THE NEW SILK ROAD AND THE ANCIENT EURASIAN CIVILISATION (original) (raw)
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Silk Roads or Steppe Roads? The Silk Roads in World History
Journal of World History, 2000
M odern historiography has not fully appreciated the ecological complexity of the Silk Roads. As a result, it has failed to understand their antiquity, or to grasp their full importance in Eurasian history. The role played by the Silk Roads in exchanging goods, technologies, and ideas between regions of agrarian civilization is well understood. Less well understood is the trans-ecological role of the Silk Roads-the fact that they also exchanged goods and ideas between the pastoralist and agrarian worlds. The second of these systems of exchange, though less well known, predated the more familiar "transcivilizational" exchanges, and was equally integral to the functioning of the entire system. A clear awareness of this system of trans-ecological exchanges should force us to revise our understanding of the age, the significance, and the geography of the Silk Roads. Further, an appreciation of the double role of the Silk Roads affects our understanding of the history of the entire Afro-Eurasian region. The many trans-ecological exchanges mediated by the Silk Roads linked all regions of the Afro-Eurasian landmass, from its agrarian civilizations to its many stateless communities of woodland foragers and steppe pastoralists, into a single system of exchanges that is several millennia old. As a result, despite its great diversity, the history of Afro-Eurasia has always preserved an underlying unity, which was expressed in common technologies, styles, cultures, and religions, even disease patterns. The extent of this unity can best be appreciated by contrasting the history of Afro-Eurasia with that of pre-Columbian America. World historians are becoming increasingly aware of the underlying unity of Afro-Eurasian history. Andre Gunder Frank and Barry
Silk Road as a Space of Eurasian Cultural Communication and Transmission
Eurasian Crossroads:International Scientific Journal (online) .Vol. 1, no. 2, 2019
We communicate our archaeological findings made in several burial complexes along the ancient Silk Road along with the analysis of the recent discoveries of other teams. Our research proves the special role of the Silk Road in Eurasian economic and political mutual influence, communication and transmission since Western Han dynasty. Sogdian and Middle East influence on Chinese culture was substantial and its importance cannot be underestimated. But even more importantly, during Tang dynasty, Europeans and Northern Eurasian representatives also influenced Chinese society and culture strongly, with some of them serving at the Chinese imperial court. Our findings are even more important in the context of the New Silk Road initiative announced recently by Xi Jinping (“One Belt, One Road”). Key words: Silk Road, One Belt – One Road, Eurasian integration, culture, Chinese expansion http://thebeacon.ru/pdf/Vol.%201.%20Issue%202.%20020510005%20ENG.pdf
THE ‘SILK ROAD’: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES AND MODERN CONSTRUCTIONS
Indian Historical Review, Sage, 2020
As it is frequently the case in the modern world, the term ‘Silk Road’ or ‘Silk Roads’ is of colonial provenance. The elaborate network of ancient routes originating in the fourth millennium bc and linking various parts of the Eurasian landmass through Central Asia was re-imagined and reinvented in the late nineteenth century as a ‘Silk Road’ connecting China with the Roman Empire, thereby undermining the role of the steppe with its various nomadic and oasis cultures which had always been at the heart of this Eurasian system of trade and other exchange. Ever since, historiography has focussed on the role of sedentary civilisations in this system of exchange, with a particular emphasis on China and the West, thus undermining the role of other sedentary civilisations such as India. Contrary to the dominant narrative, the antiquity of the Eurasian trade network goes back to several millennia before the rise of either the Han Empire or Rome. Whereas this network did connect the agrarian...
