Indo-European to Mongolian. Many figures are presented in the frontal position favoured by Parthian artists, while others appear three-quarter face, as in Hellenistic art. Some wear Hellenistic robes and headdresses such as those worn in Palmyra, an ancient city in Syria. The Gandharan style of sculpture was no longer produced after this area was invaded by the White Huns, in the 6th century. Central Afghanistan is rich in Kushan sites. Ateshkadehye Sorkh Kowtal, situated in the Qonduz valley, close to the Kabul-Mazar-e Sharif road, is dated by an inscription to the time of Kaniska's reign. The architecture of the region was very highly developed there. The town was protected by a double row of walls that ascended the hill on which it stood. The most impressive site within the wall was occupied by a dynastic fire temple, built to an Achaemenid plan in large blocks of well-dressed stone and approached by an imposing staircase. Within, columns topped by Corinthian capitals supported the roof. Numerous sculptures had originally adorned the interior, those worked with floral and animal motifs conforming to the Gandharan tradition, while figural works followed Scytho-Parthian and, to some extent, Hellenistic traditions. The Buddhist art of central Afghanistan is admirably represented at Bamian, where Mani, the Iranian founder of the Manichaean religion, probably lived and encouraged the growth of a religious pictorial art in the 3rd century AD. At both the eastern and western approaches to Bamian, a huge statue of Buddha as ruler of the world was cut into the face of the rock. The smaller statue measures 120 feet (about 40 metres) and dates from soon after the town's foundation in the 4th century AD; the other measures 170 feet (50 metres) and dates from the 5th century. In their commanding monumentality, both reflect the influence of the Mathuran image of King Kaniska and the portrait sculpture of Sasanian kings and Parthian notables. Traces of painting show Sasanian and Indian influences in the rock-hewn niche behind the earlier Buddha. Regardless of Manichaean influence, Sasanian elements prevailed at Bamian between the 4th and 6th centuries. At Duktar-e Nowshirvan, near Bamian, a 4th-century painting of a Sasanian king flanked by attendants survives. The murals in Bamian's 5th-century temple of Kakrak include one of a deified king of Sasanian appearance, while others display the figure of Buddha set within a circle and wearing a costume of the Sasanian type. Sasanian motifs of paired birds and griffins placed in medallions or pearl circlets are common. In the murals at Imgur-Enlil, Buddha wears a close-fitting tunic resembling that worn by the Sasanian king depicted on the rock carvings of Taq-e Bostan. The traces of Hellenism, which are also evident in these wall paintings, began to disappear by the 5th century, when Sasanian influence gradually gave way to the Gupta style of India. Stemming from Gupta art is the practice adopted at Bamian between the 5th and 6th centuries of painting in the dome of a sanctuary a Buddha within a circle or hexagon. Gradually, these circles and hexagons became symbols of the heavenly Buddha. Many developed into rosettes and eight pointed starsmotifs that were retained in the 10th and 11th centuries by the Islamic Seljuqs, who carried them to Persia and Asia Minor. As Gupta influence increased, sculpture gained in importance. A new style had evolved by the 8th to 9th centuries, but it did not penetrate into western Turkistan, where the Arab conquerors religiously opposed figural art. In the 9th century many Buddhists left Kashgaria, and Islam gained ground. Figural sculpture was forced underground and was primarily produced by secret shamanistic cults of an indigenous Central Asian origin. Although figural art was never to flourish in western Turkistan as gloriously as it had prior to the Arab invasion, there was a revival under the Mongols in the form of book illuminations. Visual arts Eastern Turkistan Uighurs The figural arts found new patrons in eastern Turkistan among the Turkic Uighurs, who while living in T'ang dynasty China had been influenced by Manichaean figurative art. The overthrow in China in AD 846 of Buddhism by official Confucianism forced the Buddhist Uighurs to migrate to eastern Turkistan. Gradually, they gained control over the Tien Shan region, Turfan, and the northeastern section of the Tarim Basin. The Turkic Uighurs especially favoured portraiture. In the 7th and 8th centuries Uighur artists already had acquired great proficiency in rendering likenesses in a style heavily influenced by Chinese portraiture of the T'ang period. These portraits were painted on silk and were frequently inscribed with the sitter's name. Khitans The figural style is believed to have been transmitted to the Mongols by the Khitans when the latter were living on the middle reaches of the Yenisey. The wealth of the Khitan princes is reflected in the furnishings of burial mounds discovered at Kopeni, some 200 miles (300 kilometres) to the south of Krasnoyarsk. Dating from the 7th to 8th century, these mounds were similar in type to those constructed by the nomads of the 1st millennium BC. One of the richest graves contained four gold jugs