Post on 14-Mar-2016
description
SILK ROADS IN HISTORY
MUMMIES OF EAST CENTRAL ASIA
TEXTILES FROM THE SILK ROAD
LANGUAGES OF THE TARIM BASIN
®
WINTER 2010VOLUME 52 , NUMBER 3
THE MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY
WWW.PENN.MUSEUM/EXPEDITION
Expedition New Cover Winter 2010.indd 2 12/15/10 12:47 AM
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www.museum.upenn.edu/expedition 1
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We welcome letters to the Editor.Please send them to: ExpeditionPenn Museum 3260 South StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19104-6324 Email: jhickman@upenn.edu
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features
THE SILK ROADS IN HISTORY
By Daniel C. Waugh
THE MUMMIES OF EAST CENTRAL ASIA
By Victor H. Mair
TEXTILES FROM THE SILK ROAD: INTERCULTURAL EXCHANGES AMONG NOMADS, TRADERS, AND AGRICULTURALISTS
By Angela Sheng
BRONZE AGE LANGUAGES OF THE TARIM BASIN
By J.P. Mallory
departments
From the Editor
From the Director
Portrait—Dr. Elfriede R. (Kezia) Knauer
What in the World— Ancient and Modern Foods from the Tarim Basin
Research Notes—The Luohan that Came from Afar
Museum Mosaic—People, Places, Projects
Book News & Reviews—Before the Silk Road
Index for Volume 52
on the cover: Yingpan Man, excavated from Yingpan, Yuli (Lop Nur) County, dates to the 3rd to 4th century CE. His cloth-ing is finely made, and his painted mask is decorated with gold leaf. (Photo credit: Xinjiang Institute of Archaeology Collection)
contentswinter 2010
V O L U M E 5 2 , N U M B E R 3
Expedition® (ISSN 0014-4738) is published three times a year by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 3260 South St., Philadelphia, PA 19104-6324. ©2010 University of Pennsylvania. All rights reserved. Expedition is a registered trademark of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. All editorial inquiries should be addressed to the Editor at the above address or by email to jhickman@upenn.edu. Subscription price: $35.00 per subscription per year. International subscribers: add $15.00 per subscription per year. Subscription, back issue, and advertising queries to Maureen Goldsmith at publications@museum.upenn.edu or (215)898-4050. Subscription forms may be faxed to (215)573-9369. Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.
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2 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
t h e w i l l i a m s d i r e c t o r
Richard Hodges, Ph.D.
w i l l i a m s d i r e c t o r s e m e r i t u s
Robert H. Dyson, Jr., Ph.D.Jeremy A. Sabloff, Ph.D.
d e p u t y d i r e c t o r
C. Brian Rose, Ph.D.
c h i e f o p e r a t i n g o f f i c e r
Melissa P. Smith, CFA
c h i e f o f s t a f f t o t h e w i l l i a m s d i r e c t o r
James R. Mathieu, Ph.D.
d i r e c t o r o f d e v e l o p m e n t
Amanda Mitchell-Boyask
m e l l o n a s s o c i a t e d e p u t y d i r e c t o r
Loa P. Traxler, Ph.D.
m e r l e - s m i t h d i r e c t o r o f c o m m u n i t y e n g a g e m e n t
Jean Byrne
d i r e c t o r o f e x h i b i t i o n s
Kathleen Quinn
d i r e c t o r o f m a r k e t i n g a n d c o m m u n i c a t i o n s
Suzette Sherman
a s s o c i a t e d i r e c t o r f o r a d m i n i s t r a t i o n
Alan Waldt
expedition staff
e d i t o r
Jane Hickman, Ph.D.
a s s o c i a t e e d i t o r
Jennifer Quick
a s s i s t a n t e d i t o r
Emily B. Toner
s u b s c r i p t i o n s m a n a g e r
Maureen Goldsmith
e d i t o r i a l a d v i s o r y b o a r d Fran Barg, Ph.D.Clark L. Erickson, Ph.D.James R. Mathieu, Ph.D.Naomi F. Miller, Ph.D.Janet M. Monge, Ph.D.Theodore G. Schurr, Ph.D.Robert L. Schuyler, Ph.D.
design
Anne Marie KaneImogen Designwww.imogendesign.com
printing
C&B Graphicswww.cnbgraphics.com
Travel the silk road with the Penn Museum in this special
expanded edition of Expedition magazine. This issue was created
to compliment Secrets of the Silk Road, a significant new exhibi-
tion that opens on February 5 and runs through June 5, 2011.
Penn Museum is the only East Coast venue for this remarkable
collection of artifacts from East Central Asia. The Museum also has many excit-
ing programs planned for the duration of the exhibition including lectures, fam-
ily days, special weekend programs, and a major scholarly symposium. Check
the Penn Museum website for further information: www.penn.museum.
What follows is a collection of articles by experts in the field of Central Asian
archaeology, art history, and linguistics. In our first feature article, “The Silk
Roads in History,” Dan Waugh provides an overview of the famous trade routes
that made up the legendary Silk Road, and the traders who traveled these routes.
This is followed by Victor Mair’s fascinating look at some of the most note-
worthy mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin, including those you will see
in Secrets of the Silk Road. We then move to an article by Angela Sheng on the
well-preserved textiles in the exhibition; Angela’s analysis reveals the cultural
exchanges that took place among various groups that lived in this region. Our
fourth article, by J.P. Mallory, discusses the linguistic complexity of the Tarim
Basin; where did the people who lived there come from, and what languages
might they have spoken?
Several short articles round out this issue. E.N. Anderson writes on the
preserved foods in the exhibition, and Nancy Steinhardt recounts the mystery
behind a Luohan statue in the Museum’s Asian collection. Mandy Chan reviews
a book on the prehistory of the Silk Road, the period before the establishment of
the famed trade routes. We also include a portrait of Dr. Elfriede Knauer, who
passed away this past summer. Kezia, as she was known to her friends, traveled
the Silk Road for over 30 years, becoming an authority on this part of the world.
This special Silk Road issue of Expedition would not have been possible with-
out the assistance of Victor Mair—professor at Penn, curatorial consultant to
the exhibition, and a scholar whose on-going interest in the burials of the Tarim
Basin made Secrets of the Silk Road possible. Victor gave generously of his time
in the initial planning and on-going production of this issue.
jane hickman, ph.d.Editor
welcome
From the Editor
Secrets of the Silk Road was organized by the Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, California in association with the Archaeological Institute of Xinjiang and the Ürümqi Museum.
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www.penn.museum/expedition 3
Looking back over the last
half-century as archaeology
has become more scientific,
there have been paradoxically
few truly great discoveries.
The wonders of archaeology, so it seems,
were found by Schliemann at Mycenae
and Troy, by Carter with his discovery of Tutankhamun, by
Bingham when he ventured high into the Andes to Machu
Picchu, and by Maudsley, who effectively tamed the jungle to
uncover the Maya. Their stories are told in sepia tone pho-
tographs, many of which have become iconic. Yet two great
archaeological discoveries dominate the archaeology of our
generation: a greater understanding of human evolution from
its roots in Africa, and the incomparable wealth of the cem-
eteries from the Tarim Basin in the Uyghur territory of north-
west China. The intellectual fascination of the findings in sub-
Saharan Africa and their global significance cannot be denied.
But for sheer emotional impact, no recent discoveries match
those from northwest China.
The East Central Asian mummies and associated grave
goods are remarkable for their preservation and beauty.
More than this, though, the Tarim Basin discoveries bring
to light evidence of long-term connections between cultures
that shaped both the East (as far as Japan) and the West (as
far as the Mediterranean). The revelatory finds detail untold
tales of intrepid mobility through trading and herding that we
would normally associate with modern times. Yet plainly such
mobility had its roots in the earliest nomadic and sedentary
groups. Much is made of the ethnic and linguistic issues asso-
ciated with these discoveries, but the really unexpected finds
have been the wealth of clothing and other items of material
culture recovered from the Tarim Basin graves. The exhibition
Secrets of the Silk Road, then—of the great discoveries made
by archaeologists along this ancient tract—will cause us to
rethink many of our accepted ways of understanding the roots
of our civilizations. It will turn long-held beliefs upside down,
and compel us to see interconnections and mobility as axi-
omatic to a past that greatly helped to shape both the Greco-
Roman and Chinese worlds, as well as Gandharan India. We
are at the beginning of a new world history, which may explain
the incredible fascination with this amazing exhibition.
richard hodges, ph.d.The Williams Director
Extraordinary Discoveries along the Silk Road
Vic
tor
H. M
air
by richard
hodges
from the director
The Tarim Basin in East Central Asia was home to numerous cemeteries which contained naturally mummified human remains, colorful textiles, food, and other grave goods. The Xiaohe cemetery shown here is marked by tall wooden posts.
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portrait
Dr. Elfriede R. (Kezia) Knauer
Penn museum has lost
a highly regarded author-
ity on the Silk Road
just months before the
appearance of this spe-
cial issue of Expedition. Dr. Elfriede
Knauer died after a long illness, shortly
after agreeing to contribute to this issue. Kezia, as she was
known to her family, friends, and colleagues, led an excep-
tional life. Born in Germany, she learned French, English, and
Latin at an early age; her formal study of Classical Archaeology,
Ancient History, the History of Art, and East Asian Studies
eventually led to a Ph.D. from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Universität, Frankfurt am Main, in 1951. That same year, she
married Georg Nicolaus Knauer, now Professor Emeritus
in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of
Pennsylvania. By her own account, her areas of specialization
were Greek vase painting, the survival of classical themes in
Renaissance art, the history of cartography, and classical influ-
ences on Central and East Asian art.
The Knauers came to the University of Pennsylvania in early
1975. In 1983, Kezia was appointed Research Associate in the
Mediterranean Section at the Penn Museum, and from 1986
onward, served as a Consulting Scholar. She had the distinc-
tion of being elected a member of the American Philosophical
Society in 1999, and additionally belonged to the Archäologische
Gesellschaft zu Berlin. In 2002, she received the Director’s
Award for distinguished service to the Penn Museum.
Knauer’s command of many subjects is reflected in her pub-
lished work including Coats, Queens, and Cormorants (Zürich
2009), a compendium of articles dealing with the historical, cul-
tural, and artistic interconnections between East and West. Her
earlier book, The Camel’s Load in Life and Death (Zürich 1998),
specifically dealt with trade along the Silk Road, much of which
was based on her firsthand observations; this book received
the prestigious Prix Stanislas Julien in 1999 as the best book
in Sinology. Yet for this writer and others who for the past 30
years attended the same lectures and meetings as the Knauers,
perhaps the greatest proof of the breadth of her knowledge
came in the form of
her questions and
comments to the
speakers which reli-
ably followed every
talk. No matter the topic at hand, her questions were invariably
models of perception and verbal lucidity, always delivered with
disarming kindness and modesty to the very heart of the subject
and leaving everyone better informed for having heard them.
Her knowledge of the Silk Road grew out of a series of jour-
neys undertaken by the Knauers beginning in the early 1980s
and continuing until a short time before her death. Indefatigable
and adventurous travelers, they visited nearly every European
country as part of Georg Knauer’s library-based research into
Latin translations of the Homeric epics, interspersed with
excursions to Syria, Israel, Egypt, Tunisia, and the various
Classical regions abutting the northern Mediterranean.
The capstone to four decades of travel included trips to
China, Tibet, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia,
Sri Lanka, Cambodia, India, and Pakistan, as well as to the
Crimea, Ukraine, Armenia, and Georgia. This enabled Dr.
Knauer to examine the Silk Route from the east and the west, a
study which ended up as an all-embracing passion. The fruits of
this took the form of books, articles, and a host of memorable
public lectures, all of which established her as a leading expert
in subjects too often avoided by specialists as linguistically, his-
torically, and even physically too challenging to undertake.
