Tuallagov, Alan A.
Kavkaz Forum. 2024. Issue 17.

Abstract:
The article is devoted to the study of the dragon-shaped banners of the Alans.
The problem of the genesis and spread of such banners has not found its final
solution, which dictates the relevance of its research. The scientific novelty of the
study is determined by the systematization of the accumulated experience in
reconstructing the history of the formation and dissemination of such banners
in the context of its inclusion in the current list of research areas of modern
vexillology. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to investigate the phenomenon
of dragon-shaped banners. The objectives of the study are to determine the
origins of the formation, distribution and evolution of banners. The study used
methods of complex and visual analysis of pictorial monuments, methods of
textual study of sources, inductive and logical analysis based on the principle
of historicism and systematic presentation. In the course of the study, the most
justified decision seems to be the formation of dragon-shaped banners in ancient
China, where the image of the dragon acquired a close symbolic connection
with the idea of supreme power. From China the banners were borrowed in the
contact zone by their northern neighbors, whose symbol of power and patron of
military alliances was the dog-wolf. As a result, the flags were transformed based
on a contamination of borrowed and original images, which formed their own
dragon-shaped flags with the head of a wolf and the body of a serpent. Such
banners of the Huns received further distribution and served as prototypes for the
wolf banners of the Turkic peoples. Another line of development was associated
with the Iranian-speaking Sarmatian-Alan world. Through it, the banners spread
not only in a related ethnocultural environment, including examples with both
heads and without heads, but also reached Western Europe along with their
bearers. Here they had been included among the Roman military banners and
imperial insignia, but over time they lost their symbolic connection with the image
of the dog-wolf, transforming into exclusively dragon-shaped banners.

Keywords: dragon-shaped banners, archaeological and written sources, symbolism, the Alans.

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