Aristocratic elites in the Xiongnu empire

NOMADEN UND SESSHAFTE Sonderforschungsbereich Differenz und Integration Wechselwirkungen zwischen nomadischen und sesshaften Lebensformen in Zivilisationen der Alten Welt Herausgegeben im Auftrag des SFB von Jörg Gertel, Stefan Leder, Jürgen Paul und Bernhard Streck BAND 17 WIESBADEN 2013 DR. LUDWIG REICHERT VERLAG Nomad Aristocrats in a World of Empires Herausgegeben von Jürgen Paul WIESBADEN 2013 DR. LUDWIG REICHERT VERLAG Gedruckt mit Unterstützung der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft. Cover: A court of biis. Turkestanskij Al’bom. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-09951-00106) Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. © 2013 Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag Wiesbaden ISBN: 978-3-89500-975-4 www.reichert-verlag.de Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urhebergesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Speicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Gedruckt auf säurefreiem Papier (alterungsbeständig pH7 –, neutral) Printed in Germany Contents Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Nomads in History. A View from the SFB. With Comments by Anatoly M. Khazanov . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Nicola Di Cosmo Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire as Seen from Historical and Archeological Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 A. C. S. Peacock From the Balkhān-Kūhīyān to the Nāwakīya: Nomadic Politics and the Foundations of Seljūq Rule in Anatolia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Jürgen Paul Sanjar and Atsız: Independence, Lordship, and Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Rudi Paul Lindner he Settlement of the Ottomans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Shahin Mustafayev Between Nomadism and Centralization: he Ottoman Alternative in the History of the Aqqoyunlu State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 David Sneath Ayimag, uymaq and baylik: Re-examining Notions of the Nomadic Tribe and State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Anatoly M. Khazanov he Eurasian Steppe Nomads in World Military History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire as Seen from Historical and Archeological Evidence* Nicola Di Cosmo Preliminary Remarks he concept of “elite” is omnipresent in the study of ancient nomadic societies and history. It is used in a generic sense to indicate members of elevated social and political rank, and is at times conlated with other terms, such as aristocracy, nobility, or ruling class. he plasticity of this concept is useful when speaking of elites because we need not clarify what level of social stratiication, or composition, a given polity attained, or how an elite status was ascribed, attained, or transmitted. It is suicient to know that there was some social differentiation and that a certain group of people had access to greater wealth and power than others, whereas in the case of terms such as aristocracy and nobility, which carry notions of hereditary status, ranked structure, and power relations with respect to a putative organizing center, a far more precise deinition is required. Ancient nomadic societies have been particularly diicult to corral into schematic representations of social and political relations. he notion of a “nomadic feudalism” proposed almost a century ago by Vladimirtsov lost much of its appeal with the crisis of the term “feudalism” itself. Other schemes, based on the assumption that ancient pastoral societies develop socially and politically only under the inluence of external impulses, have been inefective at deining phenomena such as elite formation or social diferentiation. Moreover, an excessive (nearly exclusive) attention to dynamics of conquest or “trade or raid” has prevented any analysis of the emergence of elites within their societies as a necessary condition for certain types of interactions with other societies. his orientation, which has assigned to any pastoral society a subaltern role with respect to those agrarian societies by which they were supposedly inluenced, has therefore tended to ignore internal dynamics of political development and formation. Such approaches are increasingly at odds with the archaeological evidence on Eurasian nomads. he recent advances in archeological research in Mongolia, Tuva, the Altai region, Transbaikalia, and other parts of Siberia and Kazakhstan show the nontenability of any theory that would divide the Eurasian world into opposing camps: a non-self-suicient “nomadic” camp and a rich agrarian one, the irst being permanently poised to assault the second. It is quite clear that the long-term dynamics of social development included inter-nomadic warfare, the transmission of knowledge (including political ideas, religious beliefs, and technology) * I would like to thank Ursula Brosseder for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper. I am of course responsible for any mistakes. 24 Nicola Di Cosmo from and through various societies – which could be agrarian, pastoral, or mixed – and that the rise of more complex nomadic societies and political formations is a process that cannot be reduced to single-factor explanations, such as economic dependency. Long trends of human settlements and movements, migration and conquest, about which we have but few traces, went together with the adoption of more sophisticated forms of political organization, technological development, economic specialization, and gradual class diferentiation. he construction of large kurgans such as that in Tuva (Arzhan), dated around the end of the ninth century or early eighth century BCE, cannot be understood without taking stock of the long tradition of kurgan-building in the Eurasian world, and yet it represents a new stage in the development of ancient nomadic cultures.1 Likewise, later developments, both in the Altai region and to its east and west, can hardly be comprehended without taking into consideration centuries of signiicant cultural change among the nomadic elites. It is therefore against this backdrop of long-term developments that the rise of nomadic empires has to be placed. Interactions among various nomadic groups and agrarian societies were surely important, but to what extent they can be regarded as generative of change is open to question, and in any case no change can be assessed without an understanding of the political infrastructure internal to nomadic societies, such as social order, access to resources, military mobilization, ritual practices, and the ways in which external relations – including trade and warfare – were organized. Today, the rapid growth of a vast archaeological literature on Eurasian nomads allows us to ask more searching questions about the formation and development of “elites” in relation to the distribution of power across political networks, to their economic role in view of the presence of a variety of productive activities in areas previously regarded as purely pastoral, and to the cultural changes that the elites themselves underwent. In archaeology, the term “elite” continues to have broad uses and applications, encompassing the full spectrum of the material record from burials to material remains, and is interchangeable with terms such as royal or aristocratic, monumental, and ostentatious if referring to burials and luxury or prestige if referring to goods. he research ield that is Xiongnu archaeology has also made tremendous headway over the past several years, due especially to numerous excavation projects in Mongolia and Transbaikalia. his is a critical aspect of the study of nomadic aristocracies, because the Xiongnu played the special historical role of being the irst empire formed to the north of China, and, as such, the precursor of many other nomadic empires (Turks, Uighur, Khitan, Jurchen, and especially Mongols), achieving distinction, if not always appreciation, in the historical records of Eurasian civilizations. Archaeological research is transforming our knowledge of the Xiongnu phenomenon by revealing its cultural complexity and at the same time stimulating a reexamination of the written sources with a new appreciation of the internal diversity of the ancient nomadic world. he nature of the Xiongnu polity is a matter that has been debated for decades, and inevitably divergent opinions are relected in the discordant terminology, as scholars deine it as a state, a tribal confederation, or a “supercomplex chiefdom”. Glossing over such dif1 Grjaznov, Der Groβkurgan von Aržan in Tuva, Südsibiren, pp. 70–75. Hanks, “Archaeology of the Eurasian Steppes and Mongolia”, pp. 476–477. Parzinger, Die frühen Völker Eurasiens, p. 609. Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire 25 ferences, everyone agrees about the existence of a political “elite”, as documented in the Chinese sources, and in particular in the narrative accounts of the Xiongnu in the Shiji and Hanshu. Another point of agreement is that the Xiongnu, no matter what deinition we use to refer to their polity, formed an empire. Like other empires, they projected their power and extended their territory far beyond their original homeland (whose actual location remains undetermined archaeologically),2 possessed a variety of ethnic and linguistic components, and had relations with China and other states in which the imperial status of its supreme head, the chanyu, was implicitly or explicitly recognized as having the same dignity as that of the Chinese emperor. As a contribution to the study of the Xiongnu empire, this essay attempts to address the question of the political nature, composition, status, and symbols that deined its elites in both the historical and the archaeological realms. he irst part of this essay consists of a reexamination of the historical sources on the composition and structure of the upper layers of the Xiongnu political establishment, and the types of “elite” that can be identiied within it. he second part will address Xiongnu archaeology, focusing in particular on the question of elite burials and goods. 1. he Xiongnu Elite in the Historical Sources he “Account of the Xiongnu” in the Shiji (chapter 110) provides a cursory explanation of the basic structure of the Xiongnu political elite, including a fairly detailed description of Xiongnu titles, ranks, and functions. While this structure has been mentioned many times before, it is useful to focus on speciic passages that can be regarded as diagnostic to identify, even if only in a sketchy manner, the qualities and attributes that may clarify the social position and political role of “elite” persons. A revealing passage is the one that describes the parricide committed by Modu (this is another reading for Maodun) against his father Touman: He [i. e. Modu] followed his father, the chanyu Touman, on a hunt and when he shot at Touman with a whistling arrow, all his left and right attendants, following the whistling arrow, also shot and killed the chanyu Touman. Subsequently, [Modu] executed all his stepmothers and younger brothers as well as those among the great ministers who did not listen and follow. Modu installed himself as chanyu. [Shiji 2888; all emphases are mine] his account of Modu’s violent coup d’état, through which he seized the supreme command of the Xiongnu and began his people’s imperial expansion, reveals in a single sentence at least three types of Xiongnu elite: the left and right attendants, the members of the royal clan, and the chief ministers. Who are these people? he left and right attendants must refer to Modu’s own bodyguards, whom he had previously recruited and trained to blind obedience. Here we notice the directional separation into left and right (that is, east and west) that was one of the organizing principles of the Xiongnu empire. he existence of this principle prior to Modu’s seizure of the imperium shows that the political establishment of the Xiongnu already functioned according to a principle of bilateral ailiation, which was used as the 2 Bemmann, “Was the Center of the Xiongnu Empire in the Orkhon Valley?”, pp. 455–461. 