Dian warrior

THE DIAN KINGDOM, China’s southwestern barbarians.

You already saw my take on the Yue or Baiyue, which were the barbarian tribes that inhabited the Pacific coast of mainland Southeast Asia and Maritime Southeast Asia, peoples that are thought to be related with the Austronesian islanders of the Pacific Ocean. But the Yue where not the only “southern barbarians” of China’s Han Empire. To the southwest of ancient China, in the central lakes of what is now the province of Yunnan, there was a people known as the Dian, who are thought to have been organized in a kingdom and hold considerable power. Apart from the sources, archaeologists have identified a distinctive Bronze Age material culture around the lakes of Yunnan that corresponds with the kingdom of Dian. It is possible that the Dian people had spoken a language belonging to the Tibeto-Burman family. The art of the Dian was highly figurative and naturalistic, in contrast with the more stylised and abstract art of the early dynasties of China. Their bronzes show scenes of battle, ritual, parade, hunting, etc. Dian art often depicts scenes of headhunting and severed heads of their long-haired enemies, and their most depicted animal is the ox. From Dian bronzes we can also tell they wore heavy lamellar armours, with arm guards, neck guards, helmets and greaves. Armours that resemble those worn by Central Asian nomads like the Saka or the Yuezhi. It is thought that the Dian had connections with the Himalayan region and the steppe, and some Dian bronze objects are thought to have influence from the Saka/Scythian “animal style”. Other bronzes show evidence of connections in the opposite direction, with Vietnam’s Dong Son material culture, which is associated with the Yue. The kingdom of Dian was finally conquered by the expansionist emperor Wu of Han, also known as Wudi. Following their annexation to China, the Dian were gradually sinicized.