Detail of a Kneeling Warrior in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2017

Kneeling Warrior

Date: 5th–3rd century BC

Culture: China or Central Asia

Medium: Bronze

Dimensions: H. 15 3/4 in. (40 cm); W. 5 1/8 in. (13 cm); D. 6 7/8 in. (17.5 cm)

Classification: Sculpture

Credit Line: Lent by Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum


This warrior sports distinctive headgear that resembles a type fashionable in ancient Greece and Rome. The figure was recovered in the far northwest of China at a site linked to nomadic peoples, perhaps the Scythians, who dwelled in that region from the fifth to third century B.C. Although crudely cast, the figure’s well-modeled shoulders, arms, and collarbones reveal an awareness of human anatomy—a characteristic of the Hellenistic sculpture that Alexander the Great introduced into Central Asia in the fourth century B.C. Nomadic peoples helped transmit this influence to their Chinese neighbors.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/640849