set on a silver dish and a number of gold, silver, and bronze ornaments (State Hermitage Museum). Two of the jugs, although undecorated, carry Orhon inscriptions on their bases. Two others are covered with delicate relief representations of birds and fish surrounded by flowers and vegetation, executed in a style influenced by Islamic art. A Scytho-Altaic hunting motif of riders pursuing a tiger, a deer, and a panther appears on a bronze ornamental object. Turkic tribes had been concentrating their numbers in Central Asia from about the 5th century AD. In the 6th century the Kul Tepe and Bilge Khan tribes established a state of their own in the Orhon valley. The inscriptions that they carved on the valley's rocks are of considerable historical importance. In the 7th century the Turkic Oguz people were so numerous that they constituted 24 tribes. The Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, and Seljuqs were of Oguz extraction. Visual arts Arctic regions In the arctic zone of Central Asia, the prehistoric age extends from the 3rd millennium BC to the arrival of Europeans around AD 1800. Knowledge of the region's arts is still very limited, for it is wholly dependent upon the sculptures produced by Eskimos living on the shores and in the hinterland of Siberia and the Bering Strait. These sculptures are mostly in walrus tusk, though wood and reindeer horn examples also exist. The majority are small in size and worked in the round to form terminal ornaments for utilitarian or ceremonial objects or statuettes. The latter are not provided with bases and thus must have been designed to be carried about. Many of the implements are decorated with incised patterns formed chiefly of lines and dots. As in all early arts, the statuettes and terminal ornaments are largely concerned with hunting or the magical practices of shamanism. The earliest and finest statuettes of which there is knowledge are assigned to the Okvik culture, which some scholars date to the pre-Christian era, but which others assign to its early centuries. Okvik art is concerned primarily with the representation of the human figure, differing in that respect from the contemporary or slightly later Old Bering Sea culture, where interest largely centres on animals, such as reindeer, elks, bears, and seals. Works of the Okvik and later Arctic schools often depict women, sometimes in the nude, sometimes clothed. The nude figures seldom include more of the arms than shoulder stumps. Their bodies are short and flat, their heads large, pear-shaped, and carefully worked, as are hands when included. The faces are carved and are sometimes incised with lines, probably denoting tattooing. The so-called Okvik Madonna (University of Alaska Museum, Fairbanks) is perhaps the most expressive of these statuettes. Some Okvik animal designs are particularly interesting because of certain stylistic details that point to a relationship with works of the Scytho-Siberian school. Reindeer are so frequently depicted that the discovery at Pazyryk of a horse's mask in the form of a reindeer's head led to the suggestion that the mask was a survival from a reindeer cult acquired by the Altaians from a northern people such as the Eskimo. That theory has been discounted, yet some Okvik works are undoubtedly related to certain slightly older examples of Siberian metalwork. Thus, the heads of some terminal ornaments bear a close resemblance to those of certain Siberian works. The lozenge-shaped muscles that appear on Eskimo carvings amid lines intended to portray the animal's skeleton are very similar to those of the Pazyryk dot and comma markings. In late- or post-Okvik times certain specifically Eskimo objects, such as masks, were decorated with stylized animal heads executed in relief and accompanied by bosses that recall the Altaic, especially those that reflect Chinese influence. Compositions such as that on an unidentifiable object (possibly a rake or comb) in the University of Alaska Museum, which includes as its central motif the head of an animal resembling a bear or a seal, display a marked affinity with west Siberian ones. Climatic changes in the 17th century led to contacts with the outer world in the 19th century and brought the traditional Eskimo school of sculpture to an abrupt end. When, toward the end of the century, art started to revive, it did so under European influence, eventually developing a greater concern for aesthetic than religious considerations. The new style retained much of the directness of approach and formal conventions of the traditional style, but, in addition, there was a greater emphasis on naturalism. Group scenes, too, became popular, as did animal and bird compositions. There has been an extensive production of small sculptures, chiefly of fish, bird, or animal forms, in the 20th century. Tamara Talbot Rice Visual arts Himalayan cultures of Nepal and Tibet Nepal The art of Nepal is centred in the Kathmandu Valley, in an area of less than 250 square miles (650 square kilometres). The artists are Newars, or Mongoloids, different ethnically from, though partly intermingled with, the peoples of India, whose art they made their ownwhether its themes were Hindu or Buddhist. Architecture There is only