This archaeological and art-historical study is woven around rock art and ancient metallic articles attributed to Tibet. The silver bowls, gold finial, and copper alloy spouted jars and trapezoidal plaques featured are assigned to the Iron Age and Protohistoric period. These rare objects are adorned with zoomorphic subjects mimicking those found in rock art and embody an artistic zeitgeist widely diffused in Central Eurasia in Late Prehistory. Diverse sources of inspiration and technological capability are revealed in these objects and rock art, shedding light on their transcultural dimension. The archaeological and aesthetic materials in this work prefigure the Tibetan cosmopolitanism of early historic times promoted through the spread of Buddhist ideas, art and craft from abroad. The metallic articles and petroglyphs of this study are markers of relationships between Tibet and her neighbours. These transactions enabled a fusion of Tibetan innovation and foreign inventiveness, a synthesis of disparate ideas, aesthetics and technologies in the objects and rock art presented.
Tibetan Silver, Gold and Bronze Objects and the Aesthetics of Animals in the Era before Empire: Cross-cultural reverberations on the Tibetan Plateau and soundings from other parts of Eurasia, John Vincent Bellezza, British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd, Paperback, 169 pp, $110.00

John Vincent Bellezza PhD is an archaeologist and cultural historian specializing in the pre-Buddhist heritage of Tibet. Author of twelve books and numerous articles, Bellezza has over many years comprehensively charted archaic monuments and rock art in Upper Tibet and has worked extensively on Old Tibetan mytho-ritual texts.

	List of Figures	vii
	List of Tables	xiii
	Introduction	1
	-- Overview	1
	-- The contents of the study	2
	-- Geographic scope	3
	-- Chronology and localisation	3
	-- Pursuant technical matters	8
	-- Provenance	9
1.	Two Tibetan silver bowls of the Late Prehistoric era: The spread of vessels in precious metals and lion art of West Asia to the Plateau	17
	The silver bowls in the Pine collection	17
	Other Tibetan silver and gold vessels and the lion	21
	The cultural and historical origins of the silver bowls in the Pine collection	30
2.	A Tibetan gold finial of the Late Prehistoric era: Transcultural movements discerned in the most incorruptible of metals	39
	The gold finial in the Pine collection	39
	Other Tibetan gold objects of the pre-Imperial era	43
	The cultural and historical origins of the gold finial	45
3.	Tibetan copper-alloy jars of the Late Prehistoric era: Tracing a northern arc of cultural connectivity through form and function	53
	Tibetan copper-alloy bird-spouted jars in private collections	53
	A bird-spouted ceramic jar from Iran	57
4.	Tibetan copper-alloy trapezoidal plaques of the Late Prehistoric era: Tigers and geometric patterns in the interregional matrix	59
	A trapezoidal plaque attributed to Tibet in the Pine collection	59
	A Tibetan trapezoidal openwork plaque in a private collection	63
	Other Tibetan trapezoidal openwork plaques and their cultural significance	66
5.	To and from Iran: Scythic links with the north and east	79
	The Achaemenid empire and its steppe connections	79
	The Scythian carriers of culture in the eastern part of Central Asia	82
	Saka agency in the expansion of zoomorphic art in North Asia	86
6.	To Tibet: Bearers of the Eurasian Animal Style in Northern Pakistan and North Inner Asia	91
	Saka art in the Pamirs and Northern Pakistan	91
	The Saka in the multicultural Tarim Basin	96
	The Northern Zone connection	103
	Cultural crosscurrents extending to the Eastern Steppe	113
7.	In Tibet: Transfer of the Eurasian Animal Style to the Plateau and parallel processes affecting China	121
	Eurasian Animal Style rock art in Tibet	121
	Parallel developments in the east	142
	Conclusion	147
	Mechanisms of transmission in the Inner Asian network of exchange	147
	Bibliography	151
	Index	165