The bronze plaques with the images of riders from Kyrgyzstan and China

The article examines the findings of bronze plaques depicting horsemen galloping on horseback and shooting, turning back, not previously known in Russian archaeological literature, that occur in China and Kyrgyzstan. The article traced the main events in the history of research of bronze plaques depicting horsemen found at different times in the Transbaikal region, Mongolia, the Sayan-Altai, Upper Ob, Upper Irtysh region, Southern Urals and Central Asia. Previously, this type of plaques was detected in only one of the burials of the Yenisei Kyrgyz in Minusinsk Basin, located on the left bank of Yenisei river. Bronze relief plaques depicting hunters riding on swift horses and shooting, turning back, and chasing them angry tigers, and running wild animals were first discovered by Soviet archaeologists in L.A. Yevtukhova and S.V. Kiselyov during excavations in one of the caches in a large stone mound Kopenskiy Chaa-Tas. Probably, highest representatives of the Kyrgyz elite were buried in this mound. Researchers have suggested that the heroic hunting scenes depicted in kopenskiy reliefs were derived from artistic traditions of medieval Sogdian and Sasanian Iran. During the international expeditions in 1990 and 2013 in China and Kyrgyzstan, the author of this article was working in museum exhibitions in the Chinese city of Lanzhou and the capital of the Kyrgyz Republic, Bishkek. He found two bronze plaques with the same images of shooting riders discovered by Chinese and Kyrgyz researchers and collectors in the province of Gansu in China and in the Chui valley in Kyrgyzstan. The study of these objects provides additional opportunities to significantly expand hitherto known area of distribution of such images in the Central Asian historical and cultural region. As a result of the study, it was determined that such plaques depicting shooting riders were not specific to the culture of the Yenisei Kyrgyz, but to other nomadic Turkic ethnic groups also. Judging by the results of the analysis, bronze plaques from the museum's collections of Kyrgyzstan and China should treat the Karluk state lifetime, which existed in the Tien Shan and the Seven Rivers in the final period of the early Middle Ages. During the investigation it was found that the find from Gansu consists of a bronze, gilt, heart-shaped badge hanging pan loop, which probably served an attachment to the belt. Probably, this plaque was part of the horse harness. On this badge are depicted two riders carrying bows, turned back, between them a feline predator was featured. A bronze plaque, found in the Chui valley, depicts a rider shooting turning back. A headpiece is reproduced at the head of the rider. Its purpose is not clearly determined. Probably, it could serve as a decoration sewn on the costume or as part of horse harness. The analysis confirmed the view of previous investigators that images of shooting riders were part of the hunting scenes originating from nomadic and Iranian cultural traditions.