‘Filled with insights, the very latest research and plenty of surprises: a superlative catalogue of one the most ambitious and spectacular exhibitions ever staged at the British Museum.’ – Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
‘A sumptuous book...a book of the exotic and the wonderful, a trip to ancient and far-away lands, a book full of artistic and cultural treasures, a book to savour and enjoy.’ – Sacred Hoop magazine
A richly illustrated publication that explores the networks of contacts and exchanges spanning Afro-Eurasia from 500 to 1000 ce, highlighting how the movement of people, objects and ideas shaped cultures and histories.
The term ‘Silk Road’ conjures a range of romantic images. Camel caravans crossing desert dunes. Merchants trading silk and spices. Far-flung commerce between ‘East’ and ‘West’. The reality was far richer.
Focusing on a defining period between 500 and 1000 CE, this beautifully illustrated book reimagines the Silk Roads as a web of interlocking networks linking Asia, Africa and Europe, from Japan to Ireland, from the Arctic to Madagascar.
It tells a remarkable story of people, objects and ideas flowing in all directions, through the traces these journeys left behind – including ceramics from Tang China recovered from a shipwreck in the Java Sea, sword-fittings set with Indian garnets buried in England, and a selection of letters and legal texts from a synagogue in Cairo revealing a Jewish community’s links from India to al-Andalus. Woven throughout, encounters with various peoples active on the Silk Roads, from seafarers to Sogdians, Aksumites and Vikings, reveal the human stories, innovations and transfers of knowledge that emerged, shaping cultures and histories across continents centuries before the formation of today’s globalised world.

lgrsnf/Silk Roads (The British Museum), 2024.pdf

Sue Brunning, Luk Yu-ping, Elisabeth R. O'Connell, Tim Williams, Luk Yu-Ping

Brunning, Sue

British Library Humanities & Social Sciences

Thames & Hudson

Colonnade

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

Cover
Contents
Director’s foreword
Map
Introduction
The ʻSilk Road(s)’: a modern concept
The ʻSilk Road(s)’: a useful concept?
Expanding horizons: pluralising the ʻSilk Road’
500 to 1000
An epic journey
1. Three capitals in East Asia
Three capitals in East Asia
Nara Japan
Interregional trade and diplomatic exchanges
Heijō-kyō (Nara) and the formation of Nihon
The spread of Buddhism
Silla Korea
Buddhism and relic worship
Adapting Tang Chinese models
New funerary practices
Tang China
Silk and horses
Foreigners in Changʻan
Diverse religions in the capital
Cosmopolitan tastes
Seafarers in the Indian Ocean
The ship, crew and passengers
The sea route
The cargo
Gold- and silverware
2. Southeast Asia to the Tarim Basin
Southeast Asia to the Tarim Basin
Empires in Southeast Asia
The Indian subcontinent
Tibetan empire
Dunhuang and the hidden cave
A Buddhist centre
Multilingual environment
Diplomatic envoys
Imported goods
Gaochang under Tang rule
Kingdom of Kocho
Khotan along the southern route
Sogdians from Central Asia
The reach of the Sogdians
Traders, makers and transmitters of ideas
Life and death in Sogdiana
Paintings in the ʻHall of the Ambassadors’
3. Central Asia and the steppe
Central Asia and the steppe
Pastoral nomads and settlements
Buddhist art in Tokharistan
Co-existence of religions in the Chüy Valley
Shared horse culture, shared designs
Saddles and stirrups
Riding dress
Vikings on the austrvegr
Rus’ identity: fashion and fighting
Exchange with Islamic lands
4. Central Asia to Arabia
Central Asia to Arabia
The Sasanian and Byzantine empires
Contacts through conquest in Central Asia
Central Asia under early Islamic rule
The Samanids of Samarkand and Bukhara
Towards Bilad al-Sham
Adapting Sasanian and Byzantine motifs
Umayyad palaces and cities
Jerusalem under Islam
Movement of scholars, pilgrims and ideas
Flourishing of learning
Transmission of the Qurʿan and pilgrimage
Imports and innovations
Samarra
Exchanges in Tang Chinese and Islamic ceramics
Aksumites and their port city, Adulis
International conflict and diplomacy in the sixth century
The Aksumite empire
An early Christian state
Languages and scripts
Cosmas’ Adulis
5. Mediterranean connections
Mediterranean connections
Justinians’s Mediterranean
Objects and materials on the move
People on the move
Ideas on the move
Byzantium and Persia
Byzantium and Italy
The arrival of Islam
Fustat and Cairo: cosmopolitan twin cities
Egypt before and after the arrival of Islam
Trans-Saharan exchange networks
Multilingualism and knowledge transmissions
The Cairo geniza: a Mediterranean society in the synagogue
Medieval mobility
Traders
The traded
Peoples of al-Andalus
Cultures in communication
Adoption, adaptation, innovation
Sharing knowledge
6. Northwest Europe
Northwest Europe
Charlemagne’s empire
Heirs to Rome
Avars
Liturgical luxuries
Relations with the Islamic world
Britain and Ireland
Imports and identity after Rome
Britain and Ireland in Christendom
Mediterranean currents in England’s early Church
West and Central Asian connections
Interwoven worlds
Notes
Select bibliography
Acknowledgements
Credits
Index

A richly illustrated publication that explores the networks of contacts and exchanges spanning Afro-Eurasia from 500 to 1000 CE, highlighting how the movement of people, objects and ideas shaped cultures and histories.
In the ninth century CE, an Arabian ship sank off the coast of Indonesia. The objects found in the wreckage, which include Chinese ceramics and precious metals, have provided extraordinary evidence of the nature, scale and diversity of trade between Tang China and the Islamic Abbasid dynasty, revealing the extent of a large-scale operation. This is just one example of the sprawling and extensive networks of contacts and exchanges across Afro-Eurasia, from Japan to Britain, in the period 500 to 1000 CE that demonstrate the movement of peoples, objects and ideas, which shaped cultures and histories.
This book challenges the concept of the ‘silk roads' as a simple history of trade between East and West. Focusing on a series of overlapping geographic zones, interspersed with case studies of particular peoples who were active along these networks - seafarers in the Indian Ocean, Sogdians, Vikings, Aksumites, and the peoples of al-Andalus - it reveals remarkable human stories, innovations and the transfer of knowledge that emerged from these connections. Each section explores notable examples of contacts, connections and integrations, while emphasising the environmental and historical conditions that shaped them, featuring the latest scientific research. The dazzling range of objects includes a wooden panel with a painting of the ‘silk princess' who smuggled the eggs of the silk moth from China (illustrated above); a lion sculpture from Jordan; a miniature wooden pagoda from Japan; gold coins from Yemen; wall paintings from the Hall of Ambassadors in Uzbekistan; a kaftan from the Caucasus region; an ivory cross from Spain; and a gold and garnet scabbard slide from the Sutton Hoo burial in Britain.

2025-03-15