A belt buckle featuring a whimsical depiction of a tiger and its cub has been unearthed in the city of Cheongju in South Korea. The third-century A.D. bronze artifact depicts a crouching tigress with her mouth wide open, as if roaring, and a tiny cub in the same pose seated on her tail. Although tiger-shaped belt buckles have been found in the past, this is the first excavated example of a mother and baby tiger. It is also the first tiger-shaped buckle to have been discovered at Cheongju, a site belonging to the Mahan Confederacy, which existed between the first century B.C. and third century A.D. on the southern Korean peninsula, and about which little is known.
Tigress by the Tail
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