Manuscripts reveal the details of everyday life on the Silk Road

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/secrets-silk-road

by diodorus • 2 years ago

92 21 2 years ago

historytoday.com

echelon_musk• 2 years ago

Zhang Jinshan signed his name, in a cheeky manner, in Sogdian script as kymš’n and čw kymš’n.

It's a shame that it wasn't explained what makes this signature unusual!

0823498723498724• 2 years ago

Unusual because in sogdian, not hanzi?

more like https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/So... less like 张金山 ?

.noitcerid lamron eht ot etisoppo etorw eh snoitnem osla ti taht eton

Rocka24• 2 years ago

I assumed that the Sogdian script iself was the cheeky part. I imagine if they had just lost a war to the Khotanese it would've been quite the inside joke of the time.

tobylane• 2 years ago

I've bought William Dalrymple's new book The Golden Road for my dad's birthday, which I plan to borrow and read before seeing the new British Museum and Library's exhibitions. I wonder if these will prompt more articles like this.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/140886441X https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/silk-roads https://silkroad.seetickets.com/timeslots/filter/a-silk-road...

adamc• 2 years ago

Thanks for the link. Weirdly, the hardcover (not yet out) costs less than the paperback for the US. https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Road-Ancient-India-Transformed...

redwood2• 2 years ago

A good interview with the author https://youtu.be/xw4Wb2v-6yk?si=8uAixLGUCt4Yl9sE

0823498723498724• 2 years ago

Two developments that turned the silk road into a backwater:

— when the portuguese and spanish started blue-water sailing (~1500), they opened alternative, cheaper, channels for goods which had once passed mostly overland

— when the british industrialised (~1780), textiles went from being an expensive trade good (provided by a decentralised "cottage industry": anyone with a loom and labour could make them) to cheap stuff (provided by centralised factories).

[consider the fates of Old West towns not on the railroad, or Red America towns in "flyover country" not on the freeway: there were some choices to make at the Taklamakan Desert, but otherwise cities of the time were either on the Silk Road, or they were off of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road#/media/File:Seidenst... . These days, instead of places like Palmyra or Bagdad or Samarkand, what's "on it" are no longer cities but strategic points like Suez or Hormuz or Malacca]

EDIT: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2L2U32-BvQ

trhway• 2 years ago

Don't forget Suez Canal (1869). Russian officers who took Ottoman city Doğubayazıt in 1854 and 1878 wrote that that Silk Road crossroad city flourishing in 1854 was in decline in 1878 because of the trade through it vanishing due to the Canal.

(in Russian) https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Догубаязит#Транзитный_путь

0823498723498724• 2 years ago

True, and looks like the portuguese may only have been inspired to sink the initial R&D into disruption because the ottomans, having taken Constantinople, were charging* too much as gatekeepers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_discovery_of_the_se...

Lagniappe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mare_clausum#/media/File:Iberi... (can you spot Brazil in this projection?)

EDIT: note also how the Treaty of Alcáçovas (1479) drew a line across the Atlantic which is still largely conserved by the sea boundary between USEUCOM and USAFRICOM

* EDIT2: could they have charged just enough to make the age of exploration look risky and too expensive, not risky but potentially cheaper?

wslh• 2 years ago

This is an English translation: https://ru-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_...

Yeul• 2 years ago

It's actually amazing how even as early as the 16th century Europeans had the superior naval power. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. It wasn't until the battle of Tsushima that the tide shifted.

Mr_Minderbinder• 2 years ago

The 16th century is too early to claim superiority, especially considering what the Ottoman navy was able to achieve then. The turning point in the overall military power balance between the Ottoman Empire and Europe occurred in the late 17th century (~1680) in my opinion. The Portuguese lost every naval battle they waged against the Ming in the 16th century. Even towards the middle of the 17th century the Dutch were unable to hold Taiwan against Ming navy remnants.

redwood2• 2 years ago

There's an alternative take--namely that the silk road has dominated recent imagination but was never very dominant compared with sea routes. At least during the era of Roman-Indian shipping lanes: https://youtu.be/xw4Wb2v-6yk?si=8uAixLGUCt4Yl9sE

BurningFrog• 2 years ago

Book tip:

I really enjoyed reading "City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas", which taught me that the main thing Venice had going for it was controlling much of the Silk Road trade until Vasco da Gama doomed it in 1498.

Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812980220/

0823498723498724• 2 years ago

That's also my headcanon for the Renaissance: when Constantinople fell in 1453, there was a lot of impetus for skilled emigration, and as the italian cities had been the traditional trade partners, they were a logical place for incoming high human capital "Martians"* to wind up, fresh off the boat but rapidly reconstituting their networks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople#Impact_...

* compare the translatlantic wave of the 1930s?

Mistletoe• 2 years ago

There is a really cool documentary on Amazon Prime about the Silk Road that I recommend. The guy goes to cities that were on it and tours them in the present. You can see how they have changed and how powerful they used to be.

https://www.amazon.com/The-Silk-Road/dp/B07W4XYPPC

neelm• 2 years ago

This is a great book to learn about the Silk Road in particular Central Asia and the role Russia and UK played in its transformation. It reads like a Game of Thrones novel.

Interesting note is Russia colonized Central Asia with the end goal of invading India.

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Game-Struggle-Central-Kodansha/...

73kl4453dz• 2 years ago

Kipling's Kim is a Heinlein-juvenile take on the "Great Game"

bnewman85• 2 years ago

i never understood the concept of the Silk Road, isn't it just meant to roughly refer to the conceptual east-west trade links through time. There isn't an "everyday life on the Silk Road" since that concept spans millenia and constantly changing landscape of nations and peoples

Noumenon72• 2 years ago

The article talks about how the Silk Road was created as a concept out of nothing by a historian. Interesting how a century and a half later most of us accept that man's framing without ever questioning it.

Manuscripts reveal the details of everyday life on the Silk Road

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