Sea and the Early Civilizations of Europe, the Near East and Asia, 289, note 106).

12. As Anthony stated, “the metalsmiths of the BMAC made beautiful objects of bronze, lead, silver, and gold. They cast delicate metal figures by the lost-wax process, which made it possible to cast very detailed metal objects” (The Horse, the Wheel, and Language, 425).

13. According to Chernykh, “complex beads and seals were generally cire perdu cast; such artefacts were never subsequently forged” (Ancient Metallurgy in the USSR, 182). Similar determinations are also found in Masson, Altyn-Depe, 100; Pittman, Art of the Bronze Age, 53; and Kuzʹmina, The Origin of the Indo-Iranians, 211. Because no mold marks are recognizable in this large group of seals, it seems plausible that they were made by the lost-wax process. For pictures of these seals, see Pittman, Art of the Bronze Age, 54–57.

14. See Fitzgerald-Huber, “Qijia and Erlitou,” 52–62.

15. Ibid., 40–65.

16. Like Fitzgerald-Huber, Chernykh also interpreted the Seima-Turbino phenomenon as the simultaneous movement of several Altaic mobile groups of metallurgists and horse-riders (Ancient Metallurgy in the USSR, 226–227). Following the logic of Fitzgerald-Huber and Chernykh, recently Lin has reconstructed how the Seima-Turbino arose in the Altai and Ob river valley area, moved westward to the Urals, shifted southward to the Xinjiang Uighur region and “herded horses” in the territories of the Qijia and Siba cultures around the Qilian Mountains, and penetrated into the Central Plains of China (“Saiyima-Tuerbinnuo Wenhua yu Shiqian Sichou zhi Lu,” 50–59). The history of the Seima-Turbino culture group was probably not as neat as Lin has pictured.

17. Mei, “Qijia and Seima-Turbino,” 41.

18. As Mei argued, “the early contacts between Northwest China and the Eurasian steppe appear to consist of a number of independent processes carried out during different periods and through various routes and intermediary links, involving not just Seima-Turbino and Qijia, but also other cultural groups associated with Okunev, Andronovo, Siba, Tianshanbeilu, and possibly Afanasevo and Machang” (“Qijia and Seima-Turbino,” 40).

19. Mei, “Qijia and Seima-Turbino,” 44–45.

20. Equally possibly, Qijia or Erlitou metalworkers could have done the “filtering” if lost-wax was ever known to them.