Belt Hook in the Shape of a Horse

3rd century

This belt hook in the form of a horse comes from Lelang, one of three commandaries, or colonies, that the Chinese established in northwest Korea during the Han dynasty and that lasted more than four hundred years (108 B.C.E.–313 C.E.). It was either imported from China or cast by an immigrant Chinese craftsman living in Lelang, a profitable trading center selling Chinese goods to the Korean peninsula as well as to the islands of Japan. The hook for the belt protrudes from the chest of the beast. A stud on the back of the hook engaged a hole in one end of the belt or robe in the style of similar Chinese belt hooks. The horse’s shape is reminiscent of depictions in the nomadic Scytho-Siberian culture of Central Asia.