At the Tongwancheng Ruins Museum
In the exhibition unit of "Helian's Booming City of Unity"
There is such a stone horse standing quietly
It looks tall and mighty from a distance, and looks cute and cute up close
The side view curves are smooth
The body has exquisite patterns and the horse face is engraved with armor
Look straight ahead with your head held high and drive in silence
Ready to run and full of energy
It is the Tongwancheng Ruins Museum
To give visitors a more comprehensive understanding
The history of the Kingdom of Bactria and the Unification of Ten Thousand Cities and "reproduced"
National treasure-level cultural relics - Daxia stone horse
The Great Xia Stone Horse re-engraved by the Tongwancheng Ruins Museum
The authentic Stone Horse of Bactria is collected in the Forest of Steles Museum in Xi'an, and is a stone sculpture of the mount of Helian Bobo's eldest son Helian Xuan more than 1,500 years ago, witnessing the history of Helian Bobo's entry into the Central Plains and the founding of the Bactrian Dynasty (Helian Xia), and is the only relic with a written date found so far in the Bactrian Dynasty.
The only relic of the Bactrian Dynasty with a written chronology
The head of the Daxia stone horse is about 2 meters high, the whole body is 2.25 meters long, and it stands in a standing position on a base with a cloud pattern carved in the shade. The stone horse's tail is mutilated, the head is slightly lower, the horse's neck is upright, and the head forms a 55-degree angle. The front legs are straight, the hind legs are slightly flexed, the right hind legs are composed and squatted, and the bottom of the abdomen is connected to the base part for hollowing. Between the two forelimbs is a solid and "bell-shaped" shaped treatment. The two hind limbs are also solid, and the surface is engraved with decorative patterns, and the shape is simple and clumsy, and it is strong and strong.
The Great Xia Stone Horse in the Forest of Stone Steles Museum in Xi'an
The mane on the neck of the stone horse is carved into a wavy shape and smoothly draped to the right; the abdomen is carved through, and the horse legs are carved in the form of high relief; there is a leg screen between the two front legs and the two hind legs to maintain stability; on the screen wall between the hind legs of the stone horse, there is a mountain stone pattern; the lower part of the front legs is engraved with the inscription "Great Xia Zhenxing Six Years Old in the Fifth Month of JiaziXia... The Great General... made" and so on.
The inscription of the Bactrian Stone Horse
According to historical records, in 418 AD, Helian Bobo built the capital Wancheng, and named his eldest son Helian Xuan as the great general Zhen Shounan Capital Chang'an, living in the han Chang'an City Palace, and this large stone horse should be one of the stone carvings in his palace garden. The "great general" mentioned in the inscription is helian Xuan, the eldest son of the Xiongnu Emperor Helian Bobo, and the sixth year of the Great Xia Zhenxing refers to the era number of Helian Bobo, corresponding to 424 AD.
In the middle of the last century, when the famous art historians Wang Ziyun and He Zhenghuan and their colleagues from the Northwest History Museum went to the ruins of The Han Chang'an City in Xi'an to investigate, they found it in the farmland of Chajiazhai Village. In the early summer of 1954, it was collected and incorporated into the collection by cultural relics workers at the Northwest History Museum (now the Forest of Steles Museum in Xi'an).
Ruins of Tongwan City
Superb artistic value
It has an important place in the history of Chinese sculpture
Dr. Wang Qingwei, an associate researcher at the Forest of Steles Museum in Xi'an, said, "China's stone carving art started late, about the beginning of the Han Dynasty, there were large round carving works, and most of them followed the shape of the stone, which was quite simple and lovely. Most of these early stone carvings were placed in the palace garden as a landscape, and the Daxia stone horse should have been placed in front of the Changle Palace as a jigong stone carving. ”
The art of stone horse modeling very clearly inherits the expression techniques since the Qin and Han Dynasties, and from a large perspective, the stone modeling makes it look vivid and abnormal. Fully use the combination of line carving, relief and circular carving, the entire sculpture appears in the form of circular carving, but a large number of line carving and bas-relief treatment are done on the surface, which not only maintains the thickness and fullness of the sculpture, but also has a certain painting effect and decorative effect.
Great Xia stone horse detail pattern
Mr. Wang Ziyun once described this stone horse as "simple and clumsy in shape, which is quite close to several stone horses in the Tomb of Huo Of the Western Han Dynasty, especially the vigorous and robust style expressed in "Ma Ta Xiongnu". Because there is a gap under the horse's belly, the carvers in order to maintain the strength of the four legs, so the front and back legs carved into two screen walls, this ingenious arrangement, at that time, is very progressive", this evaluation of the artistic value of the Daxia stone horse is enough to show its important position in the history of Chinese sculpture art.
The Western Han Dynasty horses trampled on the Huns
The fortunes of the Bactrian Dynasty established by the Xiongnu Helian Bobo were short-lived, existing only for 24 years in Chinese history, but leaving the only capital city ruins of the Xiongnu in the long river of human history - the ruins of Tongwancheng, and this stone horse engraved with the year number of the Great Xia Kingdom is the only physical object inscribed with words to prove the Bactrian Dynasty, and its cultural relics value is self-evident, and this has become the inevitable reason for its appearance in the Tongwancheng Ruins Museum in the form of a replica.
Some excerpts are from Shaanxi Daily
The Stone Horse of Bactria: A Divine Horse Spanning a Thousand Years
Editor 丨Hou Yongpeng Review 丨 Yixin