The Silk Roads A New History of the World ( PDFDrive ) (1)
Historians tend to become anxious over the issue of transliteration. In a book such as this one that draws on primary sources written in different languages, it is not possible to have a consistent rule on proper names. Names like João and Ivan are left in their original forms, while Fernando and Nikolai are not and become Ferdinand and Nicholas. As a matter of personal preference, I use Genghis Khan, Trotsky, Gaddafi and Teheran even though other renditions might be more accurate; on the other hand, I avoid western alternatives for Beijing and Guangzhou. Places whose names change are particularly difficult. I refer to the great city on the Bosporus as Constantinople up to the end of the First World War, at which point I switch to Istanbul; I refer to Persia until the country's formal change of name to Iran in 1935. I ask for forbearance from the reader who demands consistency. Other great centres of civilisation such as Babylon, Nineveh, Uruk and Akkad in Mesopotamia were famed for their grandeur and architectural innovation. One Chinese geographer, meanwhile, writing more than two millennia ago, noted that the inhabitants of Bactria, centred on the Oxus river and now located in northern Afghanistan, were legendary negotiators and traders; its capital city was home to a market where a huge range of products were bought and sold, carried from far and wide. 7 This region is where the world's great religions burst into life, where Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism jostled with each other. It is the cauldron where language groups competed, where Indo-European, Semitic and Sino-Tibetan tongues wagged alongside those speaking Altaic, Turkic and Caucasian. This is where great empires rose and fell, where the after-effects of clashes between cultures and rivals were felt thousands of miles away. Standing here opened up new ways to view the past and showed a world that was profoundly interconnected, where what happened on one continent had an impact on another, where the after-shocks of what happened on the steppes of Central Asia could be felt in North Africa, where events in Baghdad resonated in Scandinavia, where discoveries in the Americas altered the prices of goods in China and led to a surge in demand in the horse markets of northern India. These tremors were carried along a network that fans out in every direction, master calligraphic specimens that have been observed have all been on tinted paper'. 11 Places whose names are all but forgotten once dominated, such as Merv, described by one tenth-century geographer as a 'delightful, fine, elegant, brilliant, extensive and pleasant city', and 'the mother of the world'; or Rayy, not far from modern Teheran, which to another writer around the same time was so glorious as to be considered 'the bridegroom of the earth' and the world's 'most beautiful creation'. 12 Dotted across the spine of Asia, these cities were strung like pearls, linking the Pacific to the Mediterranean. Urban centres spurred each other on, with rivalry between rulers and elites prompting ever more ambitious architecture and spectacular monuments. Libraries, places of worship, churches and observatories of immense scale and cultural influence dotted the region, connecting Constantinople to Damascus, Isfahan, Samarkand, Kabul and Kashgar. Cities such as these became home to brilliant scholars who advanced the frontiers of their subjects. The names of only a small handful are familiar today-men like Ibn Sīnā, better known as Avicenna, al-Bīrūnī and al-Khwārizmi-giants in the fields of astronomy and medicine; but there were many more besides. For centuries before the early modern era, the intellectual centres of excellence of the world, the Oxfords and Cambridges, the Harvards and Yales, were not located in Europe or the west, but in Baghdad and Balkh, Bukhara and Samarkand. There was good reason why the cultures, cities and peoples who lived along the Silk Roads developed and advanced: as they traded and exchanged ideas, they learnt and borrowed from each other, stimulating further advances in philosophy, the sciences, language and religion. Progress was essential, as one of the rulers of the kingdom of Zhao in northeastern China at one extremity of Asia more than 2,000 years ago knew all too well. 'A talent for following the ways of yesterday', declared King Wu-ling in 307 BC, 'is not sufficient to improve the world of today.' 13 Leaders in the past understood how important it was to keep up with the times. The mantle of progress shifted, however, in the early modern period as a result of two great maritime expeditions that took place at the end of the fifteenth century. In the course of six years in the 1490s, the foundations were laid for a major disruption to the rhythm of long-established systems of exchange. First Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic, paving the way for two great land masses that were hitherto untouched to connect to Europe and beyond; then, just a few years later, Vasco da Gama successfully navigated the southern tip of Africa, sailing on to India, opening new sea routes in the process. The Worcester College, Oxford April 2015 in the supply of animals, and especially fine horses. But the nomads could be the cause of disaster, such as when Cyrus the Great, the architect of the Persian Empire in the 6th century BC, was killed trying to subjugate the Scythians; his head was then carried around in a skin filled with blood, said one writer, so that the thirst for power that had inspired him could now be quenched. 9 Nevertheless, this was a rare setback that did not stall Persia's expansion. Greek commanders looked east with a combination of fear and respect, seeking to learn from the Persians' tactics on the battlefield and to adopt their technology. Authors like Aeschylus used successes against the Persians as a way of celebrating military prowess and of demonstrating the favour of the gods, commemorating heroic resistance to the attempted invasions of Greece in epic plays and literature. 