Gravestones as evidence of Christianity in China
Based on thirteenth century tombstones, Tjalling Halbertsma has discovered an almost forgotten Christian culture in China. The tombstones showing Christian crosses, Buddhist lotus flowers and Taoist dragons form the basis of his dissertation which he will be defending on Tuesday 20 November.
 Gravestone with an image of a cross. Rubbing of part of the same gravestone.  |
Look carefully
Eight years ago, anthropologist Halbertsme came across this extraordinary material in the ruined cities of Inner Mongolia. Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region in the north of China, rich in historic treasures but closed to foreigners. At that time Halbertsma was political adviser to the Mongolian Prime Minister. 'I had to have something to do to pass the long evenings,' he comments. 'It's not a problem that I'm not a true archaeologist. I just paid attention to what I found lying on the ground. It's primarily a question of looking carefully.'
Öngöt
The graves which Halbertsma stumbled across belonged to the Öngöt, followers of the Church of the East, who were most probably of Turkish origin. These Assyrian Christians, also known as Nestorians, separated from the parent church in the fifth century and were then exiled to the East. This group flourished in China in the thirteenth century. The many ruined cities and their graves, hidden in the Chinese desert, are evidence of this.
Crossroads
'It is interesting that they were a race which lived at the crossroads between North and South, and East and West,' says Halbertsma. 'I found texts in Syrian, Chinese and Uighur on the gravestones. I was fascinated by the combination of different religions. Lotuses, which are typical of Buddhism, hand in hand with Taoist dragons and Christian crosses. It started me thinking. What kind of people were they? Were they tolerant towards other religions, or did these Christians have no option other than to adapt to the Chinese reality?'
 Tjalling Halbertsma: 'I became fascinated by the combination of different religions.' |
Elite
The first part of his research consisted of describing the few existing sources on Öngöt. At the end of the twenties there were a number of adventurers and missionaries who wrote travel reports, but then there was silence for the next seventy years. Halbertsma: 'The graves offer a wealth of information about the past. From the inscriptions, I know that they were a multilingual race, who were part of the official elite. The Christians were closely linked to the Mongolian royal house. We can deduce this from the biographies etched on the gravestones.'
Rubbings
It was then a matter of properly documenting and describing the material. ' The best method is to make rubbings. This is the earliest form of Chinese printing whereby you press a sheet of paper onto the stones, which forms a kind of relief. If you then rub an ink pad over the paper, the inscriptions are left in white. With this method, a lot more becomes visible than what you can see on photos.'
Building material and ghost stories
Collecting the material became a race against time. Halbertsma: 'Stones which I had recorded had disappeared a few years later. They were stolen by bandits, or farmers used them as building material.' This development became an aspect of his study: the way in which the local population has taken ownership of the graves. Because building material is scarce in the area, Halbertsma came across the stones on farms and in houses. Herdsmen have another use for the graves. They attach stories to them, generally ghost stories, which become part of the folklore. The commercial bandits are less poetic; they plunder the graves on the look-out for gold and valuable antiques.
 Nestorian sites in Damaoqi and Siziwangqi |
Specialist knowledge
Halbertsma has already published books on early Christians in China. Three years ago, the National Museum of Ethnology held an exhibition of these rubbings. At the suggestion of a number of sinologists at the University and with the support of the Leiden Hulsewé Foundation, Halbertsma broadened his research, and, as he himself says, made it into an 'academic work'. It was an interesting process, because it requires very specialist knowledge which is not readily available. ' To meet a specialist in Uighur who can also read Syrian, you have to be in Pisa, for example. And you can imagine that a congress on early Christians in China doesn't exactly attract a full audience.'
The result of the quest is the description of a forgotten and almost lost culture. The monuments with their diversity of religious symbols will probably have disappeared in a few years. Halbertsma is not melodramatic about it: ' I am fortunate to have been able to see so many of them.'
Tjalling Halbertsma: Nestorian Remains of Inner Mongolia: Discovery, Reconstruction and Appropriation. Doctoral defence ceremony 20 November 2007
(13 November 2007/Marl Pluijmen/HP)