Artifacts from the Ancient Silk Road explores the interconnectivity of the Eurasian continent from 4000 BCE to 1000 CE. It focuses on the role played by Central Asia through which passed the major trade routes, the Silk Roads. Artifacts from the Ancient Silk Road covers life along the Silk Road over 5000 years as it can be understood by considering objects. In this first object-based study to consider all of the peoples involved on the Silk Roads, objects provide the vehicles for explorations of different aspects of life for the various peoples of the Silk Roads, including the sedentary peoples who established urban life on the Silk Roads, the steppe nomads who regularly interacted with the settled peoples, and the peoples at either end of the Silk Roads who drove certain kinds of economic exchanges. The book looks at Central Asia as an international zone during ancient times when multiple religious, political, and technological ideas found acceptance in the region and allows for a better understanding of how some ideas and forms developed in Central Asia while others passed through or were modified.

Artifacts from the Ancient Silk Road explores the interconnectivity of the Eurasian continent from 4000 BCE to 1000 CE. It focuses on the role played by Central Asia through which passed the major trade routes, the Silk Roads. Artifacts from the Ancient Silk Road covers life along the Silk Road over 5000 years as it can be understood by considering objects. In this first object-based study to consider all of the peoples involved on the Silk Roads, objects provide the vehicles for explorations of different aspects of life for the various peoples of the Silk Roads, including the sedentary peoples who established urban life on the Silk Roads, the steppe nomads who regularly interacted with the settled peoples, and the peoples at either end of the Silk Roads who drove certain kinds of economic exchanges. The book looks at Central Asia as an international zone during ancient times when multiple religious, political, and technological ideas found acceptance in the region and allows for a better understanding of how some ideas and forms developed in Central Asia while others passed through or were modified.

"A comprehensive and entertaining historical and botanical review, providing an enjoyable and cognitive read.”—Nature The foods we eat have a deep and often surprising past. From almonds and apples to tea and rice, many foods that we consume today have histories that can be traced out of prehistoric Central Asia along the tracks of the Silk Road to kitchens in Europe, America, China, and elsewhere in East Asia. The exchange of goods, ideas, cultural practices, and genes along these ancient routes extends back five thousand years, and organized trade along the Silk Road dates to at least Han Dynasty China in the second century BC. Balancing a broad array of archaeological, botanical, and historical evidence, Fruit from the Sands presents the fascinating story of the origins and spread of agriculture across Inner Asia and into Europe and East Asia. Through the preserved remains of plants found in archaeological sites, Robert N. Spengler III identifies the regions where our most familiar crops were domesticated and follows their routes as people carried them around the world. With vivid examples, Fruit from the Sands explores how the foods we eat have shaped the course of human history and transformed cuisines all over the globe.

The Silk Road is a main artery connecting Europe and Asia for political, economical, cultural and technical exchange in antiquity, and glass is one of the earliest artificial materials to be invented. Studying the origin and evolution of ancient glass along the Silk Road is thus significant for understanding the development and exchange of culture and technology between China and abroad.This book, for the first time, traces the origin, evolution and spreading of ancient Chinese glass technology. It collects a wealth of data contributed by Chinese and foreign experts regarding the history and background, visual characteristics and chemical compositions of the unearthed ancient glasses from along the Northern (Oasis) Silk Road, especially from the Xinjiang Province (known as the “Western Region” in ancient times). The book presents new results of the studies on ancient glasses along the Southern and Sea Silk Roads, and discusses the influence of the Silk Road on ancient Chinese glass technology and art.

The Sogdian Traders were the main go-between of Central Asia from the fifth to the eighth century. From their towns of Samarkand, Bukhara, or Tashkent, their diaspora is attested by texts, inscriptions or archaeology in all the major countries of Asia (India, China, Iran, Turkish Steppe, but also Byzantium). This survey for the first time brings together all the data on their trade, from the beginning, a small-scale trade in the first century BC up to its end in the tenth century. It should interest all the specialists of Ancient and Medieval Asia (including specialists of Sinology, Islamic Studies, Iranology, Turkology and Indology) but also specialists of Medieval Economic History.

Provides accounts of journeys undertaken by three men along the Silk Road, including seventh-century Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang, Mongolian warrior Genghis Khan, and thirteenth-century merchant Marco Polo.

The Mogao grottoes in northwestern China, located near the town of Dunhuang on the fabled Silk Road, constitute one of the world’s most significant sites of Buddhist art. Preserved in some five hundred caves carved into rock cliffs at the edge of the Gobi Desert are one thousand years of exquisite wall paintings and sculpture. Founded by Buddhist monks in the late fourth century, Mogao grew into an artistic and spiritual center whose renown extended from the Chinese capital to the far western kingdoms of the Silk Road. Among its treasures are 45,000 square meters of murals, more than 2,000 statues, and over 40,000 medieval silk paintings and illustrated manuscripts. This sumptuous catalogue accompanies an exhibition of the same name, which will run from May 7 through September 4, 2016, at the Getty Center. Organized by the Getty Conservation Institute, Getty Research Institute, Dunhuang Academy, and Dunhuang Foundation, the exhibition celebrates a decades-long collaboration between the GCI and the Dunhuang Academy to conserve this UNESCO World Heritage Site. It presents, for the first time in North America, a collection of objects from the so-called Library Cave, including illustrated sutras, prayer books, and other exquisite treasures, as well as three full-scale, handpainted replica caves. This volume includes essays by leading scholars, an illustrated portfolio on the replica caves, and comprehensive entries on all objects in the exhibition.

For more than 1500 years, across more than 4000 miles, the Silk Roads connected East and West. These overland trails and sea lanes carried not only silks, but also cotton textiles, dyes, horses, incense, spices, gems, glass, and ceramics along with religious ideas, governing customs, and technology. For this book, Xinru Liu has assembled primary sources from ancient China, India, Central Asia, Rome and the Mediterranean, and the Islamic world, many of them difficult to access and some translated into English for the first time. Court histories, geographies and philosophical treatises, letters, travelers’ accounts, inventories, inscriptions, laws, religious texts, and more, introduce students to the complexities of cultural exchange. Liu’s thoughtful introduction considers the many ways the peoples along the Silk Roads interacted and helps students understand the implications for economies and societies, as well as political and religious institutions, over space and time. Maps, document headnotes and annotations, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography offer additional pedagogical support.

The Silk Road, which linked imperial Rome and distant China, was once the greatest thoroughfare on earth. Along it travelled precious cargoes of silk, gold, and ivory, as well as revolutionary new ideas. Its oasis towns blossomed into thriving centres of Buddhist art and learning. In time it began to decline. The traffic slowed, the merchants left, and finally its towns vanished beneath the desert sands to be forgotten for a thousand years. But legends grew up of lost cities filled with treasurees and guarded by demons. In the early years of the 20th century, foreign explorers began to investigate these legends, and very soon an international race began for the art treasures of the Silk Road. Huge wall paintings, sculptures, and priceless manuscripts were carried away, literally by the ton, and are today scattered through the museums of a dozen countries. Peter Hopkirk tells the story of the intrepid men who, at great personal risk, led these long-range archaeological raids, incurring the undying wrath of the Chinese.