26 Nicola Di Cosmo empire grew to establish separate governments for the eastern and the western half. Since the bodyguard was essentially a military unit, one may speculate as to whether the principle of dividing the empire into two regions may have originated with a military organization whereby army units were arrayed into left and right formations. Stepmothers and younger brothers, all of them members of the royal clan, were executed as they presented a challenge to Modu’s rise to power, and in this we recognize a system of hereditary succession from father to son wherein the vertical principle prevailed rather than a lateral principle from older to younger brother, in which case a challenge could also have come from his father’s brothers. While not all instances of succession to the throne occurred according to the principle of vertical transmission, this was the most common system. he ministers loyal to his father may have also formed a hostile group. hese were probably high dignitaries in charge of state afairs, including military, civil, or perhaps even religious afairs. hese three categories can all be regarded as “elite”, but obviously their social and political positions cannot be easily compared. What emerges is a possible diferentiation between an aristocracy by birth, consisting of clan members, and an aristocracy appointed by the chanyu for their individual merits, consisting of bodyguards and ministers. Another passage makes it clear that the positions included in the top hierarchy of state were all hereditary: hey establish Worthy [xian 賢] Kings [wang 王] of the Left and Right, Luli [谷蠡] Kings of the Left and Right, Grand Commanders [da jiang 大將] of the Left and Right, Grand Commandants [duwei 都尉] of the Left and Right, Grand Household Managers [da danghu 大當戶] of the Left and Right, and Gudu [骨都] Marquises [hou 侯] to the Left and Right. he Xiongnu call a worthy a tuqi [屠耆]. herefore, they usually take the Heir-Apparent to be the Tuqi [i. e., the Worthy] King of the Left. From the likes of the Worthy Kings to the Left and Right down to the Household Managers, the great ones have ten thousand horsemen [and] the small ones have several thousand, all twenty-four chiefs [zhang 長] are appointed with the title of “[Commander of ] Ten housand Horsemen”. All great ministers 大臣 have hereditary positions [shiguan 世官, my emphasis]. he three surnames of the Huyan lineage [shi 氏], the Lan lineage, and later the Xubu lineage constitute their nobility [guizhong 貴種]. All Kings and Commanders [jiang 將] of the Left direction reside in the Eastern region. hose who reside right across from Shanggu and beyond, border in the east on the Weimo and Chaoxian. he Kings and Leaders of the Right direction reside in the Western region. hose who reside right across from Shangjun and further west border on the Yuezhi, the Di and the Qiang. (Shiji 2890–91) Here we have a ranked honor system that diferentiates, at the upper level, between three types of titles: king, chief, and minister. he term da chen for “great ministers” should perhaps be understood generically as “grandee” or “high dignitary” to indicate an aristocrat with a political position. All twenty-four of them had hereditary positions, were also considered chiefs, and held concurrent military positions, being heads of a myriarchy (ten thousand warriors). Since the text speciies that among these twenty-four chiefs some are more important than others, and that their relative signiicance is measured on the basis of the actual number of troops at their disposal, it may seem contradictory that they are referred to by the same generic title (grandee, or da chen) and regarded as holding equivalent military ranks (Heads Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire 27 of Ten housand). However, if we may allow an analogy with some later instances of Inner Asian military and political organizations, we can see that in both the Mongol and Manchu military systems the highest noblemen were given military titles as Head of Ten housand (tumen) in the case of the Mongols or as Head of a Banner in the case of the Manchus, regardless of the actual number of soldiers in the Tumen or Banner, which depended upon the subordinate units that were efectively included under their command. In the Xiongnu hierarchy, those aristocrats given the highest ranks held a dual position: one was a title linked to a speciic political and government post and the other was a generic military title that indicated the holder as the commander-in-chief of the army recruited from among the population under his authority (de facto his subjects). his organization implies the existence of a system of territorial iefs that were run in a semi-independent and fully autonomous manner, as indicated in the following passage: Each [leader] has an allocation of land and moves according to a cycle in search of water and grass. As to the Worthy Kings to the Left and Right and the Luli Kings to the Left and Right, these are the greatest. he Gudu Marquises of the Left and Right assist in the government. Each of these twenty-four chiefs also establishes on their own authority Chiefs of a housand, Chiefs of a Hundred, Chiefs of Ten, Supporting Lesser Kings 裨小王, Administrators of Fiefs, Commandants, Household Managers, Juqu 且渠, and others. (Shiji 2891). he context makes it clear that “each” refers to one of the twenty-four leaders, and that they follow, with their people, a nomadic cycle of movement from pasture to pasture on a seasonal basis. We should note that some of the titles established at the local level are the same as the state titles, but were not preixed with “Great” (da 大) and were not divided into a left and right position, as for instance the Household Managers (danghu) and the juqu (Shiji 2890; Hanshu 3751). Clearly the Xiongnu elite included a central and a local level. he members of the very top echelon were distributed across the empire, and controlled a portion of it as a private domain, where each was free to appoint his subordinate oicials according entirely to his own preference, and without political interference from the Chanyu. Naturally, their unlimited authority over their domains limited the Chanyu’s sovereignty over the empire as a whole. To delve further into the question of the formation of local elites, let us consider briely this statement, which refers to Xiongnu military campaigns undertaken sometime between 206 and 200 BCE: Later [Modu] in the north subjugated the states of the Hunyu 渾庾, Quyi 屈射, Dingling 丁零, Likun 鬲昆, and Xinli 薪黎. Hence, the nobles 貴人 and the great ministers 大臣 of the Xiongnu all submitted [to him] and regarded Modu as worthy. (Shiji 2893) Since this passage comes after the description of the establishment of the Xiongnu state under Modu, we have to assume that not all Xiongnu chiefs and grandees had initially accepted his leadership, and that, therefore, the Xiongnu were not uniied until sometime after Modu became chanyu. Modu’s successful military leadership and expansion of the Xiongnu territory persuaded the Xiongnu leaders to inally join him, but this was a nobility, as well as a government class of high dignitaries, that already existed, even if it was not yet uniied. he 28 Nicola Di Cosmo implication of this state of afairs is that the authority of the chanyu before Modu’s ascent to power did not extend to all Xiongnu leaders, and suggests that the Xiongnu expansion transformed the political order by creating a centralized hierarchy, but that this was based on an already existing aristocracy and government system, which was expanded and to a certain degree restructured to it the new “imperial” growth. he speciic question raised by this passage, then, is how those nobles and high dignitaries who joined later were incorporated into the new state. hey may have retained their authority and territory, but since these were presumably outside the “command structure” of the Xiongnu upper elite, one can only surmise that it was from their ranks that the lower, local elites were selected. his would it the notion that the twenty-four “grandees” could appoint local chiefs to various positions in their own iefs, such as Head of a housand or Fief Administrator. Further textual evidence of this can be found in a speech by several Xiongnu dignitaries to the chanyu Huhanye, in which it is stated: “Today brothers ight over the [Xiongnu] state, [yet] if [power] is not with the elder brother, then it is with the younger brother, and although they may die, they nevertheless have power and fame, and their sons and grandsons continue to be the commanders of many states” (Hanshu 3797). his passage illustrates the principle that the Xiongnu upper nobility was in charge of ruling subject states, and the local elites were pressed into service under their command. It is plausible, based on the texts we have examined, that the growth of the Xiongnu empire was characterized by the gradual cooption of local nomadic chiefs into the ief ’s bureaucracy and military apparatus, while the upper (state) ranks remained in the hands of the three royal clans and the nobility closest to Modu. Incidentally, whether the Xiongnu did or did not have surnames (xing 姓) aside from the three royal clans, as Sima Qian says (Shiji 2880), is of limited relevance here, as it probably means that only the upper nobility’s three lineages generated the members of the aristocracy with the highest political ranks. his system’s weakest point consisted of a perverse mechanism: the more the empire expanded, the greater the power of regional “satrapies”. Since the sovereignty of the chanyu was based on two elements, that is, irst, his monopoly over foreign policy, with the attendant revenues derived from tribute and trade, and, second, his right to mobilize troops from the whole empire, both sources of authority could be undermined by powerful “ief-holders”, who could use their own armies to take independent political action, for instance by raiding China of their own accord or by expanding their power base without the chanyu’s approval. here was also a hierarchy within the upper elite, and some positions were more powerful than others and had greater military weight. he high dignitaries bearing the name of “kings” were mightier than the “ministers”, and the Worthy (or tuqi in Xiongnu language) King of the Left was the appointed Heir Apparent. Since the twenty-four grandees held speciic positions within the central government, they must have gathered at the court of the chanyu from time to time to hold council concerning pressing political matters and military afairs and to attend religious ceremonies, but they probably resided in their iefs most of the time. he Shiji lists the three royal lineages (the Huyan 呼衍, Lan 蘭, and Xubu 須卜) immediately before the statement that the twenty-four grandees held hereditary positions. Whether all of them were chosen from these three clans is not said explicitly, but it may be surmised Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire 29 from the proximity of the two statements. In other words, the nobility of the Xiongnu consisted of the members of these three clans, from among which the top commanders (the “puissant chiefs”) as well as the Heir Apparent, were selected. he top positions were also arranged territorially into two halves, an eastern (left) and a western (right) one, with the left sector deemed superior to the right. he grandee, who was also a ief-holder, entrusted the administration of his own domain to a hierarchy of political and military leaders internal to the ief. his hierarchy was modeled after the higher state-wide structure, and the titles of the local (ief-based) elite by and large replicated the structure of the upper, imperial elite. Such considerations force us to open a parenthesis and re-examine briely an old but still inluential model of empire-building by pastoral nomads, according to which – and the Xiongnu are thought to be no exception – a “supratribal” elite was established by the khan once a unifying political process had been completed and a tribal confederation, or even a nomadic state, had come into being. In this model, the supratribal elite is supposed to be qualitatively diferent from the pre-existing tribal elites, which, however, continued to exist in a relationship of both subordination to and partnership with the ruling clan. While the ruling clan was the sole legal social group that was entitled to assign and hold the supreme political position in the land (chanyu, khaghan, khan, etc.), allied, co-opted and subaltern clans and tribes could hypothetically exercise the option to secede from the imperial nomadic union. he essential features of this model (sketchy as they are) do not it what we have so far said about the Xiongnu in at least two ways. First of all, the Xiongnu do not appear to be divided into clans and tribes across the whole social spectrum. Certainly, they absorbed a number of other peoples and it is likely that some of these peoples retained their own elites as well as a degree of control over their territory, as we shall see below. However, the core twenty-four positions were not parceled out and handed over to conquered people, but were held by the Xiongnu nobility, and were hereditary. hese noblemen had special posts which their descendants continued to occupy essentially in