For many of her friends, Kezia Knauer was part of a remark-
able wave of European scholars who revolutionized the study
of the classics, archaeology, and art history in this country
during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Her reputation is destined to
remain intact for years to come. One can only wish that she
had been granted the time to write her recollections of travels
along the Silk Road for this special issue. The Museum and all
its friends shall miss her greatly.
donald white is Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Curator Emeritus of the Mediterranean Section at the Penn Museum.
3 July 1926–
7 June 2010
by donald white
Elfriede R. (Kezia) Knauer, photographed by her husband in the early 1980s, just as their trips along the Silk Road began.
Geo
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Walking through the exhibition Secrets of the
Silk Road, one is amazed
at the well-preserved
mummies and colorful
textiles. But perhaps the objects that we can
identify with most are the food items that may
have been meant to nourish the dead in the afterlife. Is that a
spring roll? A wonton? Yes, and they are remarkably similar to
what one would purchase in China today.
The extremely dry climate in the Tarim Basin preserved this
food. Few areas of the world can support populations in such
an arid environment, so finds of actual food products—exca-
vated more commonly in places like Egypt—are rare. Scholars
that study ancient food must generally rely on mentions in
ancient texts, animal bones or seeds, or, at best, food that was
thrown into a bog where the airless, acidic environment pre-
serves organic remains.
Secrets of the Silk Road includes six small food items, all
based on wheat. A fried twist of short spaghetti-like dough
strands is dated to the 5th to 3rd century BCE. Such food can
be found in northwest China today. One might assume that
other noodle dishes, particularly soups, were regular fare dur-
ing antiquity, as they have been for a long time in the area.
From the Tang Dynasty (7th to 9th century CE), we have part
of a spring roll and wonton, both virtually identical to modern
versions of the same food. Although we do not know exactly
what is in each one, both were stuffed with a filling. A similar
type of wonton, called a chuchure, is known as a traditional
food in present-day East Central Asia.
From both early and late periods, we have strikingly lovely
modeled flowers: a chrysanthemum, a plum blossom, and a
seven-petaled flower. These flowers were probably more orna-
mental than edible, since they were likely made from a stiff
dough of wheat and water, and baked into rocky hardness. They
may have served as religious offerings, since similar ornamental
offering-pastries are produced in China today. Tang earthen-
ware figurines also offer insight into food preparation in ancient
East Central Asia. Women are depicted performing chores such
as churning, baking or steaming, and rolling out dough.
From earliest times until today, food in many areas of
Central Asia was based on a classic Middle Eastern crop roster:
wheat, barley, and sheep products, with cattle, horses, goats,
camels, and other livestock playing important roles. Wheat
was a staple, and barley was also heavily used. Barley does not Xin
jiang
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what in the world
by e. n.
anderson
Geo
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This twisted fried dough, over 2,000 years old, was found in a tomb on a red lacquer table. It was made from flour and twisted by hand.
Ancient and Modern Foods from the Tarim Basin
Left, the dough in this spring roll was rolled out, wrapped around a filling, then fried. Right, a wonton is made of rolled dough that is wrapped around a filling and boiled. Wontons are often found in soups.
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bake well, but it does produce a good crop under conditions
so dry or salty that nothing else will grow. Dairy products were
probably far more important than meat, as in other traditional
Central Asian societies. Grapes and other fruits are well known
from historic sources.
Two species of millets also came from China and were used
for porridge. In Central Asia, however, they were always a
minor crop, since they do not produce good baking material
for bread, a staple that linked the region to the Western world.
Rice, now a staple in the Tarim Basin, is not attested from early
times. Judging by what is preserved, the diet in this region likely
resembled that found in the most remote parts of Afghanistan
and Pakistan up until a few decades ago: bread, a little yogurt,
fruit, and some herbs to accompany the meal. On a rare festive
occasion, meat, cheese, and butter might have also been eaten.
Wine and beer were probably available. The rivers afforded
some fish, known as laks or lakse in the Tocharian languages.
Dumplings of all kinds remain important in this area. They
are usually called by some variant of the word mantu, but they
are ashak in Afghanistan and momo in Tibet. Dumplings are
of uncertain origin and span across Eurasia from quite an early
period. The small dumpling would have been called mantou
(or mantu) in China during this time, while today its name
is jiaozi.
A Persian-style flat bread—often sprinkled with sesame
seeds and baked by sticking it to an oven wall—was probably
the staple food in Central Asia. Its modern Farsi name, nan,
is derived from the familiar pan. This bread reached China by
the Tang Dynasty, brought by Iranian refugees and traders. Its
descendents survive today as the shaobing, which is tradition-
ally baked on a heated pot wall, and the huge sesame breads of
northwest China, which are now steamed rather than baked.
No one seems to know when the huge tandur-style oven was
developed, but it is certainly very old in the region.
With further discoveries of intact burials in the Tarim
Basin, we will likely find more preserved food. Perhaps we will
develop a greater understanding of how food traditions trav-
eled along the many routes that made up the Silk Road.
e. n. anderson is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside.
For Further Reading
Anderson, E. N. The Food of China. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.
Chang, K. C., ed. Food in Chinese Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977.
Robinson, Cyril D. “The Bagel and Its Origins—Mythical, Hypothetical and Undiscovered.” Petits Propos Culinaires 58 (1998):42-46.
Schafer, Edward H. “T’ang.” In Food in Chinese Culture, edited by K. C. Chang, pp. 85-140. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977.
Trombert, Eric. “Between Harvesting and Cooking: Grain Processing in Dunhuang, a Qualitative and Quantitative Survey.” In Regionalism and Globalism in Chinese Culinary Culture, edited by David Holm, pp. 147-179. Taiwan: Foundation of Chinese Dietary Culture, 2010.
This flour dough dessert, in the shape of a plum blossom, originally contained fruit in its center. Some flowers like this may have been ornamental and not meant to be eaten.
Painted ceramic figurines depict female servants in various stages of food preparation.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 6 12/7/10 10:32 AM
Among the myriad objects
of world art, there are always
some that continue to cap-
tivate the viewer and haunt
the researcher. The tri-color
glazed clay Luohan statue from Yi County
(Yizhou), about 50 km southwest of the
city limits of Beijing, is such an object in the Penn Museum.
The mysteries that engulf this Luohan—a portrayal of a monk
who was a disciple of the Buddha Sakyamuni—begin with a
Chinese inscription reported to have been written in a cave in
which the statue may have been hidden. In translation, it reads
“All the Buddhas come from afar.”
The story of the cave with this enigmatic inscription is
recounted by German expeditionary Friedrich Perzynski in an
essay from 1920. In 1912, Perzynski had been shown a simi-
lar Luohan statue by two Beijing art dealers. He then traveled
to Yi County in search of the cave where a group of Luohan
sculptures, according to the dealers, had previously been hid-
den. When he entered the cave, Perzynski found the inscrip-
tion and concluded from this text that the statues had origi-
nally come from elsewhere and had later been deposited in the
cave, perhaps for safekeeping.
The Penn statue left China in 1913 through an arrangement
made by German art dealer Edgar Worch. In June of 1914, the
Museum purchased the statue from Worch. Perzynski mean-
while brought two other Luohan statues with him to Germany
in November of 1913. One was bought by the German collec-
tor Harry Fuld and given to the Museum für Asiatische Kunst
in Berlin, where it is believed to have been lost in the bomb-
ings of 1945. The other was purchased by the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York. Between 1914 and 1921, five
similar Luohan statues were bought or acquired by museums,
including the Metropolitan, the British Museum, the Royal
Ontario Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and
the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. Two more
Luohan statues are believed to be part of this group. One was
sold into a private collection in Japan as early as 1921, and the
other is possibly in the Musée Guimet.
Although the group of statues are similar in size,
glaze, and form, the individual quality of each Luohan
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The Luohan that Came from Afar
www.penn.museum/expedition 7
This Luohan from China is 1.21 m in height. It can be viewed in the Chinese Rotunda in the Penn Museum. UPM #C66A,B.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 7 12/7/10 10:32 AM
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challenges a viewer to connect with the person behind
the face. The depth of portraiture seen here is almost
unparalleled in Chinese art. This kind of portraiture is
possible because a Luohan was considered mortal. Chinese for
the Sanskrit word arhat, Luohan can be translated as “enlight-
ened man” or as the adjective “venerable.” Yet there is no
promise that an Arhat will attain the otherworldly status of
Buddhahood.
It is unknown if the Yizhou Luohan were portraits of spe-
cific individuals, although a goal of each sculpture clearly is
an individual, human portrayal. It is also unclear how many
statues were in the original group associated with the Yizhou
cave, and when and where they were originally made. Legends
from Buddhist literature tell of Luohan that appear in groups
of 16, 18, and 500. Today, the Luohan statues that survive in
their original temple settings, particularly in Japan, are often
found in groups of these numbers. At least 8, and probably
10, of the tri-color glazed Luohan statues left China during a
ten-year period, so the group might have originally numbered
16 or 18. The date of manufacture also is not certain. Although
the statues were sold as objects from the Liao Dynasty (ca.
947–1125), chemical tests on the Penn Museum statue yielded
a date as late as the 12th century, meaning that it could have
been made during the non-Chinese dynasty Jin (1115–1234)
that succeeded Liao in northern China.
Two other extraordinary Liao objects are on display in the
Rotunda. One is a silver death mask, beaten to a thickness of
no more than one cm. Not an individualized portrayal, the
burial mask is instead evidence of a Liao funerary practice
believed to have originated with North Asian nomads of the
1st millennium BCE. Another Liao object is the gilt bronze
statue of the bodhisattva Guanyin, acquired by the Penn
Museum in 1922. The bodhisattva is an enlightened being
en route to Buddhahood who aids others in the attainment
of their own Buddhist salvation. Guanyin is known for lov-
ing kindness and compassion, and is identified by the seated
Buddha in its crown.
The three pieces attest to the
strength and boldness of Liao sculp-
ture. The Luohan, however, super-
sedes the other two in its superla-
tive, descriptive face, a visage that
engages anyone who sees it, even
though its provenance remains a
mystery to this day.
nancy shatzman stein-hardt is Professor of East Asian Art, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania, and Curator in the Asian Section at the Penn Museum.
Associated with the Liao Dynasty (947–1125 CE), this death mask (H. 21 cm) was made by beating a heavy sheet of silver. UPM #44-16-1A,B.
The gilt bronze statue of Guanyin holds a lotus bud in its left hand. It measures 71 cm in height. UPM #C400.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 8 12/7/10 10:32 AM
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The Silk Roads in History by daniel c . waugh
There is an endless popular fascination with
the “Silk Roads,” the historic routes of eco-
nomic and cultural exchange across Eurasia.
The phrase in our own time has been used as
a metaphor for Central Asian oil pipelines, and
it is common advertising copy for the romantic exoticism of
expensive adventure travel. One would think that, in the cen-
tury and a third since the German geographer Ferdinand von
Richthofen coined the term to describe what for him was a
quite specific route of east-west trade some 2,000 years ago,
there might be some consensus as to what and when the Silk
Roads were. Yet, as the Penn Museum exhibition of Silk Road
artifacts demonstrates, we are still learning about that history,
and many aspects of it are subject to vigorous scholarly debate.
Most today would agree that Richthofen’s original concept
was too limited in that he was concerned first of all about the
movement of silk overland from east to west
between the “great civilizations” of Han China
and Rome. Should we extend his concept to
encompass striking evidence from the Eurasian
Bronze and Early Iron Ages, and trace it beyond
the European Age of Discovery (15th to 17th
centuries) to the eve of the modern world? Is
there in fact a definable starting point or conclu-
sion? And can we confine our examination to
exchange across Eurasia along a few land routes,
given their interconnection with maritime trade?
Indeed, the routes of exchange and products were
many, and the mix changed substantially over
time. The history of the Silk Roads is a narrative
about movement, resettlement, and interactions
across ill-defined borders but not necessarily
over long distances. It is also the story of artistic
exchange and the spread and mixing of religions,
all set against the background of the rise and fall
of polities which encompassed a wide range of
cultures and peoples, about whose identities we still know too
little. Many of the exchanges documented by archaeological
research were surely the result of contact between various
ethnic or linguistic groups over time. The reader should keep
these qualifications in mind in reviewing the highlights from
the history which follows.
