Eurasiatica

Quaderni di studi su Balcani, Anatolia, Iran, Caucaso e Asia Centrale

Flying over Boundaries

Auspicious Birds in Sino-Sogdian Funerary Art

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Abstract

The focus is on the representation of auspicious birds in Sino-Sogdian funerary monuments. These birds can be portrayed with a halo behind the head and ribbons attached to their neck. Special emphasis is given to their connection with the mythical Iranian bird, the Simurgh, and the concept of Farr (‘glory, charisma’). In particular, an attempt is made to shed some light on the possible association between the Simurgh, the ‘Western’ Phoenix, and the Chinese Fenghuang.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Lingua: en

Keywords Phoenix • Simurgh • Sino-Sogdian art • Fenghuang

Copyright © 2016 Matteo Compareti. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/978-88-6969-100-3/006


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