perpetuity, and which became, therefore, the personal property of a certain family or descent line, originally associated with one of the royal clans. hese people in turn replicated on a smaller scale the same central government structure within their iefs. he relative position of each grandee within the upper hierarchy also determined (and was possibly partially determined by) the size of the population under each one, which corresponded to the number of soldiers they could put in the ield. hus, the title Commander of a Myriarchy simply means commander of the army of that particular ief, located within the eastern or western half of the Xiongnu empire, and held by one of the twenty-four Grandees in addition to their nobility title. Second, it would be a mistake to assume without any supporting evidence that this system was established by Modu, and that, therefore, it represented a qualitative leap from a previous – tribal – Xiongnu political system to an imperial and supratribal one. he Xiongnu undoubtedly went through a political transformation to resolve a political crisis, caused by the Qin army’s massive invasion of nomadic lands after the uniication of the empire, and the very parricide committed by Modu could be interpreted allegorically as a replacement of the old aristocracy by a new group of leaders whom Modu commanded with unchallenged authority. After his bloody rebellion, Modu proceeded to place his own men in key 30 Nicola Di Cosmo positions, ruthlessly eliminating all opposition. his scenario, as presented in Sima Qian’s account, is in my view entirely plausible. What is less believable is that Modu invented a completely new political and military system right after his accession to the throne. Nor does Sima Qian say that he did. What is more likely to have happened is that the basic structure of the previous order was retained and adjusted to the needs of a new order. Later on, thanks to the extraordinary military successes achieved during the thirty-ive years of his reign, Modu (r. 209–174 BCE) vastly expanded the territory and the population under Xiongnu dominium and presented himself as the emperor of a united polity in his confrontation with China. he growth of the empire was accompanied by a duplication of the key positions into right and left ones, and by the replication of the upper structure at the lower level. he conquered lands were apportioned as personal domains to the closest family members and collaborators of the chanyu. In turn, the ief-holders created bureaucratic and military elites internal to their domains, possibly by co-opting local elites. (he “supporting lesser kings” mentioned by Sima Qian could be chiefs of local peoples.) herefore, if we can speak of a qualitative leap, this should be seen primarily in terms of the growth of the Xiongnu empire, and of the reordering of the internal hierarchies and power relations within the newly conquered lands. At the level of the chanyu court and state command structure, the political order changed in the sense that a new, highly centralized political elite came to power, but this new order was built upon a pre-existing system of government that used to function on a smaller and possibly more lexible scale, then remapped on a much larger scale to it the needs of an expansive empire. Later on, as Modu was replaced by less successful chanyus and the Xiongnu political crisis deepened, two parallel phenomena developed. On the one hand, there were intrigues, plots, rebellions, and internecine warfare among the members of the Xiongnu upper nobility, all of whom had access to resources of their own in their personal power bases. On the other, the subject peoples, such as the Wuhuan and the Hujie, who had been previously defeated and subjected by the Xiongnu, rose up in arms to attack the local Xiongnu leaders. here was, in the end, no simple way for tribes to “walk away” in search of a better leader, but rather there were bitter fratricidal wars – ruthless wars of revenge by formerly subject groups, which included the deilement of Xiongnu aristocratic tombs. he scenario I have proposed to account for the basic features of the Xiongnu elite, then, includes a two-tier aristocracy with government functions with clearly marked hierarchies in both the higher (central, imperial) and lower (local, ief-based) nobilities, and an east-west distribution of iefs, which was also asymmetric in terms of political priority and hierarchy. his picture is complicated by two aspects that warrant further consideration. he irst is the incorporation of foreign people into the Xiongnu elite, such as nobles from conquered states or surrendering Han aristocrats and generals. he second is whether we can see changes in the composition of the Xiongnu elite, in particular the appearance (or disappearance) of elite titles. he Xiongnu elite undoubtedly included foreigners, who were incorporated within the upper ranks of Xiongnu nobility, such as surrendering Chinese generals and local nonXiongnu leaders. Let us consider the following passage, which refers to the case of the Mar- Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire 31 quis of Xi, a igure emblematic of the subversive role played by the Xiongnu with regard to the Han dynasty, who defected to the Xiongnu : After the Chanyu had obtained [the surrender of ] the Marquis of Xi 翕 [i. e., Zhao Xin], he made him a king subordinate [only] to himself, had his [own] elder sister marry him, and had him join in strategy planning regarding the Han. (Shiji 2908) his statement shows that the Marquis of Xi was not appointed to one of the twenty-four highest positions but was nevertheless made a noble and placed directly under the authority of the chanyu. his reveals the existence of a group of noblemen and aristocrats who formed a royal council directly under the chanyu’s authority. Such a council would make perfect sense, as many Han defectors could be of invaluable assistance in diplomatic and military afairs. Another case in point is the eunuch and Han envoy, Zhonghang Yue. According to Sima Qian’s narrative, after Zhonghang Yue surrendered to the chanyu, the chanyu became “very close” (shen qin 甚親) to him and “favored” (xing 幸) him (Shiji 2898). As is wellknown, Zhong-hang Yue played a key role in negotiating with Han envoys and in handling Xiongnu diplomacy. Finally, we may mention the case of the Han general Li Ling. After this general, who fought valiantly against the Xiongnu, was forced to surrender, the chanyu ennobled him (gui 貴) and gave him his daughter as a wife (Shiji 2918). Interestingly, the Hanshu reports that, when a Han envoy met Li Ling (d. 74 BCE), the Han defector was wearing nomadic clothing and his hair was braided in the manner of the Xiongnu. When asked by the Han envoy whether he would return to China, “he went silent and made no reply, and after contemplating the length of his hair, he answered, ‘I am now dressed like a nomad!’” (Hanshu 2458). All three people, who were among the most famous Han “traitors” who defected to the Xiongnu, had a personal relationship with the chanyu and were raised to the rank of Xiongnu nobility in virtue of their marriage to women of the royal clan. hese cases beg the question of whether a council – an inner circle of personal advisors to the chanyu – existed separately from the twenty-four high dignitaries or other nobles. More clues point in that direction. For instance, in the description of one of the main religious rituals performed at court – namely the daily worship of the sun and moon – we are told that the chanyu was accompanied by his chiefs, or commanders, who sat on his left and faced north. he word used in the Chinese text is zhang 長 and such usage may be meaningful, in that the people who lanked the chanyu in these daily activities may not have been the da chen – that is, the ief-holders appointed to the highest state positions – but rather the trusted members of the comitatus, who lived permanently at the chanyu’s court. On the other hand, the term zhang is suiciently generic to mean simply some chiefs, and therefore the hypothetical distinction between zhang (as members of the chanyu’s council) and da chen (as ief-holders and army commanders with state responsibilities) must remain speculative. his scenario brings to light an important feature of the Xiongnu elite at the upper level – namely, the political separation between the twenty-four grandees, who represented the state apparatus, and the chanyu’s personal council of trusted advisors. Within this inner group, and possibly with quite diferent functions and responsibilities (which may have been political, military, or administrative), there were people who had pledged their support for the chanyu, with whom they had established a direct and intimate relationship sealed by kin- 32 Nicola Di Cosmo ship ties ensured through marriage with women from the royal clan, including the chanyu’s own sisters and daughters. We may also recall that, at the time of the heqin policy, Chinese princesses were sent to the Xiongnu court with their retinues and established themselves in his entourage. he heart of the Xiongnu political establishment may be imagined as a composite group formed of various elites, who also represented themselves according to speciic cultural choices. Some of the foreign members may have acculturated to the nomadic lifestyle, as in the case of Li Ling, while members of the Xiongnu aristocracy may have adopted new symbols of elite status, for instance by dressing in imported Chinese silk.3 his Xiongnu court was, in other words, open to various people whose talents and devotion to the chanyu probably trumped ethnic ailiations or cultural preferences and taste, but whose political role required, in order to retain legitimacy and cohesion, being fully incorporated within the hereditary structure of kinship-based nobility. A point that cannot be exhaustively researched in this essay, but that should be considered with regard to possible historical changes in the composition of Xiongnu nobility, is that we ind in the Hanshu a number of Xiongnu titles that in the Shiji are either absent or are mentioned in passing without a clear context. For instance, the term Rizhu King, for the Xiongnu high-ranking dignitary who was entrusted with the government of the westernmost part of the empire (a title also divided into Left and Right), and presumably a position at the level of the twenty-four da chen, is found in the chapter on the Xiongnu in the Hanshu (3795), but is mentioned in the Shiji only in the Tables (Shiji 20, 1068), not in the chapter on the Xiongnu or in any other narrative part of the Shiji. Likewise, the title Yizhizi (伊秩 訾) King, also divided into a Left and Right positions, is found in the Hanshu (3797; 3806; 3823) but is completely absent in the Shiji. A diferent title that also appears in the Hanshu (e. g., 3788, 3790) but not in the Shiji is that of Yujian (奧鞬) King. While this title, like most Xiongnu titles, was divided into Left and Right positions, it was not a Xiongnu title, but rather came from the name of the king of the Yujian city in Kangju (Transoxiana) mentioned in Chapter 96A of the Hanshu.4 An intriguing passage states that, after the Left Yujian King passed away the chanyu of his own accord established his minor son as Yujian king, and made him reside at court. However, the noblemen of Yujian (奧鞬貴人 Yujian guiren) together established the original son of the Yujian King as the new king (Hanshu 3790). Clearly, the Yujian king was a foreign vassal of the Xiongnu, and the chanyu’s attempt to replace him with his own son was not accepted by the aristocrats of the city of Yujian, who instead appointed the dead king’s son. But it is still peculiar, and diicult to explain, that the position was divided, following Xiongnu custom, into a Right and a Left one. One possible explanation is that some of these provincial kings’ designated heirs were given the Left rank as an additional honoriic when they were required to reside at the Xiongnu court. he Worthy King of the Left was the designated heir to the chanyu’s throne, and the custom of having the sons of local leaders sent to reside at another people’s (sometimes their enemies’) court was common among both the Han and the no3 4 he replacement of nomadic clothing by the Xiongnu is the object of a scorching reprimand by the Chinese eunuch, Zhonghang Yue, whom we can imagine to have also traded Chinese clothes for nomadic attire (Shiji 2899). Hulsewé, China in Central Asia, p. 131. Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire 33 madic peoples. Hence, the passage above may indicate that a king of Yujian who was the original heir apparent and (therefore legitimate) king died, and when the Xiongnu wanted to make his own son king of Yujian and have him reside at court (presumably until he attained his majority), the Yujian nobles rebelled. his is only speculative, but may explain a further use of the preix “Left” as an indicator of legitimate succession. One more title that comes from a foreign people found in the Hanshu is the Hujie 呼揭 (glossed as Huqie) King, who was also based in the western region of the empire. he Huqie were a population that had been conquered in 174 BCE by Modu, and “had become Xiongnu” (Shiji 2896). According to the Hanshu, this king was located in the western part (xi fang) rebelled and declared himself chanyu (Hanshu 3796). Moreover, in the Shiji and Hanshu we ind that the kings (wang 王) of the Loufan and Baiyang peoples, who were located “south of the river” and had been integrated into the Xiongnu empire, were attacked by the Han general Wei Qing (Hanshu 3766). hese examples show how the aristocracy of conquered and surrendered peoples continued to retain their positions as they were incorporated into the Xiongnu empire, and formed a local elite, presumably under the overall authority not only of the chanyu but also of the upper Xiongnu elite, that is, the “ief-holders” who ruled over the region in which these local “kings” were based. Another interesting case concerns a potentially non-aristocratic level of the elites, which is exempliied in a position that belongs in the Xiongnu bureaucracy, but again is found in the Hanshu but not in the Shiji. he term husului 呼遫累 (Hanshu 3796; for the pronunciation “lui” see note on p. 3797) is glossed as the name of an oicial. We cannot say what this position represented or whether it represented a change or addition to the Xiongnu bureaucracy from the time of Sima Qian. Another bureaucratic title, given only in Chinese, is the Xiongnu Master of Guests (Xiongnu zhuke 匈奴主客, Shiji 2912), which appears to be a court position, held by one serving directly under the chanyu, who may have been either a court bureaucrat or a member of the aforementioned “inner circle”. hese are just a few examples, reported here simply to show that the composition of the Xiongnu elite as provided in the Shiji and in the Hanshu may not represent the full spectrum of the Xiongnu elite, which also probably changed as the nature of the empire was transformed by its expansion irst and later by its shrinkage and fragmentation. Tentative as this reconstruction of the Xiongnu elites may be, it provides us with a platform that allows for some conclusions regarding the composition of the hierarchy of the Xiongnu political establishment, in particular in relation to the identiication of a distinction between upper and lower elites, the presence of foreign elements within the elite, the separation between hereditary and non-hereditary positions, and the role of the court and clan system in the production, as well as reproduction, of elites. As we have argued, the Xiongnu elite was structured at several levels, of which we can perhaps identify two broad classes, each including several groups. he upper elite was formed by the original Xiongnu aristocracy, which included the three royal clans, the chanyu and his queen (her Xiongnu title was yanzhi 閼氏), and the top ranking oicials, who also came from the royal clans, consisting of the twenty-four ief-hold “grandees”, divided into the Right and Left divisions. To the same upper level, but separate from the original Xiongnu aristocracy in terms of political role and patterns of appointment, recruitment and cooption, belonged the council 34 Nicola Di Cosmo and retinue of the chanyu, and other positions attached to the court, which we have deined as the chanyu’s council. All of these positions appear to be hereditary. he lower elites can be divided into local Xiongnu elites and the elites of surrendered peoples. he ief-holders appointed their own military and civil oicials within their domains, and also controlled the aristocracy of the subordinate peoples, who probably retained a degree of autonomy as heads of their own communities and were entitled to rule over their peoples. hese positions may have been hereditary, but could also be altered or abolished, as the aforementioned case of the Yujian King shows. his general survey also indicates that the Xiongnu replicated at the local level the same political and military titles and hierarchical structures established at the central level, and in so doing also incorporated the elites of conquered peoples, who thereby “became Xiongnu”. Each of the twenty-four high dignitaries had his own power base, military force, and full autonomy to make appointments in the lands he ruled, not just as “governor” but as a virtually independent king. he empire grew in size (in terms of both territory and people) thanks to a system of cooption of local elites, both Xiongnu and especially non-Xiongnu, while at the same time the ability of the political center to penetrate and control politically the “provincial” (“ief ”, “satrapy”) level grew weaker. 2. he Xiongnu Elite in the Archaeological Contexts One may be tempted to seek conirmation of the hypothetical reconstruction of the Xiongnu elites presented above by investigating the vast archaeological literature available today. However, this is a temptation that should be resisted. Trying to superimpose a theoretical scheme drawn from historical sources onto an altogether diferent set of evidence and questions, born out of archaeological research, would be methodologically unsound. A comparison between diferent forms of identiication, distribution, and hierarchical structures of the aristocracy in the Xiongnu empire, if possible at all, must be preceded by a thorough examination of elite status based exclusively on an analysis of the material record. So far, a discussion of elites in Xiongnu archaeology has, by and large, been in the context of the study of speciic sites identiied as “elite”, but has not produced a distinctive theory of social stratiication. A critical aspect of Xiongnu archaeology is its evolution into two separate areas of investigation, which have been developing along separate trajectories – namely, the archeological research conducted in the “Northern Zone” (beifang diqu) of China, south of the Gobi desert, and the excavations of Xiongnu cemeteries in Mongolia, Buriatia, Transbaikalia, and generally to the north of the Gobi. Archaeologists have ofered diferent interpretations of the distribution, chronology, and characteristics of what is supposed to be a “Xiongnu culture”. It would be more accurate, in view of the sprawling development of Xiongnu archaeology and of the complex questions that it poses, to speak of a “Xiongnu period” that embraces the duration of the Xiongnu empire but must also include other groups coeval with the Xiongnu, and thus avoid the common fallacy of attaching a single ethnic label to a set of cultural markers shared by a whole cultural complex of horse-riding pastoral peoples. As far as I can tell, there is no clear periodization of the Xiongnu, either as a “culture” or as a political phenomenon, that can be inclusive of all the areas in which Xiongnu Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire 35 remains have been identiied. Archaeological sites regarded as “Xiongnu” that are located to the south of the Gobi, in Inner Mongolia and adjacent areas included in the “northern zone” of Chinese archaeology, show distinctly diferent features from the Xiongnu archaeology of the north of the Gobi, which are characterized by large necropolises, monumental burials and distinct ritual ceremonies. Constructing a synthesis of a “Xiongnu period”, therefore, would be premature at this stage of the research, but we can approach the issue of identiication of “elites” from two common starting points, namely by looking at “elite burials” and “elite goods” separately in each of these two areas. Elite burials in the northern part of the of the Xiongnu “phenomenon” are characterized by monumental burials, not found in the southern area, which also contain elite goods, whereas elite status in the Xiongnu tombs of southern Mongolia and northern China is represented only by elite goods. he following summary analysis is by no means exhaustive of the debates, but may serve to highlight the complex issues that arise from the identiication of “elites” in Xiongnu archaeology. 2.1 Xiongnu elites in the “Northern Zone” of China Historians have primarily cited archaeological material related to the Xiongnu in northern China in support of claims that the evolution of the Xiongnu “state” towards a higher level of political integration was “stimulated” by technological progress – the development of “productive forces”, such as the greater sophistication of metallurgy and the incremental use of iron.5 In an archaeological context strongly inluenced by evolutionary approaches and theories, the search for the origins of the Xiongnu has been rooted in the belief that they represented the most advanced manifestation of the discrete pastoral cultures that evolved in the steppe areas, reaching the peak of the developmental curve in the late Warring States and Han periods.6 he search for elites in the archaeological record, thus, intersects several layers of interpretation, from the internal evolution of pastoral communities, to dynamics of contact and exchange between the Northern Zone and the Central Asian cultural complex to its north and further west, and to contacts with China. However, the extensive debates about the origin, direction, and frequency of material exchanges and inluences have not satisfactorily resolved the question of how social and economic developments within the Northern Zone, such as the increase in pastoral production, decrease in agricultural production and progressive emergence of a warlike mounted aristocracy, came about. he wealth of sites investigated to date that bear evidence of their ailiation either to non-Chinese northern cultures or to Sino-northern cultural admixtures pose questions that cannot be answered by solely considering problems related to dating, classiication, and typological analysis of the material record. Were these cultures converted to nomadism through a process of long-distance, regional or local development? What was 5 6 Lin Gan, Xiongnu shiliao huibian, pp. 1–3. One of the best descriptions of the Xiongnu sites, and of the material culture associated with them is provided by Akiyama Shingo (“Nei Menggu gaoyuan de Xiongnu muzang”, pp. 375–392). he attribution of the ethnonym Xiongnu to the ancient culture of the southern Mongolian steppes is discussed very briely on pp. 389–390. 36 Nicola Di Cosmo the nature of the nomads’ interaction with neighboring communities? How mobile were these societies, and how did migrations contribute to the spread of a pastoral economy? What was their social structure, and how did it change over time? And inally, how did they become so powerful? All of these questions, of course, bear on the issue of the historical relevance that these people eventually acquired, as the frontier between China and the nomads became not only a place of cultural transmission but also a battleield of opposing armies and a boundary between actively or potentially hostile powers. Given its fragmentary nature, the data available – by now substantial but by no means uncontested – supports not only diferent theories but also diferent directions of investigation. So far, a degree of consensus has been reached with regard to certain aspects. For instance, the Northern Zone metallurgical tradition displays original features that have led researchers to regard it as one of the important centers of ancient metallurgical cultures. Around the second half of the second millennium, and especially during the irst half of the irst millennium BCE, pastoralism gradually expanded in the area, replacing earlier agricultural and mixed agro-pastoral cultures. Animal breeding probably expanded over time – albeit the timeline, territorial centers and modalities of this expansion are documented vaguely at best – while farming did not disappear completely. Pastoral peoples’ remains, largely limited to burials, shared some common features, including above all metal objects, such as weapons, buckles, ornamental plaques, and horse and chariot ittings, often featuring a distinctive “animal style” and geometric decor, in bronze, but also gold, silver, and iron. hese forms show continuity with earlier types and wide trans-regional distribution. In other respects, such as burial customs, pottery tradition, and bone artifacts, northern cultural sites difer profoundly, and local characteristics predominate. he archaeological picture shows, around the middle of the irst millennium BCE, a world engaged in pastoral economy and extensive military activity, rich in weaponry and sophisticated personal ornaments, and one that also made extensive use of horses. his is a world in which a martial lifestyle became more pronounced, possibly among both men and women, and it would seem reasonable to posit, as a preliminary and admittedly elementary conjecture, that the more highly organized, militarily stronger, and possibly but not necessarily more technologically advanced pastoral groups imposed their rule over weaker, smaller, or less organized communities. Wider adoption of the technology associated with nomadic cultures, including the manufacture of bronze weapons and horse ittings, and an extensive knowledge of animal domestication, might in turn have been responsible for the growth of the political power, social status, and economic relevance of a mounted nomadic aristocracy. Because the airmation of the power of the Xiongnu vis-à-vis China is assumed to represent the zenith of the political and military might of pastoral nomads, the study of the Xiongnu archeological culture has likewise been inluenced by an evolutionary approach.7 While Chinese archaeology has often resorted to historical records in its classiication of Northern cultures (names derived from the written sources such as Di, Rong and Hu are of7 For an example of the evolutionary approach to the deinition of the Xiongnu culture, see Tian Guangjin, “Jinnianlai Nei Menggu diqu de xiongnu kaogu”, pp. 7–24. Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire 37 ten attributed to archaeological sites), the Xiongnu culture appears as something altogether more signiicant and, so to speak, in a diferent league with respect to those other peoples. he conlation of the historical reading of the emergence of the Xiongnu as a new political force in East Asia with the archaeological record of the development of pastoral cultures in northern China means that, once evidence can be produced to show that the Xiongnu were a particularly advanced and “leading” pastoral nomadic culture, the premier role that their elites played in the political and military uniication of the steppe nomads would ipso facto be explained. However, the assumption that military or political superiority has to coincide with a higher level of development of “productive forces” and better technology lacks an empirical basis in the history of Inner Asian nomads. Indeed, the written sources do not refer to any technological superiority of the Xiongnu as compared with other nomads, all of whom shared the military advantage that the extensive use of cavalry gave them. his is not to say that economic forces did not play a role; economic development by itself, however, does not provide a suicient or adequate explanation for the rise of the Xiongnu empire. What is, in my view, a more promising avenue to identify possible transformations within nomadic societies, rather than looking at mechanically determined changes in economic relations, is to focus on the ways in which the social, political and economic role of the aristocracy changed, as relected in the material record. What archaeology can contribute to our understanding of nomadic aristocracies is not speciic knowledge of the development of speciic peoples, but rather insights into the wide-ranging cultural changes that may in turn shed light on historical processes. Keeping this general methodological orientation in mind, it may be useful to refer to the distinction between “corporate” and “network” political economies within which elites emerge, which has been proposed by Blanton, Feinman, and others, and efectively adopted by B. A. Shepard in a recent essay.8 We can identify the following features of the network/ corporate theory, according to Shepard’s abridged description. he “corporate” mode is based on local interactions, and the rise to power of elites occurs in close association with “communal identities”. his type of political economy is characterized by a more egalitarian distribution of wealth, shared power, emphasis on food production, power embedded in a group, monumental ritual places and other features. Individuals in higher positions of power and prestige are connected to the community through their “mastery of esoteric knowledge” linked to various cosmological themes. Most importantly, there is little emphasis on personal accumulation of wealth “in the form of prestige goods obtained through long-distance exchange”. he “network” mode, on the other hand, is one in which it is individuals (as opposed to the community) who “confer power” and where this power “derives from longdistance interactions and the production, control and display of the wealth objects that these interactions generate”. Hence, such political economies are characterized by concentrated wealth, prestige goods, princely burials, personal gloriication and ostentatious elite 8 See in particular Blanton et al., “A Dual-Processual heory for the Evolution of Mesoamerican Civilization”, pp. 1–14; Feiman, “Corporate/Network: New Perspectives on Models of Political Action and the Puebloan Southwest”, pp. 31–51. his paragraph paraphrases, abridges, or reproduces the relevant passages in Shepard, “Political Economic Reorganization among Non-state Societies”, pp. 366–367. 38 Nicola Di Cosmo adornment. he ostentatious aspects of the “network” elites are embedded in non-local or rare materials, those that require extremely expensive labor investments or that cannot be reproduced. Such diferences in the political economies of archaic societies could be useful to identify diferent modes of self-representation of nomadic elites. he funerary assemblage of pastoral nomadic sites in the Northern Zone of China can be examined with this particular aim in mind, that is, to identify the “corporate” or the “network” aspects of a given community’s elite. he objects that are usually regarded as signiicant to determine status consist of metal objects (in bronze, silver, gold, and iron) and precious artifacts (jewelry, precious stones, and objects of ine craftsmanship), while pottery, as important as it is in determining the cultural continuity and other features speciic to a given culture or site, cannot provide suicient information about the status system. Animal remains have also not been taken into account, because their presence is extremely widespread and, while the nature of the animals sacriiced and their position and number in the burials may indeed give an indication of status, speciic correlations have to my knowledge not been systematically investigated. We can divide the mortuary assemblages into two broad categories. he irst category is characterized by martial symbols, in particular weapons and horse ittings, together with a variety of ornaments that are not intrinsically very rare or precious but nevertheless must have carried indications of status. he second category, on the other hand, is dominated by ostentatious, prestige objects, ranging from ordinary types to extremely rich ones, sometimes found in large quantities in a single grave. hese two “scenarios” may be indicative of the diferent ways in which leadership status (rather than simply social status) was represented in the burials following the corporate/network classiication mentioned above. hat is to say, a “martial” burial may be indicative of a leadership that emphasizes a warrior’s status, charisma, and personal prowess, but not his accumulation of personal wealth, and inds its raison d’être in a system of values internal to the community, such as the protection of the group and the rituals associated to it. On the other hand, the prevalence of objects that appear to display personal riches may point to a type of leadership that is more connected with hereditary prestige, luxury exchange, ostentatious wealth, and perhaps commercial opportunities, thus being closer to a “network” mode of political economy. hese two scenarios only very rarely appear in their “pure” form, but consistent variations do point to diferences in the ways in which what we might call a “nomadic aristocracy” constituted itself in relation to its own community as well as to foreign elites. Relations with other political entities provided discrete opportunities and necessities, whereby defense, military expansion, trade, or the government of heterogeneous ethnic groups might have intervened to shape the nature of a given group’s leadership. As we examine more closely the “martial” assemblage, a common theme is the presence of three types of objects: 1. weapons and tools in bronze and iron; 2. personal ornaments in bronze, and rarely in gold and silver (generally in tiny numbers); 3. horse and chariots ittings, attesting to the importance of the horse and to a probably greater mobility of the Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire 39 group. Sites with these characteristics have been located not only in Inner Mongolia and the Ordos region, but also in Qinghai, Ningxia, and Gansu.9 At Maoqinggou (Liangcheng County, Inner Mongolia), one of the most prominent, larger, and better known sites in which burials of the upper stratum have been attributed by archaeologists to the “Xiongnu” culture, we ind a metal inventory in which weapons and ornaments predominate.10 With eighty-one excavated tombs and a settlement, this site has been divided into four phases based on stratigraphic analysis, spanning from c. 700 to c. 300 BCE. It shows a remarkable continuity in the composition of the funerary assemblage, even though the style of the objects and their workmanship changed. Among the metal objects, weapons, belt ornaments, and ornamental plaques predominate. Horse-related indings, such as a bronze bit, are very few, and appear in only two tombs. Iron objects increase in the later period, while no gold remains have been found. he military nature of these elites is evident, I believe, in their being buried with their weapons, while wealth was stored mainly in relatively common bronze ornamental objects. Taohongbala, another important Ordos site, dated to the Warring States period, is regarded as one of the most representative of the Xiongnu archaeological culture.11 Here too we ind several weapons, such as pick-axes, an axe, a club-head, and bronze and iron knives. Personal ornaments also abound; all are bronze with the exception of a pair of gold earrings. However, unlike Maoqinggou and Fanjiayaozi (see below), the burials of Taohongbala include several horse ittings – such as bits and chanfrons – and equestrian ornaments. In terms of precious objects, we ind here only one gold pendant, similar to the gold coils found at Nanshangen (Liaoning) and Beixingbao (Hebei province). his may indicate the development of a “prestige exchange” network in which gold objects may have played an important role, but given the isolated nature of this ind, its relevance to the deinition of social status is unclear. A second example of this type of assemblage is the “Xiongnu” tomb excavated at Yulongtai, in Inner Mongolia. he rich material assemblage shows a mixture of weapons and tools, in both bronze and iron, and a variety of bronze objects, which constitute the greater portion of the assemblage, in which horse ittings such as bits, ornaments, and cheek-pieces, are widely represented. he ornamental plates include animal and geometric style plates, and inials shaped in the form of a horse head or crouching deer. he only “luxury item” is a silver necklace similar to one found at Wa’ertugou.12 he contrast between Ordos sites with and without equestrian remains can be seen when comparing the sites of Fanjiayaozi and Hulusitai. he irst includes the usual bronze inventory of weapons and “animal-style” ornamental plaques but lacks horse-related items.13he 9 For a recent survey of Xiongnu sites in northern China, see Pan Ling, “A Summary of Xiongnu Sites within the Northern Periphery of China”, pp. 463–474. 10 Höllmann and Kossack, Maoqinggou: Ein eisenzeitliches Gräberfeld in der Ordos Region (Innere Mongolei); Nei Menggu wenwu gongzuodui, “Maoqinggou Mudi”, pp. 252–287. 11 Tian Guangjin, “Taohongbalade Xiongnumu”, pp. 131–142. 12 Neimenggu Bowuguan and Neimenggu Wenwu Gongzuodui, “Neimenggu Zhunge'erqi Yulongtaide Xiongnumu”, pp. 111–114. 13 Li Yiyou, “Neimenggu Helinge'erxian Chutude Tongqi”, p. 79. 