Find the perfect fit with Amazon Prime. Try Before You Buy.
PAINTING HALL (AMAZON HALL)
Painting with glue paints on dry loess plaster
c. 740
Penjikent. Sector XXI, room 1, southwest corner
Accession: 1964
In the first, lower tier, there are individual scenes illustrating short fables and stories (the tale of the blacksmith and the monkey,
the three wise men who resurrected the tiger, the goose laying the golden eggs, the lion and the hare).
The second tier of murals is devoted to an unknown plot, apparently of an epic nature, one of the main characters of which is a woman warrior.
Photos by Oleg Belaychuk
Western part: The long wall running from left of the entrance, the narrative running from right to left (to judge by the direction of the riders).
First comes a battle between two groups of riders, then the action unfolds near the south- western corner. A rider heading a small company sits upon a pale grey dappled horse: his armour and weaponry touched with gold and the rare colour of his horse suggest he is a commander, perhaps a king. In the foreground is another rider on a brown horse, his armour also evidence of noble status and therefore of his important role in the battle. Below, on the ground, we can pick out two wheels, probably belonging to the chariot bearing an unidentified hero in blue holding a thread of pearls.
The next episode unfolds in the south-west corner, where the paintings have been most extensively preserved in terms of the height of the surviving image. Here we see a complex composition built up of several horizontal planes.
In the first plane is a duel between a ‘king’ and a rider on a bay horse. They fight with spears and the king would seem to be almost knocked from his saddle, every detail confirming the strength of the blow he has received: the girth has come undone and the breastplate has snapped, the saddle is falling, the rider’s feet have come free of the stirrups and he has fallen back onto the horse’s rump. In the second plane, on a hill beyond the horse, is another figure of which only the legs in golden greaves and the lower part of the body armour survive, but these are sufficient to identify the king, now down on his feet. He moves right, holding a spear the tip of which shows behind the horse’s rump.
The rider on the bay horse has been almost entirely lost. A wounded or dead woman lies on her back beneath the horse, her pale blue patterned kaftan finished in the same way as that of the rider. She wears no helmet and a long black plait runs alongside her right arm. There is a bloody wound in her breast. The similarity between the colour and finish of the kaftan suggests that the rider and the woman beneath the horse’s hooves are one and the same.
Next in terms of preservation and the logical development of the subject comes a scene in which two warriors carry a carpet bearing a female figure. Although it must come later in the narrative, this scene is placed between figures in single combat and the king’s departure. The half-naked woman lying on the carpet has long plaits and wears silk shalwar (baggy trousers), over which are gaiters made of the skin of some beast of prey; she has a wound in her chest, the nature and location of which allow us to identify this ‘Amazon’ with the woman doing battle with the king. Directly below the carpet on the ground is another dead warrior in an incredibly realistic pose that seems to have been drawn from life. The artist used a single line to convincingly convey the rippling muscles of the back, the bulging ribs and stomach muscles.
The next scene comes in the upper part of the surviving painting. Behind the king engaged in single-handed combat are three male figures seated in a row in identical poses, turned to the viewer’s right. All three wear identical long kaftans caught up at the waist with a golden belt from which hang empty scabbards. They are seated directly upon the ground, without any underlying cushions or blankets, all of which suggests that they are prisoners. Before them is a large trapeziform carpet, the upper part of which has been lost.
The main characters – the rider on the yellow horse in the eastern part of the room and the king in the western part – do not appear together, and the narrative develops in different directions, in one case from left to right, in the other from right to left. We might conclude that the room contained two different subjects, yet the heroes are all doing battle with the same enemy: the dead warriors lying on the ground beneath the horses’ feet are the same in both cases, and in both cases they include a woman. It is the presence of these female warriors that gave the painting its name, ‘Battle with Amazons’, although there are only two women, one in each subject, both of them fighting on the losing side.
The fallen enemy warriors are shown not just dead but stripped of their clothes by the victors. The artist thus simultaneously depicts the same figures at different stages of events, a device that was an important feature of medieval narrative art.
As in other narrative paintings from Panjakent, Battle with Amazons has no overall panorama of the battle but shows consecutive episodes.
Source: “Battle with Amazons (eastern and western parts),” Telling the Sogdian Story: A Freer|Sackler Digital Exhibition Project, accessed December 7, 2020
