Dong Son Culture - War and Peace (Part 3): Portraits of Dong Son Guardian Gods

1. I have been looking for these symbols from triumphal ceremonies on Dong Son warships, or from human statues on bronze dagger handles, from a fairly stable system of symbolic images on the pommels of blades... and recently discovered a fairly unified system of divine faces on Dong Son weapons and pieces of armor.

In today's "whispering", I would like to start with this system of gods, before expanding to other systems of guardian and victory-seeking Dong Son gods.

 

A type of Dong Son Tay Au dagger salvaged from Ma River (Thanh Hoa) and a portrait of the god of war and the guardian turtle symbol above (pictures b and c)

Currently, I have in my hands images of over a dozen cast images of the god's face on daggers, spears, and pieces of Dong Son armor distributed mainly in the river basins of the northern mountainous regions of Vietnam today and occasionally in the river regions of the ancient Cuu Chan region (present-day Thanh Hoa). In last week's article, I briefly introduced two portraits of guardian gods on two pieces of armor in a set of armor discovered in the Lo River in Tuyen Quang. For ease of continuation, I would like to repeat those images.

The easy-to-recognize feature of this guardian deity is that it is honored with great respect on the rare and precious armor of a high-ranking Dong Son leader. The image of this guardian deity is shaped by the pair of C-shaped horns lying on their backs and two rows of saw teeth along both sides of the cheeks from the temples down, ending with two wheel-shaped circles corresponding to the position of the ear rings. The face is framed and elongated, looking closer to the head of a herbivore (buffalo, cow, deer) corresponding to the pair of horns on the head. The god's portrait takes the horizontal axis of the eyebrows and the nostrils to form a T-shaped axis in the middle of the face, creating a balance with the eyes and the horizontal diamond-shaped lips, looking gentle but resolute, disciplined, not fierce or threatening.

 

The easily recognizable characteristic of this guardian angel's portrait is the pair of C-shaped horns lying on its back and the two rows of saw teeth along both sides of the cheeks, from the temples down.

The portrait of this guardian deity was quite well-formed and appeared on both Dong Son spears and daggers in the northern mountainous region, spreading to the Ma River and Chu River regions of Thanh Hoa.

2. Below are two daggers recovered from the bottom of the Lo River (Tuyen Quang) and the Ma River (Thanh Hoa).

The dagger blade salvaged from the Ma River has a portrait of a guardian deity that is clearly similar in style to the portrait of the deity on the Tuyen Quang bronze armor: Two rows of saw teeth hanging from the temples ending in two circular wheel-shaped earrings. The decoration on the top of the head is rusty and not clearly recognizable. Notably, the image of a divine turtle below turns its head towards the nose. The turtle image here is divided in two by the raised ridge in the middle of the blade and the decoration looks like two halves of a bird flying sideways.

 

Portrait of the god of war on the hilt of a Dong Son Tay Au dagger. Notably, the image of a turtle symbolizing a shield protecting the warrior is on the blade of the dagger.

Based on similar turtle designs on other bronze spears, it can be confirmed that this is a turtle symbol - another form of the guardian spirit as seen on the armor I introduced last week.

The clearest portrait of the guardian deity we encountered was on a large Dong Son bronze spear (about 40cm long) discovered at the bottom of the Gia River, in the Le junction, not far from the Trang Kenh, Nui Deo sites and the Dong Son Viet Khe hollowed-out tree tomb (Thuy Nguyen, Hai Phong). The spear was densely decorated on both sides with sunken figures. It is worth mentioning that this was the first time I encountered the most complete portrait of the god of war or guardian deity.

Portrait of the god of war on two sides of a Dong Son bronze spear salvaged from the Gia River area (Thuy Nguyen, Hai Phong). Left image: The entire content with the god's portrait in the middle, above the head is the rim of the hat with two branches representing two ceremonial stilt houses on the roof with birds perching. Below is the image of two people sitting on a pedestal with their heads facing the spear tip. Middle image: Close-up portrait of the god of war with intersecting eyebrows, straight nose, large eyes and a horizontal diamond-shaped mouth. Right image: Close-up of the stilt house with birds perching on two branches of the god's hat.

The portrait of the god of war is sunk in the middle of the spear blade, above the head is a hat border with two branches representing two ceremonial stilt houses, with birds perching on the roof. Below is the image of two people sitting on a pedestal facing the tip of the spear.

The god is depicted with intersecting eyebrows, a straight nose, large eyes and a large, horizontal diamond-shaped mouth. From the horizontal branch connecting the eyebrows to the forehead is a very strange decoration, which has not yet been clearly identified. Two large ears hang down on both sides, with many small circles hanging inside and a large circle below, like earrings.

 

Left: The author's pencil sketch of the complete portrait of the Dong Son guardian god cast on a bronze spear salvaged from the Gia River (Hai Phong). Right: The back of the male leader statue with many rings on the ears and a human skull on the back.

The way of hanging heavy rings around the ears has been seen on statues of male leaders. The most typical is the statue of the Dong Son leader wearing the skull of his enemy on his back on a bronze dagger handle, now in a private collection in France, which I often mention. The outermost border of the ear is a small triangular swallow flag. What is particularly strange is that instead of the two C-shaped horns lying upside down on the head, here they are replaced by two curved-roofed stilt houses, in the middle of which birds perch, forming two branches of the god's hat.

There may be many other ways to express the spirit of praying for victory and peace in the Dong Son war. The image of a god depicted in full body below is an example. This is a rather strange type of Dong Son dagger. Thanks to the image of a divine turtle on the blade of the dagger, I recognized the full body image of the guardian god on the handle of this Dong Son dagger. The dagger was salvaged by the owner in the Lo River (Tuyen Quang). The blade is embossed with the image of a divine turtle, and on the handle there is an image of a guardian god on both sides. This god is depicted in full body, which is very different from the style of portraits of gods' faces that we have talked about many times. Due to the size of the newspaper page, I will return to this dagger in another article.

The easy-to-recognize feature here is the portrait of a guardian deity because they are respectfully honored on the rare and valuable armor of a high-ranking Dong Son leader" - Dr. Nguyen Viet. (continued)

Dr. Nguyen Viet

Source: https://baotanglichsu.vn/vi/Articles/3101/75432/van-hoa-djong-son-chien-tranh-va-hoa-binh-ky-3-chan-dung-nhung-vi-than-ho-menh-djong-son.html