40 Nicola Di Cosmo metal inventory of the second set of burials (three tombs) also presents a large number of horse ittings (chanfrons) and in one tomb the remains of a large number of sacriiced horses (twenty-seven heads).14 Both sites have been attributed to the Xiongnu culture.15 A somewhat later Xiongnu burial site, also located in Inner Mongolia, is that of Budonggou, which comprises nine tombs.16 his has been dated to the Han dynasty on the basis of a TLV mirror with late Western or early Eastern Han characteristics, and presents several iron items including horse bits and equestrian ornaments. he presence of bronze cauldrons found at this site allows for the attribution of this site to the “Xiongnu” nomadic complex, which by this time encompassed the whole northern region of China, Mongolia, and parts of Siberia and Central Asia. he continuity of this type of assemblage with early ones is clear from one personal weapon (a sword), tools, ornaments, and especially horse ittings. As mentioned above, broadly the same type of objects are present in a number of sites that are not normally attributed to the Xiongnu, probably because the geographical coordinates do not correspond to the region that they are presumed to have occupied. Nevertheless, the cultural similarities are striking. In the northwestern sites of the Yanglang “culture”, in Guyuan county (Ningxia), the martial nature of the elite is even more prominent, and this may possibly be taken as the region where a martial mounted aristocracy developed more precociously and more fully than elsewhere. At Yanglang, forty-nine graves have been dated to the pre-Han period (c. 700–200 BCE).17 Here, military paraphernalia include one full iron sword, and the remains of several others, in addition to bronze weapons such as ge halberds (also found in several Ordos sites), spearheads, daggers, knives, arrowheads, pickaxes, and axes. Bronze and sometimes iron ornamental objects, such as plaques in the animal style, belt hooks, earrings, and belt ornaments, are present in large quantities. he chariot and horse ornaments, including bits, cheek pieces, chanfrons, and chariot caps, are especially numerous. A small percentage of indings consists of precious objects, namely, nine gold and silver earrings and some silver beads. he precious objects, the ge 戈 halberds and other products of Chinese origin attest to the existence of trade and exchange, but the abundance of military objects suggests that the local nomadic elite did not deine themselves primarily in terms of their commercially derived wealth. At the site of Shilacun, in the same county of Guyuan, we ind the same type of assemblage dominated by bronze horse ittings and weapons, with metalwork closely reminiscent of the remains found at “Xiongnu” sites such as Taohongbala and Yulongtai.18 Moreover, a general survey of the metal inventory of several graves excavated in the same area again conirms the basic nature of this type of inventory, in which we have weapons, horse and 14 15 16 17 Ta La and Liang Jinming, “Hulusitai Xiongnumu”, pp. 11–12. Tian Guanjin and Guo Suxin, E’erduosi shi qingtong qi, pp. 222–226. Yikezhaomeng wenwu gongzuozhan, “Yikezhaomeng Budonggou Xiongnumu Qingli Jianbao”, pp. 27–33. Ningxia Wenwu Kaogu Yanjiusuo and Ningxia Guyuan Bowuguan, “Ningxia Guyuan Yanglang Qingtong Wenhua Mudi”, pp. 13–56. 18 Luo Feng, “Ningxia Guyuan Shilacun Faxian Yizuo Zhanguomu”, pp. 130–131, 142. Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire 41 chariot ittings, and largely bronze ornaments (although some gold pieces are present, but in very small quantities).19 Another signiicant site is Yujiazhuang, near Pengpu, in Guyuan county (Ningxia).20 Here twenty-eight tombs have been excavated, with nearly seven hundred bronze objects recovered, and a few items in iron and in gold. his site has been attributed to the Western Rong people, but in fact the metal assemblage is similar to (although not identical with) the type of bronzes found in the Ordos region. Both artifacts and sacriicial remains indicate that the horse was important in their culture. On the other hand, we also ind numerous traces of local and independent cultural developments. he dating is confused, and the presence of two diferent types of burial customs renders the interpretation of the cultural attribution of the site tentative at best, but the general picture is that of a lorid northern nomadic culture, whose valuables (weapons, personal ornaments, and horses) were similar to those found in other northern regions and belonged to an elite of horse-riding warriors. his type of inventory is also broadly similar to what we ind at various sites in Qingyang county (Gansu province),21 where horse and chariot ornaments and ittings are even more prominent and some tools show a close typological connection with the above mentioned Taohongbala and with the site of Xichagou in Liaoning (see below). Several indings from sites in Qin’an county (also in Gansu) have also been attributed to the Xiongnu, and include in particular weapons and bronze ornaments similar to indings from the sites of Taohongbala, Fanjiayaozi, Xigoupan, and Beixinbao.22 Martial symbols, the main markers of status in some nomadic communities, also appear in some later sites. On the eastern side of the Northern Zone, such features can be seen in the pre-Han site of Wudaohezi (Lingyuan, Liaoning province).23 Bronze weapons, ornaments, and horse ittings predominate. No iron objects have been retrieved, but two golden ornaments may indicate this site’s limited participation in a broader luxury trade, which does not appear to be signiicant in the deinition of elite status. he Xiongnu site of Xichagou, a broadly distributed necropolis also located in Liaoning of about ive hundred graves dated to the Western Han period (206 BCE-9 CE), features objects of Chinese origin, such as mirrors and coins, but the dominant elements of the funerary inventory are still chariot and horse ittings, and weapons, including a large number of iron swords and spears. No gold or silver objects have been found.24 he burials of the second category display not just a predominance of prestige and wealth symbols, including gold and silver items, but an absence of weapons and horse-related objects. At Guoxianyaozi (Liangcheng, Inner Mongolia) – a burial site of circa twenty tombs dated around 500–400 BCE – we ind a large number of bronze plaques (forty-four, in 19 Luo Feng and Han Kongle, “Ningxia Guyuan Jinnian Faxiande Beifangxi Qingtongqi”, pp. 403–418. 20 Ningxia Wenwu Kaogu Yanjiusuo, “Ningxia Pengbao yujiazhuang mudi”, pp. 79–107; Zhong Kan, “Guyuanxian Pengpu Chunqiu Zhanguo Muzang”, pp. 255–256. 21 Liu Dezhen and Xu Junchen, “Gansu Qingyang Chunqiu Zhanguo muzangde qingli”. 22 Qin’an xian wenhua guan, “Qin'an xian Linian Chutude Beifangxi Qingtongqi”, pp. 40–43. 23 Liaoning sheng Wenwu Kaogu Yanjiusuo, “Liaoning Lingyuanxian Wudaohezi Zhanguomu Fajue Jianbao”, pp. 52–61. 24 Sun Shoudao, “Xiongnu Xichagou Wenhua’ gumujun de faxian”, pp. 25–35. 42 Nicola Di Cosmo animal or geometric style), belt ornaments, buttons, bells, earrings, and various clothing ornaments.25 Beside these, the only other bronze objects are two knives and one pick-axe. he absence of the classic martial and equestrian markers of nomadic elite may indicate that the people here were deining status in terms of wealth represented by rich or rare ornamental objects. Even more striking examples of ostentatious wealth are the sites that present large numbers of precious objects, such as Aluchaideng (Ordos), tombs number 2 and 4 at Xigoupan (Ordos), Nalin’gaotu (Shaanxi province) and Shihuigou (Ordos). At Aluchaideng, two graves attributed to the Xiongnu yielded a very large number of luxury items, totaling 218 gold and ive silver objects. hese include a gold headdress, ornamental gold plaques, including some set with gems in a design of a tiger and birds, ifty-ive animal style plates, forty-ive rectangular gold buckle ornaments, and various other ornaments such as buttons, beads, one chain, and a pair of earrings.26 In tomb number 2 at the burial site of Xigoupan, also dated to the third century BCE, we ind several gold items, such as two ornamental plaques, a necklace, a pair of earrings, scabbard ornaments, and bird-shaped ornaments.27 Silver ornaments have also been found. At the same site, several luxury items were found in tomb number 4, dated to a later period, possibly early Han (second-irst century BCE). Here too jewelry predominates, including a gold headdress, earrings, ornamental plates, strings of beads with gold thread, large goldrimmed open-work jade pendants, gold belt ornaments, and a buckle. Although identiied in the literature as Xiongnu sites, their metal inventory is strikingly diferent from that of other Xiongnu tombs. Similar sites have been excavated in Shenmu county, in Shaanxi.28 Only one tomb found in Nalin’gaotu, however, provided a large body of precious goods: gold, silver, and bronze ornaments in open-work, relief, or other forms. hese include artifacts typical of the “Northern” style, such as one gold deer-shape fantastic anima, a silver tiger, and ive silver kneeling deer, all in three-dimensional forms; one gilt silver dagger handle; a pair of gold plaques in the shape of a tiger, and various silver plaques, buckles, rings and bronze ornaments. In contrast, other indings in the same area have yielded more average bronze items. Finally, the late Warring States site of Shihuigou, has yielded, in a single grave, numerous silver plaques, and gilded bronze ornaments that may have come from the Central Plains. 29 he silver plaques display typical northern motifs, such as a tiger biting a deer and tigers in combat; ornamental buttons, also in silver, include animal combat and geometric designs, and various animal representations. he gilt bronze ornaments, set in iron, represent turtles, kneeling deer, a crane’s head, and a ram’s head. In addition, gold and silver inlaid iron remains have been found. Here we also ind elements of an equestrian culture, such as chariot 25 Wei Jian, “Liangcheng Guoxianyaozi Mudi”, pp. 57–81. 26 Tian Guangjin and Guo Suxin, “Neimenggu Aluchaideng faxiande Xiongnu yiwu”, pp. 333–338, 364, 368. 27 Yikezhaomeng wenwu gongzuozhan and Neimenggu wenwu gongzuodui, “Xigoupan Xiongnu mu”, pp. 1–10; Yikezhaomeng wenwu gongzuozhan, and Neimenggu wenwu gongzuodui, “Xigoupan Handai Xiongnu mudi diaochaji”, pp. 15–26. 28 Dai Yingxin and Sun Jiaxiang, “Shaanxi Shenmuxian Chutu Xiongnu Wenwu”, pp. 23–30. 29 Yikezhaomeng wenwu gongzuozhan, “Yijinhuoluoqi Shihuigou Faxiande E'erduosishi Wenwu”, pp. 91–96. Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire 43 ornaments, gilded saddlecloth ornaments, and two horse bits, but the context is overwhelmingly one that privileges the accumulation of precious goods, and the iron-set gilded bronze, as well as the gold and silver inlaid iron objects, may point to Chinese production, or to a technology imported from or inluenced by China. Aside from the question of the range of contacts and the stylistic or cultural attribution of the various objects, what is relevant for the purpose of this cursory survey is the concentration of wealth in a single grave, where the symbols of a nomadic warrior’s prowess (his horse and weapons) either disappear or are rendered according to a material hierarchy that provides the object with intrinsic value, apart from its relationship to the life and values of its owner. What I would like to suggest is that this type of inventory may indicate that the accumulation of wealth in the form of luxury objects had become a more important sign of aristocratic distinction than the weapons and horse ittings traditionally associated with nomadic steppe leadership. his may in turn point to a deep transformation among some nomadic elites towards a political and economic role quite diferent from the traditional one, which we assume was centered on military leadership and religious functions, as the weapons, horse ittings and sacriicial cauldrons suggest. In contrast, the emphatic accumulation of precious objects relects a “network mode” of elite representation. Nomadic elites became increasingly involved in long-distance contacts, and drew legitimacy and power from their connections with other elites. Exchange of prestige items, as well as trade and tribute, became the source of stored wealth that demonstrated and consolidated a lineage’s enduring power. Foreign connections and representations of one’s elite status in terms that would be readily recognized outside one’s community marked a transition, among certain groups, to a symbolic system resembling the “network” rather than the “corporate” mode. his transition, however, should not be placed in a linear evolutional pattern. Interaction among nomadic communities and long-distance contacts with the northern and western cultural areas, as well as with the Chinese states to the south, may have stimulated these changes in patterns that are so far unclear. Political events may have played an important role as traditional elites may have been challenged and replaced by others, and the development of commercial routes (as demonstrated, for instance, by the presence of Chinese silk in the later Pazyryk burials) may have contributed to changes in the elites’ value system. However, the diversity in the funerary assemblages provides a strong indication that a transition was taking place among local elites in the northern borderlands of the Zhou community of states, and that this transition may be related to both long-term and short-term political and economic changes. 