The Beginnings
Among the most exciting archaeological discoveries of the
20th century were the frozen tombs of the nomadic pastoral-
ists who occupied the Altai mountain region around Pazyryk
in southern Siberia in the middle of the 1st millennium BCE.
These horsemen have been identified with the Scythians who
dominated the steppes from Eastern Europe to Mongolia. The
This detail of a pile carpet, recovered from Pazyryk Barrow 5 and dated 252–238 BCE, depicts an Achaemenid-style horseman.
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Dan
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. Wau
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Pazyryk tombs clearly document connections with China: the
deceased were buried with Chinese silk and bronze mirrors.
The graves contain felts and woven wool textiles, but curi-
ously little evidence that would point to local textile produc-
tion. The earliest known pile carpet, found in a Pazyryk tomb,
has Achaemenid (ancient Persian) motifs; the dyes and tech-
nology of dyeing wool fabrics seem to be of Middle Eastern
origin. Other aspects of the burial goods suggest a connection
with a yet somewhat vague northeast Asian cultural complex,
extending along the forest-steppe boundaries all the way to
Manchuria and north Korea. Discoveries from 1st millennium
BCE sites in Xinjiang reinforce the evidence about active long-
distance contacts well before Chinese political power extended
that far west.
While it is difficult to locate the Pazyryk pastoralists within
any larger polity that might have controlled the center of
Eurasia, the Xiongnu—the Huns—who emerged around the
beginning of the 2nd century BCE, established what most con-
sider to be the first of the great Inner Asian empires and in
the process stimulated what, in the conventional telling, was
the beginnings of the Silk Roads. Evidence about the Xiongnu
supports a growing consensus that Inner Asian peoples for-
merly thought of as purely nomadic in fact were mixed soci-
eties, incorporating sedentary elements such as permanent
settlement sites and agriculture into their way of life. Related
to this fact was a substantial and regular interaction along the
permeable boundaries between the northern steppe world
and agricultural China. Substantial quantities of Chinese
goods now made their way into Inner Asia and beyond to the
Mediterranean world. This flow of goods included tribute the
Han Dynasty paid to the nomad rulers, and trade, in return
for which the Chinese received horses and camels. Chinese
missions to the “Western Regions” also resulted in the open-
ing of direct trade with Central Asia and parts of the Middle
East, although we have no evidence that Han merchants ever
reached the Mediterranean or that Roman merchants reached
China. The cities of the Parthian Empire, which controlled
routes leading to the Mediterranean, and the emergence of
prosperous caravan emporia such as Palmyra in the eastern
Syrian desert attest to the importance of interconnected over-
land and maritime trade, whose products included not only
silk but also spices, iron, olive oil, and much more.
The Han Dynasty expanded Chinese dominion for the first
time well into Central Asia, in the process extending the Great
Wall and establishing the garrisons to man it. While one result
of this was a shift in the balance of power between the Xiongnu
10 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
Xiongnu tombs contained various types of grave goods. Objects in this late 1st century BCE to middle 1st century CE burial from Mongolia included a bronze cauldron containing the remains of a ritual meal, pottery, and a Han Dynasty lacquer bowl with metal rim.
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The Qizilqagha beacon tower, northwest of Kucha, Xinjiang, dates from the Han Dynasty. It is located near an important Buddhist cave temple complex and stands approximately 15 m tall.
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and the Chinese in favor of the latter, Xiongnu tombs of the late
1st century BCE through the 1st century CE in north-central
Mongolia contain abundant Chinese lacquerware, lacquered
Chinese chariots, high-quality bronze mirrors, and stunning
silk brocades.There is good reason to assume that much of the
silk passing through Xiongnu hands was traded farther to the
west. Although Richthofen felt that the Silk Road trade ceased
to be important with the decline of the Han Dynasty in the 2nd
century CE, there is ample evidence of very important interac-
tions across Eurasia in the subsequent period when—both in
China and the West—the great sedentary empires fragmented.
The Silk Roads and Religion
During the 2nd century CE, Buddhism began to spread vigor-
ously into Central Asia and China with the active support of
local rulers. The earliest clearly documented Chinese transla-
Right, the 19 m high Tang period statue of Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future, is located at Xumishan Grottoes, Ningxia Hui Antonomous Region, China. The cave temples here were first carved in the Northern Wei peri-od. Below, this map charts major routes and sites of the Silk Road.
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Maijishan or “Wheatstack Mountain,” in eastern Gansu Province, is a Buddhist cave site first established under the Northern Wei Dynasty in the 5th century.
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tions of Buddhist scriptures date from this period, although
the process of expanding the Buddhist canon in China and
adapting it to Chinese religious traditions extended over sub-
sequent centuries. Understandably, many of the key figures in
the transmission of the faith were those from Central Asia who
commanded a range of linguistic skills acquired in the multi-
ethnic oasis towns such as Kucha. Buddhism also made its way
east via the coastal routes. By the time of the Northern Wei
Dynasty in the 5th and early 6th centuries, there were major
Buddhist cave temple sites in the Chinese north and extending
across to the fringes of the Central Asian deserts. Perhaps the
best known and best preserved of these is the Mogao Caves
at the commercial and garrison town of Dunhuang, where
there is a continuous record of Buddhist art from the early
5th century down to the time of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty
in the 14th century. One of the most famous travelers on the
Silk Roads was the Chinese monk Xuanzang, whose route to
the sources of Buddhist wisdom in India took him along the
northern fringes of the Tarim Basin, through the mountains,
and then south through today’s Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.
When he returned to China after some 15 years, stopping at
Dunhuang along the way, he brought back a trove of scrip-
tures and important images.
Many of the sites that we connect with this spread of
Buddhism are also those where there is evidence of the
Sogdians: Iranian speakers who were the first great merchant
diaspora of the Silk Roads. From their homeland in Samarkand
and the Zerafshan River Valley (today’s Uzbekistan and
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14 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
Tajikistan), the Sogdians extended their reach west to the
Black Sea, south through the mountains of Kashmir, and to
the ports of southeast Asia. Early 4th century Sogdian letters,
found just west of Dunhuang, document a Sogdian network
extending from Samarkand through Dunhuang, and along the
Gansu Corridor into central China. Sogdians entered Chinese
service and adopted some aspects of Chinese culture while
retaining, it seems, their indigenous religious traditions (a
form of Zoroastrianism). Their importance went well beyond
commerce, as they served not only the Chinese but also some
of the newly emerging regimes from the northern steppes,
the Turks and the Uyghurs. The Turks for a time extended
their control across much of Inner Asia and were influential
in promoting trade into Eastern Europe and the Byzantine
Empire. The Uyghurs received huge quantities of Chinese silk
in exchange for horses. Sogdians played a role in the transmis-
sion of Manichaeism—another of the major Middle Eastern
religions—to the Uyghurs in the 8th century, by which time
both Islam and Eastern Christianity had also made their way
to China. With the final conquest of the Sogdian homeland
by Arab armies in the early 8th century, Sogdian influence
declined. Muslim merchants of various ethnicities would
replace the Sogdians in key roles controlling Silk Road trade.
Tombs of the 5th to 8th century, along the northern routes
connecting China and Central Asia, contain abundant evi-
dence of east-west interaction. There are numerous coins
from Sasanian Iran, examples of Middle Eastern and Central
Asian metalwork, glass from the eastern Mediterranean, and
much more. By the time of the Tang Dynasty (618–906),
which managed once again to extend Chinese control into
Central Asia, foreign culture was all the rage among the
Chinese elite: everything from makeup and hair styles to
dance and music. Even women played polo, a game imported
from Persia.
The Impact of the Arabs and the Mongols
By the second half of the 8th century—with the consolida-
tion of Arab control in Central Asia and the establishment of
the Abbassid Caliphate, with its capital at Baghdad—western
Asia entered a new period of prosperity. Many threads made
up the complex fabric of what we tend to designate simply as
“Islamic civilization.” Earlier Persian traditions continued,
and the expertise of Eastern Christians contributed to the
This view of the southern portion of the Mogao oasis, Dunhuang, includes a temple façade (on the right) that was restored in 1936. The façade covers a 30 m high statue of Maitreya commissioned at the end of the 7th century by the female usurper of the Tang throne, Wu Zetian. Fences added in recent years to reduce wind erosion are visible on the plateau above the cliff.
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400 BCE 200 BCE 0 200 CE 400 CE 600 CE 800 CE 1000 CE 1200 CE 1400 CE 1600 CE
Mediterranean
Persia
Northen IndiaPakistanAfghanistan
Central Asia
East Asia
Macedonians
Roman Empire
Byzantine Empire
Seleucids Sassanians
Parthians Islamic Dynasties
Mauryans
KushansGuptas
Sogdians
Mughals
Sakas UyghursHephthalites Timurids
Xiongnu Juan-juan Khitans Mongols
Han Dynasty Sui Song Dynasty Ming
Hu Peoples Northern Wei Tang Dynasty Tanguts (Xi Xia)
136–125, 119–115 BCE. Zhang Qian, emissary sent by Han
Dynasty Emperor Wu Di to the “Western Regions,” who sup-
plied important commercial and political intelligence.
629–645 CE. Xuanzang (Hsuan-tsang), Chinese Buddhist
monk who traveled through Inner Asia to India, studied there,
and once back in the Chinese capital Chang’an (Xian) was an
important translator of Buddhist texts.
821. Tamim ibn Bahr, Arab emissary, who visited the impres-
sive capital city of the Uyghurs in the Orkhon River valley in
Mongolia.
1253–1255. William of Rubruck (Ruysbroeck), Franciscan
missionary who traveled all the way to the Mongol Empire
capital of Karakorum and wrote a remarkably detailed account
about what he saw.
1271–1295. Marco Polo, Venetian who accompanied his
father and uncle back to China and the court of Yuan Emperor
Kublai Khan. Marco entered his service; after returning to
Europe dictated a romanticized version of his travels while in
a Genoese prison. Despite its many inaccuracies, his account
is the best known and arguably most influential of the early
European narratives about Asia.
1325–1354. Abu Abd Allah Muhammad Ibn Battuta,
Moroccan whose travels even eclipsed Marco Polo’s in their
extent, as he roamed far and wide between West Africa and
China, and once home dictated an often remarkably detailed
description of what he saw.
1403–1406. Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo, Spanish ambassador to
Timur (Tamerlane), who carefully described his route through
northern Iran and the flourishing capital city of Samarkand.
1413–1415, 1421–1422, 1431–1433. Ma Huan, Muslim
interpreter who accompanied the famous Ming admiral Zheng
He (Cheng Ho) on his fourth, sixth, and seventh expeditions
to the Indian Ocean and described the geography and com-
mercial emporia along the way.
1664–1667, 1671–1677. John Chardin, a French Hugenot
jeweler who spent significant time in the Caucasus, Persia,
and India and wrote one of the major European accounts of
Safavid Persia.
Chronology of Selected Travelers
silk road timeline
Tim
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emergence of Baghdad as a major intellectual center. Even
though Chinese silk continued to be imported, centers of
silk production were established in Central Asia and north-
ern Iran. Considerable evidence has been found regarding
importation of Chinese ceramics into the Persian Gulf in the
8th through the 10th century. The importance of maritime
trade for the transmission of Chinese goods would continue
to grow as Muslim merchants established themselves in the
ports of southeast China. The Chinese connection had a
substantial impact on artistic production in the Middle East,
where ceramicists devised new techniques in order to imitate
Chinese wares. Conversely, the transmission of blue-and-
white pottery decoration moved from the Middle East to
China. The apogee of these developments came substantially
later in the period of the Mongol Empire, when in the 13th
and 14th centuries much of Eurasia came under the control
of the most successful of all the Inner Asian dynasties whose
homeland was in the steppes of Mongolia.
