REVIEW BY TIM WILLIAMS
This book is a collection of papers that focus on themes of human migration, communication, and cross-cultural exchange along the Silk Roads, from the 3rd millennium BC to the early 2nd millennium AD. The volume is organised in four parts, with the very loose themes of prehistory, pastoral nomads and agricultural societies, silk trade and caravan cities, and empires and religions. This collection of papers consists of 32 contributions in all. They are mostly very specific, with a few broader discussion papers, such as Daniel Waugh’s excellent review of ‘Virtual Silk Roads: objects, exhibitions, and learners’, which explores how visual and material evidence of the Silk Roads could contribute to teaching and interdisciplinary research.
The first section examines issues of the Bronze and Iron Ages across Eurasia, exploring human migrations associated with linguistic changes. This section includes papers on languages, including the spread of Aramaic by Liu Jian, and others on technological advances along the Silk Roads, such as the domestication and use of horses, as well as Renato Sala’s excellent paper on the natural and cultural history of the camel. The rest of the volume ranges across different issues and aspects of the Silk Roads, but most of the papers focus on specific places and time-frames. Examples include a very useful paper by Ye Jinshi on the Jingjue Kingdom in the Tarim Basin, Shoshin Kuwayama’s discussion of the Kushans, Luca Olivieri’s interesting paper on the Roads of Swat, and Berit Hildebrandt’s fascinating debate on Christian discourses about silk in antiquity.
Sherds CA 408