2.2 Northern Mongolia: Xiongnu elite burials and material culture Moving to the Xiongnu archaeology north of the Gobi, in today’s Mongolia, implies not just a spatial transition but also a temporal one, as the main sites are dated from the irst century BCE, which is later than most Xiongnu sites in today’s China. Arguably the most visible and important display of elite culture in this region can be seen in the burials that emerge around the end of the irst century BCE. hese are very large and imposing tombs, notable especially for the complexity or “monumentality” of their construction, which are 44 Nicola Di Cosmo signiicantly diferent from the circular tombs with elite goods and other features of elevated status that can be found in the earlier period. Several studies have been produced that give us a fairly reliable overview of the chronology and typology of these burials. he large ramped, rectangular or square burials that have been found in numerous necropolises in central and northern Mongolia and Buriatia, at sites such as Gol Mod, Noyon Uul, and Tsaraam, have been attributed to the Xiongnu and dated between the late irst century BCE and irst century CE, but especially towards the end of this relatively narrow chronological spectrum. According to archaeologists, the fundamental features of these burials, the overall architecture and the mode of inhumation, relect a synthesis of two diferent traditions.30 he construction of the wooden burial chamber is derived from the large “Scythian” tombs in the tradition of the Altai and Pazyryk barrows. he overall architecture, with ramp, terraced construction and deep location of the burial chamber, on the other hand, is attributed to inluences from China and was possibly even built by Chinese slaves and prisoners of war. he overall composition of the monument includes peripheral or ancillary burial pits that are much smaller and whose function is unclear, but that appear to belong to a cohort of people who accompanied in death the person buried in the main tumulus. hese burials are clearly extraordinary monuments, and are meant to represent the very highest members of the nomadic elites. hey are quite uniform in style and in terms of the composition of the funerary objects, many of which indicate a relationship with workshops and artisanal centers in China whose products were of a grade suitable for the Chinese nobility. Archaeologists and historians have been baled by the sudden emergence of these monuments, located within necropolises made of hundreds of large and small graves. he time period coincides neither with the emergence of new political structures (such as the formation of a new empire) nor with the appearance of a new people. he written records do not shed much useful light on the political composition of the Xiongnu empire in the areas where these monuments appear, but two phenomena must be taken into consideration. he irst is that the labor-intensive construction, the satellite round burial pits, and the richness and exclusivity of the objects accompanying the dead, point to a self-representation of the Xiongnu elite very diferent from the southern one. he second is that the location of many such tombs in various parts of Mongolia indicates the absence of a clear territorial hierarchy – these areas were not subordinated to a putative imperial center. hat is, various aristocratic or “elite” existed simultaneously and deined themselves, as relected in the funerary monuments, through very similar attributes. A reasonable conclusion would be that, short of inding a site that could be identiied as a “court” dominating the whole territory, the Xiongnu aristocracy had become fragmented and divided into independent “principalities”. We do not know whether this change represents the old Xiongnu imperial aristocracy taking on a new political role, or rather the emergence of an altogether new “local” aristocracy. In terms of political change, several scenarios should be considered. For instance, just as the crisis that led to Modu’s seizure of power produced a new aristocracy in the Xiongnu empire, the crisis of the civil war among the Xiongnu around the middle of the irst century BCE may have stimulated the rise of a new aristocracy among the independent northern 30 Eregzen, “A Comparative Analysis of Xiongnu Noble Tombs and Burials in Adjacent Regions”, pp. 275–284. Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire 45 Xiongnu. his new aristocracy was more fragmented and autonomous, had a well-deined territorial base, and probably entertained separate relations with the Han court. Alternatively, a change in elite culture occurred as the old Xiongnu aristocracy retreated to the North and established power bases that deined themselves in competition with China by displays of wealth and majesty that could compete with the Han dynasty and thus retain authority and prestige in the face of mass Xiongnu desertions and migrations to China. he presence of prestige objects of Chinese origin can be explained only in terms of gifts directly sent (perhaps together with brides, artisans, and engineers) from China to various Xiongnu aristocrats. his type of relationship can be easily explained in terms of the “divide and rule” frontier strategy adopted by the Han dynasty and by Wang Mang during the short interregnum of the Xin dynasty. What this means is that the Xiongnu ceased to work as an “empire” and devolved into multiple aristocratic centers whose political dynamics are not exactly known but which proited both from the dissolution of a centralized state that absorbed resources now accessible to regional aristocrats, and from the turn of Han politics towards a more efective diplomacy of maintaining a balance of power in the steppe in order to avoid the emergence of centralized “imperial” centers. At the current state of research, it is diicult to say for how long exactly these elites were able to continue building monumental tombs, but it is likely that they disappeared in conjunction with a decline of the Han dynasty. Contrary to theories claiming that nomadic power rises and becomes more centralized in tandem with the increasing wealth of China, the presence of monumental tombs proves the opposite, namely, that the emergence of regional Xiongnu elites relects not a uniied but a divided political space. his development (which is supported by ample documentary evidence) should be attributed to a Chinese policy of investing large amounts of wealth in order to maintain various power centers. he richest and most ostentatious elites are, then, proof of the decline rather than the rise of Xiongnu imperial power, and defy any simplistic association between wealth and power. A very insightful hypothesis in this regard has been proposed by Ursula Brosseder in her study of Xiongnu elite burials.31 Following Kossack’s theory of ostentatious tombs, she attributes their appearance to a cultural change within the elite due to a particular crisis, identiied by her as the split between Northern and Southern Xiongnu of 49 CE. In my view, this is correct, but the phenomenon of regionalization and segmentation of political power among the Xiongnu could be dated even earlier, from around the irst century BCE, when the central power of the chanyu began to wane and the crisis deepened, provoking between c. 56 and 36 BCE the fateful split between Huhanye and Zhizhi chanyu. Under Huyandi chanyu, the Xiongnu became vulnerable to attacks by Wuhuan, Wusun, and Dingling groups, and even the tombs of the chanyus were desecrated by these enemies. he Han also sent various expeditionary forces against the nomads. In other words, the sources present a picture of extreme instability, military weakness, and political fragmentation. Given this scenario, the emergence of regional power centers, leading to the redeinition of the Xiongnu upper strata after they lost their imperial and uniied dimension, the rise of the nomadic enemies that threatened their supremacy, and the projection of Chinese power in the region 31 Brosseder, “Xiongnu Terrace Tombs and their Interpretation as Elite Burials”, pp. 247–280. 46 Nicola Di Cosmo (political, symbolic and military) may have been responsible for the appearance of new ways in which the Xiongnu elite deined itself from around the turn of the millennium. What we do not know and shall never know is what kind of elite this was – whether it represented the reemergence of tribal groups previously conquered by the Xiongnu and then incorporated within the Xiongnu empire, or the “exploded” members of the Xiongnu elite that had reconstituted themselves as regional power-holders. While this historical reconstruction remains at best a preliminary attempt to explain the profound shift in the material record, it may ofer insights into the political evolution of the Xiongnu “empire”. Whereas the earlier (southern) elites’ burials are less ostentatious and their prestige goods did not constitute a standardized body of accoutrements, and while they had access to fewer human and material resources, the northern elites display a very different type of status consciousness. he precious objects and large burials indicate identical elite taste and attributes, and, possibly, sumptuary regulations as to rank and title. he large number of Chinese prestige items (chariots, silk, mirrors, and exclusive lacquers) may even indicate an important role played by the Han court in determining or conirming the rank and status of these local elites. he emergence of “ostentatious” terraced tombs in Mongolia, therefore, needs to be seen in relation to political events that brought a profound and signiicant transformation of social and cultural values in which the presence of Chinese symbols of prestige and impressive landmarks in the steppes played a key role. To conclude this section on monumental burials, it may be appropriate to clarify a point in the historical sources that has been brought to the attention of archaeologists. In the Shiji, it is stated that the Xiongnu did not build tumuli or large tombs, but this statement was glossed in the Jijie commentary with a note by Zhang Hua 張華 (232–300), the inluential scholar who served under the Jin dynasty in the third century CE, who said that the Xiongnu had burial mounds called douluo 逗落 in their language (Shiji 2893). his can be reconstructed as *dow-lak, with a irst syllable based on Proto-Mongolian *dobu/*döbe, and pronounced *dow, and the second as the suix *-lak. his word may therefore be related to Classical Mongolian dobuilγa, meaning a raised earthen mound, or protuberance in the land. If this reconstruction can be accepted, this word allows us to associate a Proto-Mongolian word with a Xiongnu artifact that did not exist at the time of Sima Qian, but did exist at the time of Zhang Hua. Leaving aside the question of who exactly were the Xiongnu to whom Zhang Hua was referring, and the exact reconstruction of the Xiongnu word, this textual note proves, in my view conclusively, that the cultural change attested by the creation of large monumental tombs occurred after the time of Sima Qian, when the Xiongnu empire was already undergoing a process of dissolution and decentralization, and possibly before the formal separation between Southern and Northern Xiongnu, in the Eastern Han dynasty. In addition to the burials, we need to take into consideration other aspects of “elite” attribution in a Xiongnu context to the north of the Gobi. First of all, we should mention that the sudden appearance of monumental graves and the typical Xiongnu round burial pits (regarded as non-elite burials) are preceded in the pre-Xiongnu Mongolian archaeology by “stone-slab” graves (eleventh-third century), that is, rectangular or square pits with sides lined with stone slabs. hese are dated to the late Bronze or Early Iron Age periods, and are found prevalently in Western Mongolia; some are also found in Transbaikalia, very few in Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire 47 other parts of Mongolia, and none in Tuva or the Minusinsk basin. he inventory consists typically of a few bronze or iron weapons, some pottery and parts of sacriiced animals, but here too we can trace some changes. he site of Egiin Gol, in northwestern Mongolia, has been regarded as an ordinary Xiongnu burial ground. he grave inventory is poor, the ornaments are