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Left, Timurid tile work may have been influenced by Chinese lacquerware. This example of tile work is from the Mausoleum of Shad-i Mulk, ca. 1372, Shah-i Zinda, Samarkand. Right, a gilded silver Tocharian or Bactrian ewer from the 5th or 6th century CE depicts the story of Paris and Helen of Troy. The ewer was found in the tomb of Li Xian (d. 569) near Guyuan, Ningxia Hui Antonomous Region, China. From the Collection of the Guyuan Municipal Museum.
16 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
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˘
The Mongol Ilkhanid palace at Takht-i Suleyman in northwestern Iran (1270–1275) was probably the source of this lusterware tile with a Chinese dragon motif. From the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (no. C.1970-1910).
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This modern sculpture, shown with the Registan monuments, Samarkand, in the background, is evocative of the Silk Road. The buildings are the 15th century medrese (religious school) of Ulugh Beg and the 17th century Shir Dor medrese.
Under the Mongols, we can document for the first
time the travel of Europeans all the way across Asia, the
most famous examples being the Franciscan monks John
of Plano Carpini and William of Rubruck in the first half
of the 13th century, and Marco Polo a few decades later.
Genoese merchant families took up residence in Chinese
port cities, and for a good many decades there was an
active Roman Catholic missionary church in China. The
reign of Kublai Khan in China and the establishment of
the Mongol Ilkhanid regime in Iran in the second half of
the 13th century was a period of particularly extensive
exchange of artisans (granted, most of them probably
conscripted) and various kinds of technical specialists.
While their long-term impact may have been limited,
the exchanges included the transmission of medical and
astronomical knowledge. There is much here to temper
the view that the impact of the Mongol conquests was
primarily a destructive one.
Despite the rapid collapse of the Mongol Empire in
the 14th century, under their Ming Dynasty successors
in China and the Timurids in the Middle East, active
commercial and artistic exchange between East and
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West continued into the 16th century. Timurid Samarkand
and Herat were centers of craft production and the caravan
trade. The early Ming sponsored the sending of huge fleets
through the Indian Ocean, which must have flooded the mar-
kets in the West with Chinese goods, among them the increas-
ingly popular celadon (pale green) and blue-and-white porce-
lain. The centers of Chinese ceramic production clearly began
to adapt to the tastes of foreign markets, whether in Southeast
Asia or the Middle East. The legacy of this can be seen in the
ceramics produced in northern Iran, which decorated palaces
and shrines, and in the later collections of imported porcelain
assembled by the Ottoman and Safavid rulers in the 16th and
17th centuries. Persian painting, which reached its apogee in
the 15th and 16th centuries, was substantially influenced by
Chinese models.
Conventional histories of the Silk Roads stop with the
European Age of Discovery and the opening of maritime routes
to the East in the late 15th century. Of course, there had already
long been extensive maritime trade between the Middle East,
South Asia, Southwest Asia, and East Asia. Undoubtedly the
relative value of overland and sea trade now changed, as did
the identity of those who controlled commerce. Yet, despite
growing political disorders disrupting the overland routes,
many of them continued to flourish down through the 17th
century. New trading diasporas emerged, with Indian and
Armenian merchants now playing important roles. Trade in
traditional products such as horses and spices continued, as
did the transmission of substantial amounts of silver to pay
for the Eastern goods. Among the Chinese goods now much
in demand was tea, whose export to the Inner Asian pastoral-
ists had grown substantially during the period of the Yuan and
early Ming dynasties. Trade along the Silk Roads continued,
even if transformed in importance, into the 20th century.
Re-discovery of the Silk Roads
An important chapter in the history of the Silk Roads is the
story of their re-discovery in modern times. Over the centu-
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On the left is a Ming porcelain dish created in the Jingdezhen kilns, dated 1403–1424. It was donated to the shrine of Shaykh Safi al-Din at Ardebil (northwestern Iran) by Safavid Shah Abbas I in 1611. On the right is a blue and white ceramic imitation of Chinese porcelain, probably from Samarkand, dated 1400–1450, which was produced by craftsmen conscripted in 1402 in Damascus. Both dishes from the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (no. 1712-1816; no. C.206-1984).
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ries, many of the historic cities along the Inner Asian routes
declined and disappeared as a result of climate change (where
water supplies dried up) or changes in the political map. Only
episodically did the ancient sites attract the attention of local
rulers; at best, oral tradition preserved legends which bore
little relationship to the earlier history of the ruins. In Europe,
it was travel accounts such as that of Marco Polo which
helped to alert early explorers of Central Asia to the possibil-
ity of unearthing traces of Silk Road civilizations now buried
beneath the desert sands.
The foundation for modern Silk Road studies was laid
between the late 1880s and the eve of World War I. Somewhat
by accident, the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin discovered sev-
eral of the ruined towns along the southern Silk Road, includ-
ing Dandan Uiliq, north of Khotan, and Loulan, near the dried-
up bed of Lake Lop Nur. Inspired by such information and
the trickle of antiquities that was now coming out of Central
Asia, the Hungarian-born Aurel Stein, an employee of the
British Indian government, inaugurated serious archaeologi-
cal exploration of the sites in western China. His most famous
accomplishment was to purchase from the self-appointed
keeper of the Mogao cave temples near Dunhuang in 1907 a
significant part of a treasure trove of manuscripts and paint-
ings discovered there only a few years earlier. A year later, the
French sinologist Paul Pelliot shipped another major portion
of this collection back to Europe. In the meantime, pursuing
leads suggested by earlier Russian exploration, German expe-
ditions had been active along the northern Silk Road. There
they removed large chunks of murals from the most impor-
tant Buddhist cave temples in the Turfan and Kucha regions
and sent them back to Berlin. The Germans also found manu-
script fragments and imagery from Christian and Manichaen
temples. Such was the quantity and range of the textual and
artistic materials obtained by these early expeditions that their
analysis is still far from complete. Part of the challenge was
to decipher previously unknown languages and scripts. The
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In his own lifetime and even today, Marco Polo’s account of his travels has
been branded a falsification. A late medieval reader might have asked how it is
that there could be such wonders about which we have never heard. Why is it,
the modern critic muses, that Marco so often seems to get the facts wrong or fails to
mention something we think he should have included such as the Great Wall or foot-
binding? Of course in any age, the first descriptions of the previously unknown are
likely to engender skepticism. Accuracy in reporting may be conditioned by precon-
ceived notions, the degree to which the traveler actually saw something or perhaps
only heard about it secondhand, and the purpose for which an account was set down.
Marco had his biases—he was an apologist for Kublai Khan and, it seems, really did
work for the Mongols. As an official in their administration, he would not necessarily
have mixed with ordinary Chinese. When he was in China, much of the Great Wall
was in ruins and thus might simply not have seemed worthy of comment. Where
he reports on Mongol customs and certain aspects of the court, he can be very precise. If his descriptions of cities seem
stereotyped, the reason may have been that they indeed appeared equally large and prosperous when judged by European
standards. In any event, to convey the wonders of the Great Khan’s dominions required a certain amount of hyperbole.
It seems unlikely that Marco took notes along the way. Mistakes can thus easily be attributed to faulty memory as well as
the circumstances in which a professional weaver of romances, Rusticello of Pisa, recorded and embellished Marco’s oral
account while the two were in a Genoese prison. Even if Marco’s account still challenges modern scholars, there can be no
question about its impact in helping to transform a previously very limited European knowledge of Asia.
Marco Polo’s Travels: Myth or Fact?
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belated Chinese response to what they came to
characterize as a plundering of their antiquities
finally put a stop to most foreign exploration
by the mid-1930s.
In recent decades, new excavations have
added substantially to our knowledge of this
part of Asia. One focus of Chinese archaeol-
ogy has been on the very early cultures of Inner
Asia, which antedate the traditional “begin-
ning of the Silk Roads.” The ongoing discover-
ies from locations such as the Astana cemetery,
dating from the Tang period, are enabling us
to now write a serious social and economic
history of some of the flourishing oasis com-
munities, in a time when silk was still a major
currency that fueled commerce.
Our knowledge of the cultures in the
northern steppes commenced with the work
of Russian archaeologists beginning at the
end of the 19th century. Russian expeditions
organized by the famous Orientalist Wilhelm
Radloff documented sites in southern Siberia
and northern Mongolia, providing some of the
first evidence about “cities in the steppe” and
helping to publicize the earliest texts in a Turkic
language. Russian-Mongolian expeditions
revealed the richness of Xiongnu elite burials at
the site of Noyon uul (Noin Ula) in the moun-
tains of north-central Mongolia, and were
responsible for the first serious excavation of
the 13th century capital of the Mongol Empire,
Karakorum. Archaeology at sites throughout
the Eurasian steppes has resulted in dramatic
discoveries, and forced us to question many
of our assumptions about when meaningful
exchange across all of Eurasia began.
Yet this is only part of the story, for equally
dramatic discoveries have been made in recent
years regarding maritime trade. From the
East China Sea to the Mediterranean, nauti-
cal archaeology is documenting the cargoes of
everything from scrap metal to fine porcelain.
Excavations along the Red Sea and the East
African coasts have expanded our knowledge
Our knowledge of the mechanisms for commercial
exchange along the Silk Roads is still limited. Most com-
merce was “short-haul” between one oasis or town and
the next, and probably never generated any written records. There
were also long-distance caravans and merchant diasporas often
located far from the “home office.” The Sogdians were involved in
long-distance trade, documented first in Sogdian letters written by
members of that diaspora in the early 4th century, and later from
documents unearthed in the Turfan oasis, among them a famous
example of a contract for the purchase of a slave. Religious affilia-
tion may have bound communities of entrepreneurs who were oth-
erwise isolated minorities in larger population groups. Thus Eastern
Christians (Nestorians) played important roles in trade from the
Middle East to India and beyond. With the rise of Islam, it was not
long before Muslim merchants were resident in the ports of south-
east China and in the Chinese capital of Chang’an. A vast repository
of Hebrew documents preserved in Cairo describes the activities of a
far-flung Jewish community all across the Mediterranean world into
Eastern Europe and through the Middle East. Italian merchants were
active all along the Silk Roads, even sending their representatives to
China in the time of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty.
Although Middle Eastern silk production was by now very sub-
stantial, imports of Chinese raw silk were significant in the emergence
of Italy as a major center of silk weaving. One of the most valuable
sources about products and prices is a commercial handbook com-
piled by the Florentine agent Pegalotti in Constantinople in the 14th
century. In it, he reports that the routes to China are generally safe for
travel. By the late 16th and 17th centuries, Armenian Christians were
placed in charge of the Safavid (Persian) silk trade. One of the most
remarkable documents from this late period in the history of the Silk
Roads is an account book by an Armenian, Hohvannes, who started
at the home office in a suburb of Isfahan, traveled south to Shiraz,
then on to the Indian Ocean coast, where he boarded a ship to India.
Once he arrived in the Mughal Empire, he continued his buying and
selling, aided by a mechanism for cashing in letters of credit and for
shipping goods back home even as he went on, ultimately spending
time in Lhasa before returning to India. Surprisingly, Hohvannes
used double-entry bookkeeping and thus has left us an invaluable,
detailed account of goods and prices.
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Merchant Diasporas and Our Knowledge of Silk Road Trade
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of contacts with India and the Far East. Although long
known from Classical texts, the archaeological evidence of
Roman trade with India continues to grow. Overall there
is now a much greater appreciation of the importance of
long-distance trade through the Middle East starting in the
Bronze Age and continuing well into the era when first the
Portuguese and then the Dutch and English began to dom-
inate the Indian Ocean. Maritime trade throughout history
has been an integral part of Eurasian exchange.
So the “Silk Roads” did not begin when Han Emperor
Wu Di sent his emissary Zhang Qian to the West in the
2nd century BCE any more than they ended when Vasco
Da Gama pioneered the route to India around the Cape
of Good Hope. Our current “Age of Discovery” concern-
ing the history of the Silk Roads, employing sophisticated
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A mural of donors (Tocharian princes?) from Kizil Grottoes, Cave 8 (“Cave of the Sixteen Swordbearers”), has been C-14 dated to 432–538 CE. Note the red hair on the men and the intentional defacement of the mural. From the Collection of the Museum of Asian Art, Berlin (MIK III 8691).
