Wooden artifacts of Jiaohe (Yar-hoto) cemetery in Turfan basin in Xinjiang

The ancient city of Jiaohe (Yar-Hoto) is situated 10 km to the west from the modern Turfan city in Xinjiang. According to Chinese chronicles, in Han times Jiaohe was the capital of Jushi (Gushi) princedom. In the season of 1993-1994 at the cemetery to the north of the ancient city two big graves and more than 50 ordinary burials were excavated. Both big and small graves have been plundered; almost no grave good have remained. Only some burials gave stray finds. The whole cemetery yielded about 40 wooden artifacts. Chinese archaeologists describe arrows, quivers, knives, wallet-storages, buckles, fasteners, statuettes, vessels and other categories. They consider the culture of Jiaohe cemetery to be a local one, belonging to the nobility and common people of Jushi (Gushi). Our analysis of pottery found in Jiaohe burials supports such an opinion. But the attribution of all the graves to Han period is a matter of doubts. A lot of bone and / or antler horse harness equipment from Jiaohe, especially details of saddles have direct analogies in Russian Altai, in frozen tombs of Pazyryk culture, which are dated to the IV century B. C. Many of wooden artifacts from Jiaohe also do have analogies in Pazyryk culture: wooden models of mirrors with side handle, wooden ribs for soft leather quivers, wooden models of knives. Turfan wooden vessels are not so well preserved co compare them with Pazyryk ones. Wooden wallet-storages like the ones from Jiaohe were never met in Pazyryk culture, but are quite common for barrows of Yaloman II burial ground in Altai, which belongs to hunno-sarmatian time (I cent. B. C. - IV cent. A. D.). Wooden statuettes from Jiaohe are quite original. They differ from Chinese Han time grave figurines, both wooden and clay, because the latter ones do always have hands and legs. No wooden statuettes were ever met in Altai. In Kazakhstan and Central Asia wood in archaeological sites is poorly preserved because of local climate and soils. But some of the Central Asian sites, which belong to the I century B.C. - IV century A.D. have yielded terracotta or alabaster “idols”, closely resembling Jiaohe specimen: short cylinders with the neck and face just marked. It is generally considered, that these statuettes were transferred from Western China (i.e. Xinjiang) by Yuezhi or Wusun tribes. So we may assume that burials of Jiaohe cemetery belong to different periods of time and different cultures. The distribution of different categories of grave goods among the graves of different constructions can help us to determine more precisely their ethnic and cultural attribution.