one Nepalese architectural style, varied according to its function as private dwelling, palace, Buddhist monastery, or Buddhist or Hindu temple. The style is the protracted local flowering of an Indian architectural traditionof brick and wood architecture with tiered, sloping roofsother varieties of which are found in the western Himalayas and in Kerala in the southwest. Essentially, there are two kinds of Nepalese Buddhist shrine, or stupa (also called caitya): the large stupa and the small, monolithic stupa. Characteristic of the large stupa like the one at Bodnath is the low base from which it rises and its crowning dome-shape. The small stupa was generally set in the courtyard of a Buddhist monastery. The extant monasteries, none of which dates earlier than the 14th century, are consistent in their plans and structures. A central courtyard flanked by residential buildings is entered through a gate with a richly carved tympanum (torana) and porch. Opposite the gate and in the centre of the courtyard is the main building, the stupa; with its one- to three-tiered roof, it rises higher than the buildings that surround it and forms the square of the courtyard. Most Hindu temples are freestanding. The more ancient temples have two superimposed roofs; the later ones are five-roofed temples, given further height by tiered brick socles, or bases. On each story of the towerlike structure, wooden beams and struts (a structural piece designed to resist pressure in the direction of its length) support a widely projected slanting roof, the struts ascending diagonally from the central structure to the edge of the tiled roof. The majestically tapered, ascending profile of the structure, with its strong contrast of light playing on the roofs and masses of shade looming below, is peculiar to Nepal. Rich in textures and colours, the temples are embellished with carved and painted struts, carved doorframes and window frames, and embossed gilded copper sheets. Like the pantheon on the stone temples of India, the pantheon of Nepal is laid out mainly on the exterior of the templein contrast to Tibet, where it is displayed on the interior of the temple. Visual arts Prehistoric cultures Paleolithic cultures The earliest artifacts discovered in Central Asia were found in Siberia and western Turkistan and are from about the 13th millennium BC. During the millennia that followed, migrants entered the region from various directions, regardless of the geographic obstacles they encountered. As a result, some of their artifacts correspond with those produced at a similar stage of development in more western areas; some finds from the northeastern part of what was formerly Soviet Turkistan, for example, are related to certain objects made in Iran and Mesopotamia, and those from northwestern Central Asia are linked to eastern and central Europe by means of the Volga River and of Kazakstan. The Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) sites of western Turkistan are mainly concentrated in the Lake Baikal area. A cave in the Baysuntau Range containing the body of a Neanderthal boy aged about nine had been so carefully prepared that it is evident that the people who made his grave believed in an afterlife. The site of Malta, 50 miles (80 kilometres) to the southeast of Irkutsk, and that of Buret, 80 miles (130 kilometres) to the north, are noted for their mammoth-tusk figurines of nude women. They resemble Paleolithic statuettes from Europe and the Middle East and probably served as fertility symbols or as representations of the great goddess, whose cult was widespread. Some of these figurines depict elegant, slender women, others heavy, corpulent ones. Of five found at Buret, one is unusual in that it is of a clothed woman wearing a one-piece trouser suit with a hood attached to it comparable to those still worn by present-day Eskimos. In recent years Paleolithic sites have been discovered south of Samarkand, and rock paintings have been found at Zaraut Say (Zaraut Stream) in the Babatag Range, 50 miles east of Termiz, and in the Shakty Caves in the Pamirs. Executed in red ochre, they depict hunting scenes. Those in the Shakty Cave are the older and include a man disguised as a bird and other men wearing skins and shooting at wild oxen with bows and arrows. The invention of the bow is ascribed to the 10th millennium BC, the Mesolithic Period (Middle Stone Age). Artistic development during this period is attested by a pottery fragment of a most expressive woman's face dating from the 3rd millennium BC and recovered from the site of Vosnessenovka in western Siberia. Neolithic and Metal Age cultures Many Neolithic (New Stone Age) sites were discovered in what was formerly Soviet Central Asia, and the number of Bronze Age sites is even higher. The majority were found on the middle reaches of the Yenisey River, especially in the Minusinsk Basin, where metallurgy developed early. They testify to the existence of three main, basically successive, yet often overlapping cultures: the Afanasyevskaya, Andronovo, and Karasuk, so called after the villages near which each culture was identified. A cemetery to the southwest of Krasnoyarsk, on the slopes of the Afanasyevskaya Mountains, contained 80 buri