A mural brought back to Berlin by German archaeologists depicts Uyghur Buddhist devotees. It was found in Bezeklik, Temple 9, in the Turfan region, and dates to the 8th to 9th century CE. From the Collection of the Museum of Asian Art, Berlin (MIK III 6876a).
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analytical tools such as DNA testing and remote sensing from
satellites, at the very least should persuade us that the study of
this history is still young. Who knows what secrets remain to
be uncovered from the desert sands?
daniel c. waugh is Professor Emeritus in History, International Studies, and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is the current direc-tor of the Silk Road Seattle Project and editor of the journal of the Silkroad Foundation.
For Further Reading
Baumer, Christoph. Southern Silk Road: In the Footsteps of Sir Aurel Stein and Sven Hedin. Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2000.
Hulsewé, F. P., and M. A. N. Loewe. China in Central Asia: The Early Stage: 125 B.C.–A.D. 23. An Annotated Translation of Chapters 61 and 96 of the History of the Former Han Dynasty. Leiden: Brill, 1979.
Jackson, Peter, and David Morgan, trans. and eds. The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck: His Journey to the Court of the Great Khan Möngke 1253–1255. London: Hakluyt Society, 1990.
Juliano, Annette L., and Judith A. Lerner. Monks and Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China: Gansu and Ningxia, 4th–7th Century. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., with The Asia Society, 2001.
Komaroff, Linda, and Stefano Carboni. The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256–1353. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.
Qi, Xiaoshan, and Wang Bo. The Ancient Culture in Xinjiang along the Silk Road. Ürümqi: Xinjiang renmin chubanshe, 2008.
Tucker, Jonathan. The Silk Road: Art and History. London: Art Media Resources, 2003.
Whitfield, Roderick, Susan Whitfield, and Neville Agnew. Cave Temples of Mogao: Art and History on the Silk Road. Los Angeles: Getty Institute and Museum, 2000.
Whitfield, Susan. Life along the Silk Road. London: John Murray, 1999.
Whitfield, Susan, and Ursula Sims-Williams. The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith. Chicago: Serindia Publications, 2004.
Websites
Digital Silk Road (http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/).
Silk Road Seattle (http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad).
The International Dunhuang Project (http://idp.bl.uk).
The Silkroad Foundation (http://silkroadfoundation.org).
22 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
Dan
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. Wau
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About 130,000 ceramic vessels were recovered from a shipwrecked Chinese junk near Ca Mau, Vietnam. The tea bowls and saucers are from the Jingdezhen kilns and were made around 1725, apparently the year that the ship sank en route from Guangzhou to Batavia (Jakarta). From the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (nos. FE.49:2 to 179:1, 2-2007).
ExpedWinter2010.indd 22 12/7/10 10:37 AM
www.penn.museum/expedition 23
The Mummies of East Central Asia
by victor h. mair
In 1988, while visiting the Ürümqi Museum in
China, I came upon an exhibition which changed
the course of my professional life. At the time, my
academic career focused on the philological study of
manuscripts from caves at Dunhuang, a site where
the Silk Road splits, proceeding to the north and south. But
after I walked through black curtains into a dark gallery that
day, my fascination with the mummies of East Central Asia
began. At first, I thought the exhibition was a hoax, because
the mummies looked so lifelike. The colors of the textiles they
wore were vibrant. The associated bronze tools and other
objects from 3,000 to 4,000 years ago could not, I thought,
have been found in this region at such an early period. At that
time, I was not an archaeologist, but my general knowledge of
Chinese history and Central Asian sites indicated that this did
not make sense. I stayed in that gallery for probably five hours
that day.
I went back to my life at Penn as a scholar of medieval
Buddhist literature and Chinese popular Buddhist literature.
In the fall of 1991, while on sabbatical, I read of the discovery
of Ötzi the Iceman in the Alps near the border between Austria
and Italy. Ötzi, over 5,000 years old, had been naturally mum-
mified in the Schnalstal glacier. That afternoon, I started mak-
ing calls to organize an expedition to China to study the mum-
mies that had been naturally preserved there. Since 1993, I
have traveled to China numerous times with different kinds of
scholars—archaeologists, geneticists, textile specialists, bronze
experts—to study the Central Asian mummies and the cul-
tures they represented.
Dan
iel C
. Wau
gh The Beauty of Xiaohe is one of over 30 well-preserved mummies found at the site, and certainly the most famous.
Xin
jiang
Inst
itute
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24 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
Em
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A History of the Region: Where the Mummies
Were Discovered
During the late 19th century, a large region of East Central Asia
was forcibly incorporated into the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912)
through conquest by the Manchus. As a result, the region
became known as Xinjiang, which means “New Borders.”
This area—referred to by the local Uyghurs (a Turkic ethnic
group) as Uyghurstan or Eastern Turkistan—regained its
independence during the first half of the 20th century, after
the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. The People’s Republic of
China (hereafter China), however, militarily asserted its claim
as the legitimate successor to most of the lands of the Manchu
Empire during the second half of the 20th century, and rein-
corporated this region as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous
Region (hereafter Xinjiang).
The region constitutes 1/6 of the whole of China and,
apart from its obvious geostrategic significance, is blessed
with oil and other mineral resources, has rich agricultural
lands (especially for animal husbandry), and is where China
tests its nuclear weapons. Consequently, since the late 1970s,
the Communist government has made a concerted effort to
develop the region.
As is true elsewhere in China and other parts of the world,
wherever the construction of buildings, roads, and other pub-
lic projects is carried out, archaeological discoveries are likely
to be made. There has been an endless succession of finds in
Xinjiang from the Bronze Age and Iron Age right up to mod-
ern times. Because of its remoteness from the centers of early
human development and its inaccessibility—in the form of
harsh deserts surrounded by formidable mountains—East
Central Asia was one of the last places on earth to be inhabited
by humans. Thus, the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods are
poorly represented. From the Bronze Age (beginning ca. 2000
BCE) onward, however, this region was a key locus of interac-
tion between western and eastern Eurasia. During the 2nd and
1st millennia BCE, the overwhelming majority of the traffic
was from west to east, but starting around the beginning of the
Common Era, transcontinental exchange gradually shifted,
moving now more from east to west. Of course, some indi-
viduals and groups continued to travel from west to east—for
example, for trade, diplomacy, and religion. The result of this
traffic, travel, and exchange across Eurasia was a great mixing
of cultures and peoples, with East Central Asia constituting a
vital contact zone at the very center of the continent.
Despite the inhospitable climate—temperatures range
from -40 degrees C to +40 degrees C (-40 to 104 degrees F)—
tens of thousands of individuals
poured into East Central Asia and
settled down in oases, intramontane
valleys, and wherever they could
eke out a living. Since this area was
so far from the steppes, the coasts,
and the major plains and river val-
leys of Eurasia, there was not much
competition for the settlements
after they were established. Still,
having found an ecological niche
and having devised unique means
for subsisting there, the inhabitants
thrived, leaving behind large cem-
eteries.
Hundreds of archaeological
sites scattered across the length and
breadth of East Central Asia date to
every century starting from about
4,000 years ago. Many of these This map shows archaeological sites in East Central Asia that are discussed in this article.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 24 12/7/10 10:38 AM
sites are cemeteries of considerable extent, often with hun-
dreds of burials. Nearly all burial grounds in the region have
yielded abundant skeletal remains. Due to the local conditions
(extreme aridity and sandy, highly saline soil), dozens of cem-
eteries around the southern and eastern edges of the Tarim
Basin contain extraordinarily well-preserved mummies,
together with the textiles in which they were dressed and the
artifacts that accompanied them to the afterworld.
It should be noted that the so-called mummies of East
Central Asia are actually desiccated corpses. Unlike Egyptian
mummies, their lifelike appearance is due not to any artificial
intervention on the part of those who buried them. Rather,
it is the outcome of the special environmental conditions
described above, with the best-preserved bodies being those
who died in winter and were buried in especially salty, well-
drained soils—all of which would inhibit putrefaction and
prevent deterioration; after thousands of years, not even slight
amounts of moisture penetrated these burials.
The early inhabitants of this region did not belong to a sin-
gle genetic and linguistic stock, nor did they come from a sin-
gle source. Instead, they entered the Tarim Basin at different
times and arrived from different directions. In earlier periods,
they came from the north, northwest, west, and southwest.
During later periods, these migrations continued, but groups
came from all directions.
Although the mummies from the first 2,000 years (2nd and
1st millennia BCE) were manifestly Caucasoid in appearance,
careful physical anthropological and genetic studies reveal
that they possessed a variety of characteristics linking them
to diverse groups outside of the region. Beginning about the
time of the Eastern and Western Han Dynasties (206 BCE–9
CE; 25–220 CE), the proportion of Mongoloid traits from
the east progressively increased until now the Uyghurs,
Kazakhs, Kirghiz, and other non-Sinitic (non-Chinese)
peoples in the region are between a 30/70% and 60/40%
Caucasoid/Mongoloid admixture. During the more than 50
years of China’s rule over Xinjiang, there has been a dramatic
increase in the number of people of Sinitic (so-called Han
Chinese) descent entering the region, such that the previously
admixed Turkic and other non-Sinitic peoples—who used to
constitute over 90% of the population—now amount to only
about 50%, with the other half made up of rapidly in-migrat-
ing Han Chinese.
Cemeteries of East Central Asia
The human history of East Central Asia begins about 3,500 to
3,800 years ago, with three sites just to the west of the fabled
city of Loulan (also known as Kroraina in the Prakrit language,
and Krorän in Uyghur), which lies to the northwest of the great
dried-up lake known as Lop Nur. These sites are Gumugou
(Qäwrighul), Tieban (Töwän), and Small River Cemetery 5
(SRC5, Xiaohe, Ördek’s Necropolis). While the burials are
laid out somewhat differently at the three sites—Gumugou
features hundreds of wooden posts radiating in what may be a
solar pattern, Tieban has shallow burials on terrace land, and
Small River Cemetery 5 is a striking 7 m high mound of sand
with five layers of burials in the middle of the desert—prox-
imity of time and place, plus a number of common features,
certify that Gumugou, Tieban, and SRC5 belong to a single
www.penn.museum/expedition 25
Em
ily T
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, aft
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icto
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air
Xin
jiang
Inst
itute
of
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haeo
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The cemetery site of Xiaohe, shown here with wooden posts and boat-shaped coffins, has been completely excavated.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 25 12/7/10 10:38 AM
cultural horizon. Among the shared features of these sites
are plain-weave, natural color woolen mantles that serve as
shrouds, felt hats with a feather inserted at the side, ephedra
(a medicinal plant) deposited in the grave, finely woven grass
baskets rather than ceramics, and evidence of bronze usage.
Among the most spectacular of the mummies from Small
River Cemetery 5 (hereafter Xiaohe) is a female that has come
to be called “The Beauty of Xiaohe” (ca.1800–1500 BCE) (see
page 23 and above). She is more than a match for “The Beauty
of Loulan,” a mummy dated to ca. 2000 BCE that was found
at Gumugou in 1980. The Beauty of Xiaohe is very well pre-
served and even retains flaxen hair and long eyelashes. She
was wrapped in a white wool cloak with tassels and wore a felt
hat, string skirt, and fur-lined leather boots. She was buried
with wooden pins and three small pouches of ephedra. The
Beauty of Loulan wears garments of wool and fur and a felt
hood with a feather; she was buried with a comb, a basket,
and a winnowing tray.
Among the other striking aspects of the Xiaohe cemetery
are six surrogate mummies made of wood, with leather for
skin, hair, and mustache sewn on, and a full set of clothing.
Since all six of these artificial mummies are male, and all six
were buried at about the same time, we may speculate that
they represent men who died away from home and whose
bodies were never recovered.