10 'I have come to Greece,' says Dionysus in the opening lines of the Bacchae, from the 'fabulously wealthy East', a place where Persia's plains are bathed in sunshine, where Bactria's towns are protected by walls, and where beautifully constructed towers look out over coastal regions. Asia and the East were the lands that Dionysus 'set dancing' with the divine mysteries long before those of the Greeks. 11 None was a keener student of such works than Alexander of Macedon. When he took the throne in 336 BC following the assassination of his father, the brilliant King Philip, there was no question about which direction the young general would head in his search for glory. Not for a moment did he look to Europe, which offered nothing at all: no cities, no culture, no prestige, no reward. For Alexander, as for all ancient Greeks, culture, ideas and opportunities-as well as threats-came from the east. It was no surprise that his gaze fell on the greatest power of antiquity: Persia. After dislodging the Persian governors of Egypt in a lightning strike in 331 BC, Alexander set off for an all-out assault on the empire's heartlands. The decisive confrontation took place later in 331 on the dusty plains of Gaugamela, near the modern town of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, where he inflicted a spectacular defeat on the vastly superior Persian army under the command of Darius III-perhaps because he was fully refreshed after a good night's sleep: according to Plutarch, Alexander insisted on resting before engaging the enemy, sleeping so deeply that his concerned commanders had to shake him awake. Dressing in his favoured outfit, he put on a fine helmet, so polished that 'it was as bright as the most refined silver', grasped a trusted sword in his right hand and led his troops to a crushing victory that opened the gates of an empire. 12 the impressions of the cultural superiority brought from the Mediterranean. The Greeks in Asia were widely credited in India, for example, for their skill in the sciences: 'they are barbarians', says the text known as the Gārgī Samhitā, 'yet the science of astronomy originated with them and for this they must be reverenced like gods'. 29 According to Plutarch, Alexander made sure that Greek theology was taught as far away as India, with the result that the gods of Olympus were revered across Asia. Young men in Persia and beyond were brought up reading Homer and 'chanting the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides', while the Greek language was studied in the Indus valley. 30 This may be why it is possible that borrowings can be detected across great works of literature. It has been suggested, for instance, that the Mahābhārata, the great early Sanskrit epic, owes a debt to the Iliad and to the Odyssey, with the theme of the abduction of Lady Sita by Rāva a a direct echo of the elopement of Helen with Paris of Troy. Influences and inspiration flowed in the other direction too, with some scholars arguing that the Aeneid was in turn influenced by Indian texts. 31 Ideas, themes and stories coursed through the highways, spread by travellers, merchants and pilgrims: Alexander's conquests paved the way for the broadening of the minds of the populations of the lands he captured, as well as those on the periphery and beyond who came into contact with new ideas, new images and new concepts. Even cultures on the wild steppes were influenced, as is clear from the exquisite funerary objects buried alongside high-ranking figures found in the Tilya Tepe graves in northern Afghanistan which show artistic influences being drawn from Greece-as well as from Siberia, India and beyond. Luxury objects were traded into the nomad world, in return for livestock and horses, and on occasion as tribute paid in return for peace. 32 The linking up of the steppes into an interlocking and interconnecting world was accelerated by the growing ambitions of China. Under the Han dynasty (206...
The Silk Roads, 300 BCE to 1700 CE: Connecting the World for Two Millennia
The European Conference on Arts & Humanities 2021: Official Conference Proceedings, 2021
The trade networks of the Silk Roads offered an impressive array of intellectual and cultural influences, which, through the exchange of knowledge and ideas, both verbal and written, still reverberate throughout our societal framework today. Science, arts and literature, textiles and technologies were shared and disseminated into societies along the lengths of these routes, and, through this exchange, languages, religions, and cultures developed and influenced one another. Our collaborative exhibition at the University of Southern California (USC) draws upon artifacts in our collections and those of partner institutions. This initiative includes two phases: First, working with faculty, staff, and students across USC departments, as well as external collaborators, we are focusing on written artifacts-the books, manuscripts, and other vehicles for nonverbal communication-that connected different Silk Roads communities and created entirely new cultures. Rather than impose chronological or historical divisions, the organization of our exhibition is based on geography. Visitors will walk through and view objects as they would travel along the Silk Roads. The aim is both to introduce visitors to specific peoples and places that mark the Eurasian land mass while at the same time preserving the sense of bewilderment that so many interlinked empires and ideas can cause for modern travelers. Secondly, a companion one-day event, Borrowed Recipes: Migrant Food Worlds of the Silk Roads, traces the hidden cultural exchanges underlying the foods originating along the Silk Roads and widely available to us in Los Angeles today.
DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE ANCIENT SILK ROAD
African Journal of Culture, History, Religion and Traditions, 2021
This study seeks to explain the history of the ancient Silk Road and also explain its strategic importance as a network of trade routes connecting China and the Far East with the Middle East and Europe. Using the library's documented instrument and historical descriptive methodology, findings show that the Silk Road is historically connected with the Eastern and Western civilizations and culture. Merchants on the Silk Road transported goods and traded at bazaars along the way. They traded goods such as silk, spices, tea, ivory, cotton, wool, precious metals, and ideas. The Silk Road also enabled cultural transfers, for instance when Genghis Khan and the Mongols invaded China, they came along with their own culture, e.g., buttons on clothes were introduced in China as a cultural import from Central Asia especially under the rule of Kublai Khan during the Yuan Dynasty. The paper concludes that the Silk Road rose to prominence during the Han and Tang dynasties. The longdistance trade at this time did not just transport goods and luxuries, it was also a lifeline of ideas and innovations from Persia, India and countries of the Middle East and Central Asia.
Acta Via Serica 8, p. 53–78., 2023
The paper presents some new results illustrating some developments related to the concept of the Silk Road and subsequent methodological reflections. New laboratory results of scientific analyses of plants, minerals, and human remains in combination with more conventional methods of research contribute to a better understanding of the multidirectionality of exchanges in Pre-and Protohistory. Unsuspected long-distance transfers of items, especially of metals (tin) and biological materials (plants, pathogens, etc.) are discovered. Adding ancient DNA and petroglyphs to the vexed question of the Indo-European migrations across Eurasia complexifies the familiar linguistic, historical, and archaeological research landscape. Recent excavations show the impact of the adoption of artistic elements adapted from the Achaemenid arts, far in the steppe world, and up to China. Multidirectional (including North-South lanes) and multidisciplinary approaches leave space and hope for more rigorous scientific modelizations for the archaeology of Eurasia and the Silk Road.
Archaeology and the silk road model
World Archaeology, 2021
In modern scholarship, the ‘Silk Road’ is used as a broad framework for networked exchanges across ancient Eurasia, periodized roughly between the Han dynasty’s lucrative silk trade and the decline of the Mongol Empire (ca. 200 BCE to 1400 CE). This paper identifies the ‘Silk Road’ as an important analytical model for archaeological research on transregional and global-scale phenomena. I argue that Silk Road scholarship has often engaged four key theoretical approaches. While they are not exclusive to Silk Road archaeology, this field has developed some exemplary, successful applications of these approaches to the study of global phenomena. This model is therefore poised to inform other research on global archaeological topics. As an example of research outside of core Silk Road studies that can benefit from these theoretical approaches, I examine medieval materials found in Eastern Europe from the perspective of the Silk Road model.
2021
This paper was presented at the workshop “Goods, Languages, and Cultures along the Silk Road” at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, October 18 and 19, 2019. While many contributions to the workshop focused on recent developments in China’s current “New Silk Road” politics, on forms of communication, and on contemporary exchange of goods and ideas across so-called Silk Road countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia and with China, this short essay focuses on the history of the so-called Silk Road as an important transport connection. Although what is now called the “Silk Road” was not a pure East-West binary in antiquity but rather developed into a network that also led to the South and North, the focus here will be on describing the East-West connection. I will start with a few brief remarks on the origins of the connection referred to as the Silk Road and will then introduce the different great empires that shaped this connection between antiquity and the Middle Ages through mil...