| In the fourth year of the Zhenguan reign(630 A.D.),the Tang Empire founded Xiyi Zhou(today’s Hami).Ten years later(640 A.D.),took over Gaochang(today’s Turpan),and installed Xizhou there,and Tingzhou at Beiting(today’s Jimsar).At the same time,it set up Anxi Protectorate at Xizhou to administer Yizhou,Xizhou and Tingzhou.In the twenty-second year(648A.D.)of the Zhenguan reign,the Tang Empire annexed Qiuci(at today’s Kucha),and transposed the Anxi Protectrate from Xizhou to Qiuci.In the fourth years of the Xianqing reign(658 A.D.),the Tang Empire defeated the Western Turks,bringing the Western Regions into it’s territory completely.Since then,the Tang Empire established civil and military administrations in the Western Regions and assigned different levels of officials.During the time,a number of ethnic groups,including Han,Turk,Tubo,Uyghur,Sogdian and aboriginal residents,lived in the Western Regions.Popular religions like Buddhism,Confucianism and Zoroastrianism were prevalent among these peoples.Good number of metal belt plaques,which represent the ranks of civil and military personnel in the Western Regions,has been discovered from city sites and tombs of the Tang Dynasty in Xinjiang.However,little research has been done on these artifacts.An array of questions is yet to be answered: What are the relationships between the belts and those found in other regions of China as well as neighboring regions out of China?How do the cultures of the ethnic peoples influence the composition and styles of the belts? What is the producing process and chemical composition of the belts?The author calssifies the Tang belt plaques found in Xinjiang into three types A,B and C.Then compare them with their contemporaneous counterparts found in other regions of China as well as neiboring countries.Discuss connestions with the Tang rule of Xiyu,foreign religions,producing techniques,decorative arts.Further,discusses the spatial distribution of the three types of belt plaques.In order to study the producing techniques and chemical compositions,the author collected 13 samples from the Baiyanghe cemetery in Fuang County,Changji Prefecture,the Kafusalang site in the Tekes County,Ili Prefecture,and the Abusanteer cemetery in the Qapqal County,Ili Prefecture.He conducts metallographic analysis as well as chemical composition analysis with EDS(Energy Disperse Spectroscopy).Type A belt plaques composed of a buckle,rectanglular plaques,half-circular plaques and a tail plaque.They have been mostly discovered in China,rarely in other countries,which implies that they are closely related to Tang officials in the Western Regions.Type B belt plaques are composed of a buckle,rectangular plaques,halfcircular plaques,crescent plaques and a tail plaque.Apart from Xinjiang,type B belt plaques have been found in Samarkand of Uzbekistan,Altai republic of Russia and Wuzhong of Ningxia,China.Crescent shapes are consequently present upon King’s crown and above Zoroastrianism priest on Sassanian gold and silver coins,as well as on Sogdian wall paintings,silverwares,ossuaries and mortuary stone carvings,connecting the crescent plaques with the Sogdians.Type C belt plaques are composed of a buckle,pointed arch plaques and a tail plaque,which are decorated with plant motifs.The author compares them with Sogdian silverwares and their imitations and finds that they are influenced by the producing techniques and decorative styles of Sogdian silverwares.Type B and type C are wildly dispersed because of the frequent migration of the ethnic pwoples across the Eurasian continent and commercial activities along the Silk Road during the Tang Empire.As the metallographic figures indicate,most of the 12 analyzed samples display casting structure of copper-zinc-tin,copper-zinc-lead,copper-zinc,copper-tin alloys,the dendritic segregation of α phase and(α+δ)Eutectoid;a few of them are cold-worked.A few of the analyzed samples possess the eutectic casted structure of silver-copper,silver-copper-zinc alloy;the silver-based sosoloid and the copper-based sosoloid are obviously separated.The EDS analysis shows that most copper and silver belt plaques are tempered zinc.Copper-zinc alloys are brass,called Tou Tong in the Tang Dynasty.Brass were mainly used to produce belt plaques and then harnesses.These brass samples supply important information for the study of metallurgy of the Tang Empire and the Sino-West technical exchange. |