What is even more remarkable than the two “Beauties”
or the connections between these three sites south of the
26 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
Jeff
ery
New
bury
, Kai
lun
Wan
g (s
ideb
ar)
One will never know what kind of person the Beauty of Xiaohe was in life. Death
and time separate the Beauty from us like the shroud wrapped around her body.
She seems to be part of two worlds: one of life, for she appears merely asleep, and
one of mortality. The discovery of her mummy was a revelation, and yet much of her history
remains an enigma. Even though she is thousands of years old, her youthful appearance is
well-preserved. I was inspired to create this painting by the Beauty’s famed attractiveness and
the mysteries surrounding who she may have been in life. Three drafts were created: the first
an observational study; the second, a woman gazing at the viewer; and finally, a third draft
that was ultimately painted, portraying the Beauty in a serene atmosphere with an inexpli-
cable sense of both gentleness and isolation. Although artistic liberties were taken with her
appearance, she could not be without her trademarks: that rakish felt hat and long flaxen hair.
kailun wang is a member of the Class of 2012, College of Arts & Sciences, University of Pennsylvania. She is a student of Victor Mair.
The Beauty of Xiaohe, as painted by Kailun Wang.
The Beauty of Loulan was discovered in a grave along the Töwän River near Loulan. A wooden comb, woven basket, and win-nowing tray were found with her.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 26 12/7/10 10:38 AM
Kuruk (Quruk) Tagh range is that a fourth site, the Northern
Cemetery (Beifang Mudi), has recently been discovered about
600 km to the southwest. The resemblances to Xiaohe, in
particular, are so close that there can be no mistaking their
consanguinity, although the Northern Cemetery is thought to
be slightly earlier than Xiaohe. The puzzle that remains to be
solved, however, is how these two closely related sites, which
are so far apart on the map, came to resemble each other so
nearly. Since the people of both Xiaohe and the Northern
Cemetery seem to have entered the Tarim Basin with their
cattle, ovicaprids (goats and sheep), and wheat—all of which
were domesticated in Southwest Asia thousands of years
earlier—a great deal more research is necessary to determine
whether the people of these two sites embarked from a com-
mon staging ground and separately went their own ways, or
whether one of the two groups sprang from the other.
Another noteworthy site with well-preserved mummies is
that of Qizilchoqa (“Red Hillock” at Wupu [“Fifth Burg”]),
about 60 km west of Qumul (Hami), an important, old Silk
Road town in the far eastern portion of the region. Dated
www.penn.museum/expedition 27
Vic
tor
Mai
r (t
op),
INFZ
M.c
om (b
otto
m)
Jeff
ery
New
bury
, Kai
lun
Wan
g (s
ideb
ar)
This mummy, wearing a felt hat, was found in the Northern Cemetery.
Preliminary excavations have taken place at the recently discovered Northern Cemetery (Beifang Mudi).
ExpedWinter2010.indd 27 12/7/10 10:38 AM
28 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
Jeff
ery
New
bury
(lef
t), X
injia
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yghu
r A
uton
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s R
egio
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useu
m C
olle
ctio
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ight
)
Known as Chärchän Man, this 50- to 55-year-old male is unusually tall at well over 6’.
This infant died when he or she was less than a year old. Dark blue stones covered its eyes, and red woolen yarn was inserted into its nostrils. A cow horn and a bottle made from a sheep’s udder accompanied the infant.
to ca. 1200 BCE, the site of Qizilchoqa is distinguished by the
presence of diagonal twill plaids, tripartite disk wheels for carts,
and evidence of horse domestication. Again, the existence of
all these cultural traits—with long distance connections to the
west in such a remote desert location—calls for further investi-
gation and explanation.
Returning to the Tarim Basin, we find along its southeast
edge the most extraordinary burial ground outside the small
village of Zaghunluq, in Chärchän (Qiemo) County. Dated ca.
1000 to 500 BCE, Zaghunluq is home to three of the most strik-
ing mummies from East Central Asia. Clad in rich burgundy
wool clothing, the individuals buried in Tombs 1 and 2 may
be a family, due to the similarity of their burial garments. The
group consists of a man about 50-55 years old, a woman, and
an infant. The man wears white deerskin boots and striped felt
leggings; a solar or sheep’s horn design is painted in ocher on
his temples. The woman’s face is also painted with spirals and
triangles. The infant is wrapped in a shroud, with a soft, fluffy
bonnet of blue cashmere; he or she was buried with a cow horn
ExpedWinter2010.indd 28 12/7/10 10:38 AM
cup and a sheep udder that may have been used as a nursing
bottle. Because the soil of the Zaghunluq cemetery is particu-
larly saline, all organic remains—human bodies, foodstuffs,
and an astonishing variety of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron
Age textiles—have been extremely well preserved.
Continuing westward along the southern rim of the Tarim
Basin, we come to the ancient site of Niyä (called Jingjue Guo
[Kingdom of Jingjue]). Here we find, along the Niyä River and
into the desert, large cemeteries and extensive villages dating to
roughly the 3rd to 4th century CE. The archaeological remains
recovered from Niyä enable us to gain a vivid picture of life in
a desert oasis nearly 2,000 years ago. Houses with elaborately
carved woodwork, grape arbors, workshops for making nails,
richly decorated Buddhist temples, and sealed wooden letters
written in Kharoshti Prakrit all contribute to our understand-
ing of a community on the outskirts of civilization.
By the Middle Iron Age, elements of Chinese culture such
as lacquerware and fine silks began to show up as grave goods,
although the local culture was fundamentally composed of
a curious mixture of Indian, Western Classical, and West
Central Asian characteristics. One very large wooden coffin
from Niyä is of particular interest, since it contained a lov-
ingly laid-out couple with exquisite silk face covers and an
extremely rich assemblage of grave goods, including a bow
and a quiver full of arrows, a knife in a sheath, pottery, goat/
sheep legs, fruit and other food, a lacquer box, a bronze mir-
ror, cosmetics, needlework, and other objects, all of which
indicated the status and the interests of the deceased. An indi-
cation of the ethnicity of the ancient people of Niyä may be
found in the fair-skinned individuals with light blond hair one
comes across in the villages of this area still today.
Farther westward beyond Niyä lies the town of Khotan;
outside of this large oasis is the ancient cemetery complex of
Sampul (2nd century BCE to 3rd century CE), which stretches
on for many kilometers. Like nearly all of the Bronze Age
and Early Iron Age cemeteries encircling the Tarim Basin,
the complex at Sampul lies on the gravelly tableland or ter-
race that is located between the desert floor and the foothills of
www.penn.museum/expedition 29
Vic
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Mai
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Jeff
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New
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(lef
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uton
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s R
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useu
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olle
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ight
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A man and woman with masks covering their faces were recovered from a burial at Niyä. See Sheng, this issue, page 41 for details of the silk brocade covering the mummies.
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30 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
Above, the female mummies from Subeshi are known for their black pointed hats. Right, the trappings of Yingpan Man are in excellent condi-tion. However, his remains have deteriorated.
Jeff
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New
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(lef
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injia
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the mountains beyond, the source of the meltwater from the
glaciers that sustains life in the oases. Among the unusual
aspects of the Sampul cemetery are the mass burials, with as
many as 170 bodies thrown in chaotically—perhaps the vic-
tims of a massacre. The hair of the individuals was mostly
light brown, but the population was probably heterogeneous
as it is today. The ancient inhabitants of Sampul undoubtedly
had vibrant interactions with peoples of West Central Asia
and even further west, since their magnificent textiles possess
motifs, dyes, and weaves that are characteristic of cultures that
lie in that direction.
Probably the most intriguing mummies in East Central
Asia are the “witches” of Subeshi, who wear very tall, pointed
black hats that look like the iconic headgear of their sisters in
popular culture. Subeshi is located to the east of the impor-
tant city of Turfan, in the basin of
the same name, which is home to
the second lowest spot (-154 m) on
earth (after the Dead Sea at -422 m).
There are also a number of impres-
sive male mummies from Subeshi,
including a man wearing a felt hel-
met (perhaps a soldier) and another
man whose chest has been stitched
up with horse hair in an early (4th
century BCE) example of surgery in
the region.
Subeshi lies high up in the Tuyuq
Gorge. When we come down out
of the mouth of the gorge and pro-
ceed along the floor of the Turfan
Depression, we soon arrive at the
site of Yanghai (or Yangkhay).
Among the mummies from Yanghai
are a little boy whose chin is tucked
under on his chest, and a shaman-
like figure smothered in cannabis,
with bells on his boots. Another man
from Yanghai had a well-preserved
harp by his side.
Traveling southwest along the
main trade route leading from
Turfan, we come to the old caravan
site of Yingpan. The tallest (nearly
6’6”) and most resplendently garbed mummy—Yingpan
Man— was discovered here. Yingpan Man’s amazing cloth-
ing, with its Greco-Roman motifs and extravagant embroidery
(see Sheng, page 39 this issue, for a detailed description of the
textiles), marks him as a man of tremendous wealth and far-
reaching connections. Although his seriously decomposed
body no longer lies within its sartorial shell (his remains were
recently removed during conservation and study of his cloth-
ing, and have since been stored separately in Ürümqi), we
know from earlier descriptions that he was a Caucasoid with
brown hair. Considering his riches, international aura, and the
strategic trading spot where he was buried, it is not unlikely
that Yingpan Man was a Sogdian merchant. The Sogdians
were a Middle Iranian people who were known as traders par
excellence throughout Eurasia.
Jeff
ery
New
bury
(lef
t), X
injia
ng In
stitu
te o
f A
rche
olog
y C
olle
ctio
n (r
ight
)
Vic
tor
Mai
r
www.penn.museum/expedition 31
A geneticist from Jilin University works on obtaining bone samples from a skeleton at a burial outside of Turfan.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 31 12/7/10 10:39 AM
32 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
This has been a very brief overview of the amazingly well-
preserved mummies of East Central Asia. The significance of
these ancient human remains is not simply their uncannily life-
like appearance. More important are the physical and material
attributes which link them to cultures far and wide. Indeed,
these mummies have filled what was previously an enormous
gap in the prehistory and history of east-west cultural inter-
actions. It was evident all along that civilizations from both
eastern and western Eurasia had not arisen in isolation, but
the mechanisms of cultural transmission were poorly under-
stood. With the discovery of the Bronze Age and Early Iron
Age mummies of East Central Asia, however, the actual agents
of transmission—the people, together with their cultural attri-
butes—have finally been recovered.
It is certain that the inhabitants of the Tarim Basin did
not arise from the soil of the region, but that they came from
elsewhere and brought with them the technologies, ideas, and
practices of their homelands. Ensconced in their new sur-
roundings, the early denizens of East Central Asia adapted
and modified their cultures to fit the new local conditions
they encountered. Careful examination of the mummies,
using ancient DNA analysis and physical anthropology, as
well as continuing study of associated artifacts, allow us to
put together an increasingly clear picture of the origins of the
Bronze Age and Early Iron Age peoples of the Tarim Basin and
their interactions with the peoples of the surrounding areas.
Western explorers first came face-to-face with the des-
iccated bodies of the earliest inhabitants of the Tarim Basin
over a century ago, while Chinese and Uyghur archaeologists
uncovered increasing numbers of them beginning in the late
1970s. But it was not until the 1990s that serious international
investigation of the mummies and their cultures occurred.
During the coming decades more cemeteries with mummies
will surely be discovered, and research on the findings from
them will undoubtedly flourish, with the result that the prehis-
tory and history of Eurasia and its peoples will become ever
more comprehensible and distinct.
victor h. mair is Professor of Chinese Language and Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a curatorial consultant and the catalog editor of the exhibi-tion Secrets of the Silk Road, as well as author and/or editor
of numerous books including The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West (2000), with J.P. Mallory.
For Further Reading
Anthony, David W. “Tracking the Tarim Mummies: A Solution to the Puzzle of Indo-European Origins?” Archaeology 54.2 (2001):76-84.
Barber, Elizabeth Wayland. The Mummies of Ürümchi. New York: W. W. Norton; London: Macmillan, 1999.
