Artistic Bone Wares of the Ancient Kangju and the Neighboring Countries

The Kangju artistic narrative bone wares can be productively considered only against the background of earlier and synchronous Xiongnu, Khwarezmian and Bactrian Yuezhi artifacts. Apparently, this range of products and subjects took shape after a series of migrations from the turn of the 2nd—1st centuries BC. Such items were elements of the military male elite subculture, found on nomadic artifacts — belts, bows, boxes for valuable small items. In form, they are related to the traditions of the more eastern Xiongnu, from which the Yuezhi fled to Western Turkestan. They depicted only men, and there are only two plots — war/honoring the winners and hunting (preparation for it). Their peculiar addition are the scenes of fighting and torturing animals. Seventeen elements of the specific Kangju bone art wares have been identified. Kangju compositions differ from the neighbors by the absence of obvious Hellenistic influence and, apparently, are a visualization of folklore (epic, genealogical legends of the nobility). The nomadic traditions are emphasized here. The non-everyday nature of these scenes is quite clear (symbolic hunting of ungulates without arrows, a combination of a duel of male Bactrians and a pair of warriors on a belt in Orlat; a huge bird, overshadowing the victorious warrior in Kyzylbulak-4; a fantastic beast in Kylyshzhar, etc.). The rivals in Orlat and Kyzylbulak have the same ethnographic characteristics and reflect the legends of the old wars inside Kangju.