Fantastic Fauna from China to Crimea: Image-Making in Eurasian Nomadic Societies, 700 BCE-500 Ce

The nomadic elite nucleus embraced an elaborate image system to construct collective memory in opportunistic nomadic alliances, transcending border regions and reaching the heartland of sedentary empires. This zoomorphic visual rhetoric became a status-defining symbol and a bonding agent, later adopted by sedentary neighbours to showcase worldliness and control over the Other.

Format: Hardback
Length: 336 pages
Publication date: 31 March 2024
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Numerous Iron-Age nomadic alliances thrived along the extensive Eurasian steppe route, spanning a distance of approximately 5000 miles. These alliances were characterized by a distinctive image-making style rooted in metonymically conveyed zoomorphic designs, which created an alternative ecological reality. The nomadic elite nucleus embraced this elaborate image system to construct collective memory in diverse political alliances organized around shared geopolitical goals rather than ethnic ties. This zoomorphic visual rhetoric, often referred to as the animal style, became so pervasive across the Eurasian steppe network that it transcended border regions and reached the heartland of sedentary empires like China and Persia. This book explores how a shared fluency in animal-style design became a status-defining symbol and a bonding agent in opportunistic nomadic alliances, and was later adopted by their sedentary neighbours to showcase worldliness and control over the Other. In this study of immense geographical scope, the author raises broader questions about the place of nomadic societies in the art-historical canon.

Weight: 864g
Dimension: 163 x 243 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781399528528