List of Figures Acknowledgements 1 Introduction: At a Crossroads on the Eurasian Steppe Route At the Periphery of Space and Discourse The Search for Origins: 'Animal Style' and Its Ambiguous Biography 'Animal Style' as Visual Rhetoric Defining the Tropes Pazyryk Textiles, Deer Stones and the Question of Transferability Animal-Style Art in an Increasingly 'Global' Eurasia: Enter the Xiongnu Lingering Traces Some Notes on Methodology and Frameworks 2 Design Idioms in Steppe Metalwork Zoomorphic Junctures: Substitution, Abbreviation, Inversion Towards Bilateral Symmetry: The Power of Parallelism Verticality as a Design Concept Zoomorphic Entanglement: Revisiting the 'Animal Combat' Trope The Divergent Worlds of Animal Composites Receptivity, 'Otherness' and the Almighty Audience 3 The Tomb Inside Out: Playing (Mortuary) Politics Textiles as Tomb Décor at Pazyryk Wood, Bone and Leather: Transfer to 'Lesser' Materials Fantastic Beasts above Ground: Deer Stones as Antecedents Early Zoomorphism in the Ananyino Culture Final Remarks on Transferability 4 Animal Style in the Xiongnu Era: The Making of a New Elite Between Cosmopolitanism and Zoomorphism at Noin-Ula, Mongolia Xiongnu-Period Developments in Animal-Style Metalwork Animal Style in North Korea: The Case of Lelang Moving South: The Kingdom of Nanyue and the Southern Chinese Periphery Other Sino-Steppe Developments Fantastic Beasts of the Tarim Basin: Halfway between China and the Xiongnu New Trends in Animal Style Design between the Second Century BCE and Second Century CE 5 Waning and Re-emergence The Xianbei and Their 'Landscape' Tropes (Third to Fifth Century CE) The Türkic Period: A Presumed End to Zoomorphism Permian Animal Style Future Avenues: A Mongol Return? Lingering Traces: Understanding the Longevity of Animal-Style Visuality 6 Towards a Resolution Enter the Almighty Audience Object Itineraries West vs East Dichotomies: A Double-Edged Sword Selected Bibliography Illustration Acknowledgements Index.