The Silk Roads

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.