Afrāsiāb Mural (II): the Northern and the Eastern Walls
The Chinese and the Indian Emperors
When the cutting of a relief road on the Afrāsiāb mould - the ancient, original site of nowadays Samarkand, Uzbekistan - revealed a carefully oriented square hall decorated with exceptionally fine frescoes, one of the famous Sogdian royal pavilions, mentioned in the New Book of Tang, was finally discovered.
In these chronicles a pavilion is described, depicted with kings and princes from whole Asia, the king of Sogdia visited each morning to pray . Chinese Emperors occupied the northern wall, Byzantine and Persian rulers the western one, Indians and Turkish sovereigns the eastern ones. The hall, materialized on the Afrasiab mould from earth deeps, was recognized as a part of the royal palace of King Varkhuman (c. 650-670 CE), Ikhshid of Sogdia, and was called the Ambassadors’ Hall, since King Varkhuman (mentioned in an inscription on the western wall) requested a variation in the frescoes program reported by the New Book of Tang: he reserved himself and his court the southern and the western walls, displaying in the western one a huge and exhaustive theory of envoys from many Asian countries, offering him tributes and presents, and in the southern wall a gorgeous Court Procession, with padam-masked Zoroastrian priests to sacrifice to his Ancestors’ Shrine.
Would like a perusal on the Court moving on in the southern wall?
In the mean time, on the Northern Wall, a feast on Dragon Boats is going on, graced by the Chinese Empress Wu Zetian, feeding the carps of the river, while, nearby, the Emperor Gaozong enjoys a lion hunt with his men.
If you have dragon boats… Oh, look! A dragon is actually showing himself in the middle of the river clear waters, under Empress Wang’s boat, blessing the company…
If you have a dragon boat, it should be 端午節 Duānwǔ jié, the festival occurring on the fifth day of the fifth month, between late May and early June. In fact, the elegant gesture performed by the delicate little hand of the Empress suggests she has just let something drop down into the water, some feeding, since the fish converges from the whole river under the dragon boat; you can already enjoy four carps eating, producing a charming oriented pattern, to please the beautiful Empress. How could fish, river birds, duck and ducklings, and yes, a dragon resist to come and have a look?! Delicious food, skilled court musicians on board, performing enchanting music, famous beauties of the court and the ineffable Empress. A frog, charmed, coming on the left doesn’t realize it has already a water snake on the heels.
Servants undress and push horses enter the river waters... maybe to convince the most timid and indolent creatures to show themselves?
No. They are looking for a body.
On Duānwǔ Chinese people commemorate suicides; they gently intercede, dropping glutinous rise balls wrapped in bamboo leaves from boats, hoping water creatures will leave untouched the mortal remains of Qu Yuan, poet and loyal Left Minister of Chu (Warring States, 399 -278 BC). He let himself be drowned, having been slandered by his lord and his body was looked for and never found. Dragon Boats Festivity was the date suicides were remembered and honored. Servants bath and search, according to tradition. Yet, something is missing and not completely clear, such as the horse a servant is convincing to enter the river waters...
But let’s go on, from left to right, with the Northern Wall depiction. A Big Game is at its apex. The plains resonate and tremble with hunters on horseback, fighting lions. the double-size figure of the Emperor Gaozong is fighting against a she-lion and his cubs; one of them already lies between his horse feet.
Your eyes move on, looking for more wild treats to come, and you realize you have trespassed on the Eastern Wall… and you find... a sitting scholar, calmly teaching astronomy to his pupil, nested in front of him, exampling his statements by a globe depicted between them. You guess his left hand, evocatively raised other the globe, the right one pointing at it, and the stillness of the body of the student. A Persian? A Turk? Indian or Sogdian? Arab, Chinese, Greek scene? You can’t guess. The whole Asian oecumene rested on astronomical knowledge. Extreme landscapes admits no stars negligence.
Going on you find a figure on horseback… The Eastern Wall is sadly the most damaged one. Almost illegible or lost. Yet, on the east-south corner - exactly the direction the Procession of the Sogdian Court is heading to - at the back of the Ancestors’ Shrine Pavilion, another aquatic landscape is shone.
From right to left you have naked figures, one bathing and holding a buffalo tail, arms stretched. Ducks and fish, naked archers, a bird wing… children or maybe pygmies against cranes…
An Indian hypothesis has been proposed to decode the Eastern Wall, based on one of the main ritual connected with sacrifice, royalty and the image of the horse, recurring through the southern, northern and eastern episodes. The astronomer, a knight on horseback, a peculiar population of archers and aquatic landscape could figure out a depiction of ashvamedha, one of the most significant rituals regarding Indian sovereignty. Yet, this is at the moment just an educated guess.
Western Wall coming soon… I hope:)
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Extraordinary work Anna. those photos are something else entirely!