Dingling - Religious Beliefs and Culture

Religious Beliefs and Culture

The cultural aspects of the Dingling can be observed from the Noin-Ula excavations in northern Mongolia. There were a total of 212 tumuli. the Noin-Ula mountains, called Tzun-Mode by the local population, are chiefly grown with pine, their higher zones with larch and cedar.

The burial finds were divided into three groups by Trever:

• Imported Chinese objects, such as silk embroidery
• Objects coming from the West, not from Greece and her Near Eastern colonies, but belonging to the culture of the Bactrian upper classes and Parthian Iran, both impregnated with Hellenistic culture
• Objects of local workmanship

The objects of Chinese origin are more or less well known, as W.P. Yetts mentioned them in his article. Some of the objects contain Taoist elements and ideographs, from silk embroidered with scrolled clouds and horsemen, and a lacquered bowl decorated with birds. On a damask design, a horseman holds an object from which ascends a cloud of vapour. The Chinese ideographs read:

"hsin shen ling kuang ch'eng shou wan nien" (新神灵广成寿万年) meaning "renews spirituality and extends longevity to a myriad years". An accompanying inscriptions dispels all doubts as to their identity, for they are called "hsien jen" (仙境), Taoist illuminates or fairies. Yetts adds that the philosopher "Guang Cheng" is a prominent figure in Taoist myth, who had been regarded as an early incarnation of Laozi.

The lacquered cup has an incised inscription too, which was deciphered by Prof. Otto Kümmel and Umehara Sueji:

"September of the 5th year of the Chein-p'ing (2 BCE)". The manufacturer is "Wang-t'an-ching", the painter of the decoration "Huo", another manufacturer "I'", superintended by "Pien Wu" (建平五年九月工王潭经画工获壶大武省). Two other signs on the bottom of the cup are according to Yetts to be read as "Shang lin" (上林, which is the name of a park to the west of Chang'an, capital of Western Han) The identity of the buried is not known.

The "western" objects reached the Xiongnu through trade along the Silk Road, being the result of the commercial capital of the ancient world having penetrated into the remotest regions of the East. From countries producing articles of luxury, such as Bactria, impregnated as it was with Hellenistic culture, merchants imported goods into the land of the Xiongnu. This is probably what called into life the remarkable local art of wool embroidery destined for the use of the princes. In Chinese style and with the use of local dyes made of plants, Hellenistic plant motives and realistic images of the chiefs, with all the details of clothing, way of hair dressing and horsegear are depicted.

From literary sources we have some knowledge of the upper classes' daily life: the dead princes are buried in two coffins, an outer and inner one. Their clothes are of gold and silver brocade and fur. Nothing is known about the burial customs of the ordinary people.