few, and there are no traces of concentration of power and wealth. Rather, both assemblage and grave distribution seem to indicate a difused social body. he presence of non-locally produced items, however, indicates access to foreign goods, such as cowries, turquoise and tinned bronze items. he main source of these items is the south: Inner Mongolia and the Northern Zone of China. Horse-riding can be attested perhaps from the end of the second millennium BCE, but there are few weapons and no evidence of extensive warfare. he limited number of precious ornaments and the generally low level of social diferentiation seems to indicate a “corporate” rather than a “network” type of local economy. As mentioned above, the situation changes dramatically from the irst century BCE. When irst excavated, the Noyon Uul tombs were regarded as kurgans and associated with the nomadic barrows of Central Asia. he funerary assemblage in the most sumptuous and large elite graves includes what can be seen as highly standardized sets of Chinese goods of the Han dynasty, such as chariots, silk, mirrors (always fragmented), and lacquer objects, together with elite goods more typical of a nomadic culture, such as golden artifacts, weapons, and animal-style decorations. A special feature is the custom of satellite single burials, typically in relatively shallow pits (one to two-meters deep), which may be burials of sacriicial victims. he large burial excavated by Sergey Minyaev at Tsaraam,32 although severely disturbed and looted, contained both Chinese imported goods (lacquer, chariot and mirrors), and iron buckles in the so-called “animal style” covered with gold foil or other precious metals. he monumentality of the burial complex, which includes several satellite burials, indicates, according to Minyaev, an extremely high-ranking igure (perhaps a “khan”), and the goods, which are only prestige and luxury items, are therefore indicative of high political status. Likewise, the large tomb excavated at Takhiltyn Khotgor shows an assemblage of some precious objects in gold, vessels, silk, turquoise insets and other objects, but no weapons. We should note that the gold objects, representing a sun and a crescent, probably have ritual signiicance, and may even be associated with the aforementioned ritual performed by the chanyu to worship the rising sun and moon.33 Moreover, the general inventory of these large “elite” tombs does not include any weaponry, with the exception of a single arrowhead found in the Andreev Kurgan at Noyon Uul.34 Elite goods can be also found in the smaller “satellite” burials that have a spatial relationship to the larger rectangular (terraced) tomb. At Gol Mod 2, the funerary inventory of a larger satellite burial included imported goods, such as lacquer and mirrors from China, a 32 Minyaev and Sakharovskaia, “An Elite Complex of Xiongnu Burials in the Tsaraam Valley”, pp. 71–84. 33 Miller, “Permutations on Peripheries in the Xiongnu Empire”, p. 571. 34 Brosseder, “Xiongnu Terrace Tombs and their Interpretation as Elite Burials”, p. 264. 48 Nicola Di Cosmo Roman glass bowl, and semiprecious beads.35 Foreign luxury goods are indicative of “elite” status, but exactly what they tell us about the actual social rank is not clear. At Duurlig Nars, in north-eastern Mongolia, the excavation of a large terraced tomb revealed a similarly rich inventory, with goods of high prestige, such as chariot, gold and gilded objects, Chinese mirrors and ritual bronze vessels (an incense burner with a tray and a cauldron). Once again, no symbols of a military status have been found. Other Xiongnu undisturbed burials are sometimes also designated as “elite” even though they appear to be much more modest constructions than the terraced tombs – while also larger and deeper than “ordinary” Xiongnu burial pits – such as the barrows at Khökh Üzüürin Dugui-II in Western Mongolia. Here, Chinese bronze vessels dated to the Han dynasty were found together with a bronze cauldron that shows possible connections with Kazakhstan.36 hese objects may be related to ritual functions, and may thus belong to a diferent type of elite, not political but perhaps religious. A combination of remains that we may ind to be more typical of a warlike nomad comes from two wooden coin burials at Shombuuziin-Belchir,37 which include iron horse bits, an iron spearhead, arrowheads, and bows. hese burials had been looted and in some there are traces of Chinese lacquer, and while these burials should also be inscribed under the rubric of “elite” on account of the luxury goods, their shape and construction indicate a diferent type of elite attribution from the larger monumental burials. As pointed out by Nelson et al., the systematic looting and disruption of Xiongnu cemeteries in antiquity may be related to the desecration of Xiongnu elite tombs (speciically the tombs of the chanyu) by the Wuhuang, which we have read of in the sources.38 But whether the archeological record can actually clarify these issues is doubtful. At present we can only register the development of a culturally homogeneous upper elite, distinguished by access to Chinese prestigious goods exclusively associated with monumental tombs. Other forms of elite status may be seen in some burials displaying objects associated with a military or ritual function. Finally, I would like to address the issue raised by recent genetic studies of the Xiongnu elite as a biologically and potentially ethnically mixed social stratum. Korean and Mongolian scientists have analyzed the ancient DNA of an adult male buried in what is regarded as an elite tomb in north-eastern Mongolia (Duurlig Nars). 39 he results show that the person in question belonged to a “European” haplogroup (R1a1) common among the nomads of western Eurasia. he authors hypothesize that this particular specimen may be related to 35 Erdenebaatar et al., “Excavations of Satellite Burial 30, Tomb 1 Complex, Gol Mod 2 Necropolis”, pp. 311–313. 36 Kovalev, Erdenebaatar and Iderkhangai, “An Unlooted Xiongnu Barrrow at Khökh Üzüürin Dugui-II, Bulgan Sum, Khovd Aimag, Mongolia”, pp. 291–302. 37 Miller et al, “Xiongnu Constituents of the High Mountains: Results of the Mongol-American Khovd Archaeology Project”, pp. 9–13; Reisinger, “New Evidence About Composite Bows and their Arrows in Inner Asia”, pp. 45–58. 38 Nelson, Honeychurch and Amartüvshin, “Caught in the Act: Understanding Xiongnu Site Formation Processes at Baga Gazaryn Chuluu, Mongolia”, p. 227. 39 Kijeong Kim et al., “A Western Eurasian Male Is Found in 2000-Year-Old Elite Xiongnu Cemetery in Northeast Mongolia”, pp. 429–440. Aristocratic Elites in the Xiongnu Empire 49 migrations from the west across Central Asia and Siberia of the Andronovo, Karasuk, and Tagar periods, eventually iniltrating Transbaikalia, and they conclude that the Xiongnu empire included a biologically diverse population. However, of the particular set of tombs examined, one is a large Xiongnu terraced tomb, which is extremely rich, but the other two, including the burial with the west Eurasian male, are distinctly smaller rectangular ones. he funerary goods buried with the “west Eurasian male” (Tomb no. 3) are two round jars, a lamp, a Chinese bronze mirror, gold foil, gold belt ornaments, an antler, a bronze ring, and an iron arrowhead. he time period is also diferent, as the smaller tombs are regarded as dating back to 300–100 BCE while the Xiongnu tomb is dated to 100 BCE-100 CE, and most likely to the latter end of this range. Dating, shape of the burial, and material inventory do not belong, in my view, to a “Xiongnu” archeological type. Rather, the site seems to include tombs from diferent periods, and the earlier ones may belong to a pre-Xiongnu “ScythoSiberian” population, akin to the population of south Siberia, and the Altai region. hus, the conclusion that this particular person belonged to the Xiongnu elite should be revised, and the question of the possible incorporation of local “Saka” elites within the Xiongnu upper class therefore remains a moot point on the archaeological front. here are, however, other sites in which preliminary research indicates that the Xiongnu, as they expanded into areas inhabited by other nomadic cultures, and in particular in the northwestern extension of their empire (Altai, Tuva, and western Mongolia), did not completely replace the local population, and a degree of cultural fusion may have occurred.40 Other studies about the Xiongnu population have yielded results that are not useful, for the time being, to assess whether the Xiongnu elite was ethnically or biologically diverse.41 hese indings nonetheless raise further questions concerning the nature of the Xiongnu expansion into diverse cultural areas and ultimately about the shape of their empire and its legacy in Inner Asian history. 3. Conclusion We cannot assume that we can speak of “elites” in history and archeology as if they were interchangeable concepts. An archeological “elite” object, such as a burial, cannot be transferred automatically onto a historical context by claiming a speciic status for the person associated with that particular structure or artifact. Likewise, the various “elites” whose existence is documented in the sources may never show up in the material record in a way that allows us to identify speciic political positions, not to mention speciic individuals. Moreover, changes in the elites’ status ascription, symbolic representation and cultural change cannot be traced through the historical record at the present state of research. One of the critical limitations of the textual sources, which is evident in Han historiography, is the diiculty in discerning whether the historian, in his description of a nomadic society, is following clichés and normative modes of representation, introducing fresh information derived from contemporary observational material of his own, or even importing narratives derived from 40 Leus, “New Finds from the Xiongnu Period in central Tuva. Preliminary Communication”, pp. 514–536. 41 Lee and Zhang Linhu. “Xiongnu Population History in Relation to China, Manchuria and the Western Regions”, pp. 192–200. 50 Nicola Di Cosmo the foreign society’s culture, such as legends and myths. On the other hand, “elite status” in the archaeological record is, at best, a relative concept inferred according to the parameters speciic to each context. Moreover, the nature of what could be perhaps deined as a Xiongnu “phenomenon” prevents any absolute identiication of a speciic Xiongnu elite, especially in the southern region of Xiongnu archaeology. In the north, a clearer elite status is closely connected with the appearance of terraced tombs, while the relationship between these Xiongnu aristocrats and other coeval and later nomadic elites will probably remain unclear for some time. In this essay two separate notions of “elite” have been investigated, on the basis of documentary sources and material culture, respectively. he study of text-based descriptions and features of the Xiongnu aristocracy has led to an attempt to reconstruct, in broad terms, the political organization of the Xiongnu empire, its territorial administration and the incorporation of local and foreign members into its hierarchies. he study of the symbolic representation of elite status and cultural change through the material record, on the other hand, has led to some considerations about cultural change among these elites. Deep diferences in heuristic methods and interpretive strategies, and of course in the quality of the information gathered from textual or archaeological sources, have not produced mutually supporting or converging hypotheses except to a very limited extent. In the end, an investigation of Xiongnu elites highlights the “bifurcated” nature of the Xiongnu phenomenon, whereby it acquires a diferent ontology depending on its historical or material dimension. However, awareness of the limitations inherent in the knowledge gleaned from various types of evidence should not make our study of ancient nomadic elites frustratingly constrained and forever dichotomized. A better understanding of both historical and material processes, informed by methods of analysis speciic to each ield, may provide new insights and thus generate questions leading to a general advancement of our knowledge of the history of the steppe region at the time of the Xiongnu empire. References Akiyama Shingo, “Nei Menggu gaoyuan de Xiongnu muzang”, in Wei Jian ed., Nei Menggu wenwu kaogu wenji, vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhongguo dabaike, 1997), pp. 375–92. Bemmann, Jan, “Was the Center of the Xiongnu Empire in the Orkhon Valley?”, in Ursula Brosseder and Bryan K. 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