Debaine-Francfort, Corinne, and Abduressul Idriss, eds. Keriya, mémoires d’un fleuve: Archéologie et civilisation des oasis du Taklamakan. Suilly-la-Tour: Findakly, 2001.
Mair, Victor H., ed. The Mummified Remains Found in the Tarim Basin. Special issue of The Journal of Indo-European Studies 23.3-4 (1995).
Mair, Victor H., ed. The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia. 2 vols. Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series, 26. Washington, DC and Philadelphia: The Institute for the Study of Man in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania Museum Publications, 1998.
Mair, Victor H. “Genes, Geography, and Glottochronology: The Tarim Basin during Late Prehistory and History.” In Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference. Los Angeles, November 5-6, 2004. Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series, No. 50, edited by Karlene Jones-Bley, Martin E. Huld, Angela Della Volpe, and Miriam Robbins Dexter, pp. 1-46. Washington: Institute for the Study of Man, 2005.
Mair, Victor H. “The Rediscovery and Complete Excavation of Ördek’s Necropolis.” Journal of Indo-European Studies 34 (2006):273–318
Mair, Victor H., ed. Secrets of the Silk Road. An Exhibition of Discoveries from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. Santa Ana, California: Bowers Museum, 2010.
Mallory, J. P., and Victor H. Mair. The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000.
Millward, James A. Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
Wang Binghua, ed. Xinjiang gushi: gudai Xinjiang jumin ji qi wenhua (The Ancient Corpses of Xinjiang: The Ancient Peoples of Xinjiang and Their Culture). Victor H. Mair, tran. Ürümchi: Xinjiang Renmin Chubanshe, 2001.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 32 12/7/10 10:39 AM
www.penn.museum/expedition 33
Silk was one of the most luxurious com-
modities traded along the many routes of
the Silk Road. But one should not assume
that only silks were traded, or that silks
were the most important of all exchanged
goods. Since the late 19th century, archaeologists
have unearthed textile fragments made of other fibers
such as wool, cotton, and hemp from sites around
the Taklamakan Desert in Central Asia. In this arti-
cle, different types of cloth found in Central Asia will
be described and illustrated by photographs of arti-
facts from Secrets of the Silk Road.
The first evidence for weaving silk appears 5,000
to 7,000 years ago in China. Any evidence of silk out-
side China proper at this time would strongly suggest
that the non-Chinese traded with the Chinese for this
much sought-after textile. Chinese silks were prized
in ancient Rome, which led to the forging of a trade
route between the East and West. Whereas scholars
have amply documented the complex long- and short-
distance trade between China and the Mediterranean
world and between China and Korea and Japan, few
have examined the contemporaneous exchange of
goods to the north and south, such as between the
pastoral nomads, who roamed seasonally across the
pastures to the north of ancient Iran and China, and
the sedentary agriculturalists in China. The extensive
representation of nomadic legacies in Secrets of the
Silk Road—in the form of practical as well as extraor-
dinary wool textiles—addresses this imbalance.
Textiles from the Silk RoadIntercultural Exchanges among Nomads,
Traders, and Agriculturalists
by angela sheng
Xin
jiang
Uyg
hur
Aut
onom
ous
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ion
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eum
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lect
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A fragment of a tapestry shows a centaur blowing a horn and a warrior carrying a spear. See pages 38-39.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 33 12/7/10 10:49 AM
34 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
READING CULTURE IN TEXTILES
Textile patterns attract the eye, and textile textures invite
the hand. Textiles can further reveal much about their
makers, traders, and users. For example, a specific kind
of fiber would suggest the maker’s way of life. Pastoral
nomads sheared wool off domesticated sheep that
required large pastures. Sedentary agriculturalists reeled
silk off silkworms that necessitated the planting of the
mulberry for feeding the silkworms. Each type of tex-
tile construction required different kinds of tools, some
portable such as a back-strap loom, others less so, such
as a treadle loom. Design and ornamentation revealed
the source of inspiration for textile-makers: stylized flora
and fauna or imagery with figures suggest myths and
narratives, perhaps seen on other objects transported by
traders from faraway places. The study of cloth manu-
facturing leads us to understand how various peoples—
nomads, traders, and agriculturalists—contributed to
the development of textile art and technology.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
A glossary of terms shown in bold is provided to help
you understand words like warp and weft: the language
of textile production. Also, objects are not shown to scale.
WOOLEN FINDS
Textile historian Elizabeth Barber dates the domestica-
tion of sheep at 7000 BCE, or perhaps as early as 10,000
BCE. In ancient times, woolen fibers were short, scaly,
and much rougher than they are today. Normally, short
woolen fibers would require twisting and spinning into
long, continuous yarn before they could be woven into
textiles. The scaly surfaces of early wool fibers, however,
allowed textiles to be manufactured without weaving.
The fibers interlocked when felted or compressed by the
combined application of damp heat and kneading pres-
sure. The scaly surfaces of these fibers also meant that
a felted textile contained a myriad of tiny air pockets
between the kinks of the fiber. These air pockets retained
body heat when the wool mass was made into clothing
and worn in bitterly cold winters.
(1, 2
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jiang
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www.penn.museum/expedition 35
Back-strap loomAny loom, often requiring the weaver to be seated on a
platform or the ground, with a strap behind the weaver’s
back so that the weaver uses his or her body as weight to
maintain the stretched warp taut for weaving. The warp
ends are attached to the strap at one end and at the other
end, to a fixed pole or stick.
BrocadingTo weave with a brocading weft, a supplementary weft
introduced to a ground weave.
complex pattern loomAny loom that is equipped with shafts and patterning rods
for the repetition of patterns in both the warp and weft.
douBle-weave, taBBy-BasedA weave in which either the warp or the weft is composed
of two series and the binding structure is the tabby; better
known as double-faced weave.
Felted woolWool compressed by heat and moisture to form an
interlocked surface.
knotted pile weave A weave that is made with supplementary weft yarns
wrapped around the warp ends; the wrapped yarns are
then cut to make a “knotted” pile standing above the sur-
face of a ground weave.
taBBy ground weaveThe structure of the textile is tabby, the basic binding sys-
tem based on a unit of two warp ends and two weft picks
in which each warp end passes over one and under one
weft pick.
tapestry weaveA weave of only one warp and one weft but composed of
threads of different colors that do not pass from selvage to
selvage but are carried back and forth in small areas, one
color at a time (by means of a shuttle), interweaving with
the warp of that colored area only. The binding is usually
tabby and weft-faced (where you do not see the warp).
treadle loomAny loom with a treadle, or foot pedal, for the raising
and lowering of a shaft holding warp ends by the seated
weaver. The number of foot pedals would correspond to
the number of shafts.
warpThe longitudinal threads of a textile, stretched between
the beams on a loom.
warp-Faced compound taBByA warp-faced weave with complementary warps of two
or more series (usually of different colors for patterning
purposes) and one weft. The ground binding weave is in
the tabby.
warp-Faced compound twillSame as above except the ground binding weave is in the
twill. Also known as samitum.
weFtYarn drawn through the warp ends by means of a shuttle.
weFt BeaterA sword beater or a comb beater to beat the weft densely
so that the weft picks are even and the textile compact.
weFt-Faced compound taBByA weft-faced weave with complementary wefts in two or
more series, usually of different colors for patterning pur-
poses and a main warp and a binding warp. The ground
binding weave is in the tabby. Also known as taqueté.
The Language of Textile Production: A Glossary of Terms
(1, 2
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36 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
Felted Wool
Felted wool was used to make clothing and furnishings,
such as hats, capes, carpets, and even saddle blankets for
both functional and aesthetic purposes. This example of
a short conical hat (1) dates to ca. 1800–1500 BCE. It is
made of very dense felt in its original off-white hue, and is
conspicuously stitched with a red cord going around the
hat several times as if marking a pathway. The hat was fur-
ther adorned with feathers and two weasel pelts. A red cord
attached to the rim of the hat afforded the wearer a chin
strap. Similar red wool cords are found on other objects
from the same time period. Here you see a red cord used to
string a jade bead as a bracelet (2).
Pastoral nomads used felt headgear to mark distinct
social status, and many hats, as shown here in the xinjiang
Musuem, have been recovered from burials (3). This tall,
peaked hat (32.7 cm) (4) was excavated in 1985 from Tomb
No. 5 at Zaghunluq, Chärchän, an oasis on the Chärchän
River to the south of the Taklamakan Desert. Dated to ca.
800 BCE, it is made of two thick brown felt pieces sewn with
buff stitching. To stiffen the peak and prevent it from col-
lapsing, the tip was stuffed with tufts of felt. The use of buff
yarn (natural color faded over time) for both functional and
decorative stitching shows that the maker of this unusual
hat was aware of aesthetic needs (form and color) while
frugal with resources. Note that the peak curls backward in
contrast to the forward curl of the peaked hat worn on the
bronze figurine of a kneeling warrior (5) from a tomb dated
to ca. 500 BCE in xinyuan county of Ili vally—a mountain
valley to the northwest of the Taklamakan Desert.
The peaked brown felt hat is only one of ten hats associ-
ated with the famous mummy known as “Chärchän Man”
from Tomb No. 2 at Zaghunluq, Chärchän (see page 28
in this issue). He was buried in a wool trouser suit with
pale red piping. His legs and feet were wrapped in hanks
of combed wool (in primary colors: red, yellow, and blue)
underneath white deerskin boots. Elizabeth Barber specu-
lates that felting might have been discovered when a man,
wearing hanks of wool such as these, inadvertently com-
pressed the wool inside his boots; sweat given off as he
moved would have fused the fibers creating felt.
A type of felt similar to that used for Chärchän Man’s
leggings was made into a blue bonnet with red edging for
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a 3-month-old infant found in Tomb No. 1 at Zaghunluq,
Chärchän (see page 28 in this issue). Similar textiles were
found on both the man and the infant, including the
twisted red and blue wool cord tied over the clothing and
around the arms of the man and around the small shroud
of the infant.
larger felt textiles—such as carpets and saddle blan-
kets—allowed space for more intricate designs. An out-
standing example (6) (not in exhibition) is a felt saddle
from Kurgan (burial mound) No. 1 at Pazyryk in the Altai
Mountains of Siberia, which dates to the second half of the
4th century BCE. It features a crested griffin, horned feline
heads, and a goat or ram intertwined in transformative
combat. Such animal designs as nomadic expressions were
more commonly found in metal ornaments, like this gold
plaque with a tiger design (7).
Pastoral nomads created their own textile patterns
as well as adapting complex motifs from others.
The peripatetic lifestyle of the nomads ensured widespread
transmission of motifs, resulting in many local varia-
tions. one example of the sharing of designs is found on a
wooden container, carved with quadrupeds, that dates
to the 5th century BCE (8). Rows of triangles at the top
and bottom of the vessel recall the design of the crown
worn by a seated female figure (goddess?) in the earliest
pictorial felt carpet, also from Pazyryk, Kurgan No. 5 (9)
(not in exhibition). Anne Farkas and others have already
traced various motifs on this large carpet (measuring 4.5
by 6.5 m) to ancient Iranian designs, notably those seen
at Persepolis, such as the throne of the goddess on the
felt carpet which recalls a carved stone relief of Persian
King Darius’ throne. Such similarities reveal the contact
between pastoral nomads in the north with the neighbor-
ing centralized empire to the south—a pattern also found
in the nomads’ trade with or raiding of the Chinese for silk,
described below.
Woven Wool
The woolen cloak from Small River Cemetery 5 (xiaohe)
(10), dated to 1800–1500 BCE, is woven in the simplest
plain weave of tabby ground; it features horizontal bands
achieved by inserting a darker yarn through as weft at
(4,5
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38 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
(11,
13)
Xin
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Inst
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Col
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regular intervals—a simple method of ornamentation that
shows an acute sense of aesthetics.
While plain wool garments were more common
(11), dyed textiles were also sewn together to form bold
patterns, as on the skirted dress (12) from Tomb No.
55 at Zaghunluq. Both garments date to the 5th to 3rd cen-
tury BCE.
