Silk roads

Abstract

"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" --Front sleeve.

Contents

Introduction / Sue Brunning, Luk Yu-ping, Elisabeth R.O'Connell -- 1. Three capitals in East Asia / Luk Yu-ping -- Seafarers in the Indian Ocean / Luk Yu-ping -- 2. Southeast Asia to the Tarim Basin / Luk Yu-ping -- Sogdians from Central Asia / Luk Yu-ping -- 3. Central Asia and the steppe / Tim Williams and Luk Yu-ping -- Vikings on the austrvegr / Sue Brunning -- 4. Central Asia to Arabia / Tim Williams and Luk Yu-ping -- Aksumites and their port city, Adulis / Elisabeth R. O'Connell -- 5. Mediterranean connections / Elisabeth R.O'Connell -- Peoples of al-Andalus / Sue Brunning -- 6. Northwest Europe / Sue Brunning.