"Stuff is eaten by dogs, broken by family and friends, sanded down by the wind, frozen by the mountains, lost by the prairie, burnt off by the sun, washed away by the rain. So you are left with dogs, family, friends, sun, rain, wind, prairie and mountains. What more do you want?" Federico Calboli
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Prince Xanghui
I have seen black and white line drawings of a falconer with a tazi from Prince Xanghui's tomb in Xian, on the far eastern end of the Silk Road. Though I used one on my letterhead, the hawk was unidentifiable. I assumed it was a Goshawk which is still flown in the area and throughout northern Xinjiang.
Recently I got a much better colored image, which shows more clearly that it is indeed a Goshawk. It also has an even better image of the tazi or, if you prefer, the saluki. Notice the odd Roman-nosed profile. It is still present in the tazis of the area today and was noticed disparagingly by a commenter in one of the posts below who asked if I thought "sheepsheads" were ancient. Well, here's one before 800 A.D.-- a bit after 700 I think.
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