Invention of stirrup - evidence from Three Kingdom and Jin Dynasty China

 Salvete Omnes, 

this is a short post about the early stirrup evidence from China- the evidence from the tomb of general Ding Feng during the Three Kingdom period (AD202-280) in Chinese history. Note that the oldest stirrups and saddles with wooden tree with pommel and cantle come from the north: the Mongolian Altai. 

During the last 70 years Chinese archaeologists have been making many monumental and spectacular discoveries, like the 8,000 terracotta army of the First Emperor etc. In the history of equestrian development the discoveries made in the PR of China provinces shed more light on that special history and relationship of the horse and rider, development of the saddle and its variations, tack, chariot, draft harness etc.

In the 1950s and later Chinese researchers discovered tombs of the  Jin Dynasty period (AD266-420).

 Within the artefacts discovered within the site at Changsha there  were ceramic figurines of horses and riders, where the  saddles are present and on the left side of some of the saddles a single  representation  of a stirrup can be seen. 

Dated to AD 302 of the Western Jin in Changsha, the stirrup had been the earliest evidence of a stirrup within the Chinese cultural territories. 

Wu dynasty period ceramic horse, treed saddle without any stirrup

Starting in 2021  the PR of China archaeologists have been excavating and cataloging the discoveries made inside the family tomb of general Ding Feng in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. The tomb was pillaged in the past so the archaeologists have been working within the many broken remains and debris.

Among discoveries made there the archaeologists found a ceramic figurine  of a rider astride a saddled horse.

The figurine is damaged - both arms and left leg are missing. 
On the left side clearly there is a shape similar to a stirrup. It would make this representation the oldest image of the horse stirrup thus far. 

@Global Times

The missing left foot was not placed in the  stirrup, hence the theory that a single stirrup on the left side was used especially for mounting a saddled  horse, and here clearly we see a saddle with high pommel and cantle. 

Note that in the Eastern Jin Dynasty tomb at Xiangshan Mountain, Nanjing, another  figurine was found where the saddle had two stirrups, thus showing that the Chinese were adopting the steppe technology even more rapidly. this discovery was dated to AD322.

Finally, within the tomb of Feng Sufu,   

Liaoning Province, the Chinese archaeologists found two actual stirrups of some remarkable craftsmanship, and this was dated to AD415. 

Feng Sufu tom, metal stirrup, 23 cm high,  

Photo and article from the Global Times portal. 

Note that this type of stirrups appeared  in the Korean Peninsula (Gaya & Silla kingdoms) and later in the  Kofun Period Japan. 

Valete