More elaborate designs were woven using the knotted pile and tapestry weaves. In 1984 a woolen saddle blan-
ket, measuring 76 by 74 cm, was unearthed from Horse
Pit No. 2, Cemetery 1, at Shanpula (Sampul) near Khotan
on the southern route (13). This blanket has regularly pat-
terned leaves in several colors, knotted as pile over a plain
tabby ground weave. Dated to the 1st or 2nd century
BCE, the leaves seem of local design. They foreshadow a
popular Sogdian (from ancient Iran) and more evolved
silk design of later times: the brocaded tree-leaf. Fragments
of the Sogdian design, discussed in more detail below,
were discovered in Astana tombs near Turfan, dated to 551
CE (14).
Pictorial representations were also woven as tapestry, a
method that afforded maximum flexibility to the weaver in
making motifs with wefts of different colors. An interest-
ing example is the contemporaneous remains of trousers
showing a human-headed horse moving through a field
of stylized flowers, and a larger warrior with a spear (15).
The trousers were created from a large wall hanging with
a celebratory theme. Although the human-headed horse
might have been inspired by the mythological Centaur
of Hellenistic origin, Elfriede Knauer indicated that the
warrior was Parthian, based on the animal-headed weap-
ons tucked into his belt (not shown on the section in the
exhibition). This tapestry fragment was unearthed from
Shanpula, Tomb No. 2, near the Horse Pit tomb where the
saddle blanket was found.
The pastoral nomads and settlers who inhabited the
oases around the Taklamakan Desert most often wove
tapestries in narrow bands that they used to embellish
clothing and accessories. Many such fragments came to
light in Shanpula, broadly dated from 100 BCE to 300 CE.
The exhibition includes an example of stylized flora in a
tapestry weave as the central decoration of a cosmetic bag
with strap (16). The bag contained a bronze mirror, an
iron clasp, red yarn, a bag of rouge, and hair when it was
11
12
13
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www.penn.museum/expedition 39
(14)
Si c
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l. 23
. Bei
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Wen
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Col
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(12)
Xin
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Uyg
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Aut
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Mus
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unearthed in 1995 from Tomb No. 5 of Cemetery 1 at Niyä
on the southern route. The strap clearly made it portable,
essential for a lady on the move.
lastly, spectacular wool garments were found on
yingpan Man (see cover and page 30 in this issue). He
was unearthed in 1995 from Tomb No. 15 near yingpan,
south of Korla to the north of the Taklamakan Desert. He
was approximately 30 years old and was buried supine in a
wooden coffin that was painted with flowers on the outside
and covered with a woolen pile carpet with designs of lions.
Inside the coffin, the man’s head rested on a silk pillow in
the shape of two back-to-back roosters, metonymical of
the rooster’s crowing at dawn to imply the re-awakening
after death. His face was covered with a painted mask
embellished with gold leaf. His body was clothed in a silk
robe and embroidered wool trousers underneath a woolen
robe of exceptional artistic and technical competence. on
his feet he wore felt boots with silk insteps also embellished
with gold leaf. Miniature silk funerary garments, the pur-
pose of which is unknown, were placed at his waist and on
his left side.
Judging by his exotic burial dress and the square of
brocaded silk with the word shou, or longevity, placed by
his head, he may have been a rich merchant familiar with
Chinese customs. In addition, the Sasanian cut-glass bowl
buried with him would indicate that he traded with part-
ners from farther west.
The embroidered patterns on his brown woolen
trousers show arrays of stylized flora: four direction-
ally oriented long petals in red and green separated
by four smaller sprigs in buff (faded) surrounded
by large dots forming a diamond. When examined
closely, the slight irregularities of the shapes and stitching,
though still remarkable, would suggest either the handi-
work of a group or an amateur effort. It contrasts sharply
with the professionalism of the red and yellow woolen
robe worn as an overcoat, clearly the product of an accom-
plished workshop.
The robe shows spectacular motifs of paired bulls, goats,
and human figures interspersed with fruit-bearing pome-
granate trees in yellow on a red ground. Cut as a caftan with
crossed lapels, but closed on the right in a Chinese style, it
features naked males with muscular bodies and prominent
genitalia, some wearing a fluttering scarf. Each male figure
14
15
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(16,
17)
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40 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
has curly hair and big eyes above a high nose—definitely
not of Chinese ethnicity. Emma Bunker has identified
the conventionalized poses of these putti as derived from
late Antique motifs inherited from earlier Hellenistic and
Roman times. Such designs on silver cups or shields trav-
eled from Roman-Western to Parthian-Eastern lands. The
bulls and goats are also portrayed in typical Near Eastern
pose: standing on their hind legs with their forefeet lifted in
the air and their heads turned backwards. Elfreide Knauer
points out that the bulls are encircled with garlands, indi-
cating they were to be sacrificed.
Based on the adaptation of similar motifs on late
Antique (3rd to 7th century) metalware, Emma Bunker
suggests that this woolen robe was woven locally near
yingpan. The structure is a double-weave (tabby-based),
woven with two sets of weft, one in yellow and the other in
red. The pattern repeat consists of six alternating rows of
animals and figures in the weft and in the warp, the reverse
of each combination of an animal, half of a tree, and a fig-
ure. Both the structure and the pattern repeat indicate
technological mastery of a complex pattern loom. The
tight weave could have been enhanced with the weft beater
(17), where the teeth of the comb would have been inserted
among the warp threads so as to press the weft down.
The motifs closely resemble those found on a woolen
textile fragment, also unearthed from xinjiang, with a
dendro-calibrated C-14 date of 430–631 CE; naked and
winged figures chase butterflies amid scrolled vines (18) (not in exhibition). Even the structure of the textile is
similar: weft-faced compound tabby. Thus, the yingpan
woolen robe can probably be dated to a similar time period,
from the mid-5th to the mid-7th century. This coincides
with the radical developments in silk weaving at precisely
the same time, as evidenced by silk finds from the Astana
tombs of Turfan, to which we now turn.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SILK FINDS
The discovery of artificially cut silkworm cocoons
(Bombyx mori) dated to the Neolithic yangshao Culture
in China traces the awareness of silk as a textile fiber
back to at least 5000–3000 BCE. Textile finds from Chu
16
17
18
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(16,
17)
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www.penn.museum/expedition 41
Tomb No. 1 (340–278 BCE) of Jiangling at Mashan in
Hubei reveal a technical mastery of brocading silk with
pictorial patterns in the warp (warp-faced compound tabby) by weavers in royal workshops. This technique
persisted, yielding textiles of many motifs. The motif of
dogwood blossoms on a face cover (19) probably origi-
nated in central China, where burial finds include textiles
with exquisite designs. Auspicious wishes for longev-
ity and progeny were soon added in Chinese characters,
such as “May this one-of-a kind jin silk bring the par-
ents generation after generation of descendants” (20).
Fragments of such exotic brocaded silks have surfaced far
from China, attesting to their broad appeal and bearing
witness to the efforts of the Han court to appease maraud-
ing nomads. Such treasured silks were made into mouth
covers and gloves.
Similarly, auspicious words also appeared on shoes
(21): “Wealth and prosperity suitable for a prince; may
heaven grant longevity.” These words were densely woven
in thick silk warps on narrow strips. The strips were
then sewn together as the shoe-face. The round-toe style
was Han Chinese, in contrast to the upturned-toe style
of distinct Turkish influence fashionable in the later
Tang dynasty.
During the 4th or 5th century, northerners of nomadic
ancestry fled westward from the ravages of war in China to
Turfan, an oasis on the northern route. Simultaneously,
Sogdians also moved eastward from their homeland in
search of long-distance trade. I have argued elsewhere
that exceptional circumstances brought Chinese and
Sogdian weavers to live and work together in Turfan.
Experimentation in weaving workshops led to new designs
and new weaving techniques, as evidenced by cloth made
by both groups.
For example, the brocaded robe with small blue and
gold checks (22) was woven in the traditional Chinese
weave of warp-faced compound tabby, unknown to the
Sogdians. This robe was unearthed in 1995 from Tomb
No. 3 in Cemetery No. 1 of Niyä on the southern route.
The checkered pattern cannot be traced to any Chinese
antecedent; however, it can be seen on the robe worn by
the historical Buddha as painted on a mural in a Kizil cave
(23). Note that the robe is cut in a non-Chinese style, with
narrow cuffs and a wide skirt, that is more convenient for
(19,
20)
Xin
jiang
Inst
itute
of
Arc
haeo
logy
Col
lect
ion,
(21)
Xin
jiang
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hur
Aut
onom
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Reg
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Mus
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Col
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ion
19
20
21
ExpedWinter2010.indd 41 12/7/10 10:51 AM
42 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
horseback-riding than the straight Chinese cut, suited to
a more sedentary lifestyle. A more obvious Central Asian
motif—paired birds and rams around the tree-leaf pat-
tern—was also woven in the same warp-faced compound
tabby (24).
Although one brocaded silk might look like another,
each may have been woven differently. A new weave
structure emerged in the 5th century: the warp-faced compound twill. The astounding example in the exhi-
bition was discovered in 1972 in Astana Tomb No. 177,
belonging to the Northern Liang royal heir, Jüqü Fendai,
who died in 455 CE (25). This fragment features drag-
ons, deer, qilin (a type of unicorn), camels, and peacocks
facing each other under arches and between columns, in
red and yellow on a navy ground. This weave structure
was used extensively in the later Tang Dynasty to make
patterns that combined various cultural styles (26).
Whereas the pearl-roundel on this fragment derived
from Sasanian designs, the four-petaled flowers recall
the embroidered flora on the woolen robe worn by the
Yingpan Man. And the overall balanced and symmetrical
placement of those two repeating motifs was grounded in
Han Chinese aesthetics.
Over the next two centuries, two very complex bro-
caded silk weave structures were developed: the weft-faced
compound tabby (taqueté) and the weft-faced compound
twill (samitum). The taqueté is the weave structure of the
spectacular red and yellow woolen robe worn by Yingpan
Man. Silks woven in these new weaves often featured the
Sasanian pearl-roundel circling an animal such as a bird,
deer, horse, peacock, or as shown on the face cover in the
exhibition, a boar’s head (27). The face cover, woven in
the samitum, was excavated from Astana Tomb No. 332
and dates to the early 7th century. Controversy exists as to
where it was produced, either in Sogdiana or in Central
Asia. I have argued that it is Turfan. The boar’s head
may have served as a metonymical device to encourage
honesty in an official. In Sogdian mythology, the deity
Verethraghna assumed the shape of a boar when he went
to earth to punish liars. Certainly, the boar was a central
motif for Sogdian rulers, the Sasanians.
Still other artifacts show improved dyeing techniques
brought by traders from South Asia. This orange skirt with
stylized flora was probably stencilled with wax as a dye
(22)
Xin
jiang
Inst
itute
of
Arc
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logy
Col
lect
ion,
(23)
Bild
arch
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; Mus
eum
für
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st, S
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Mus
een,
Ber
lin, G
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any,
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Pap
adop
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s, (2
4) X
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22
23
24
ExpedWinter2010.indd 42 12/13/10 3:50 PM
www.penn.museum/expedition 43
resist (28). Many similarly dyed thin silks have surfaced at
various sites. Some show patterns tied and dyed. The dyes
and dyeing methods could be replicated far more easily than
complex weaving. Thus, their designs imitate the popular
woven textiles.
Secrets of the Silk Road presents a wide range of textile
motifs and techniques found on cloth recovered from burial
sites around the Taklamakan Desert. Peoples of fundamen-
tally different ways of life optimized their resources to create
clothing and furnishings to meet their functional and aes-
thetic needs. Their legacies reveal the extent to which they
learned from each other and thus enriched their material
expressions, with far-reaching implications.
angela sheng is Associate Professor of Art History and Director Chair of The Confucius Institute for Culture, Language, and Business at McMaster University.
For Further Reading
Bunker, Emma. “Late Antique Motifs on a Textile from Xinjiang Reveal Startling Burial Beliefs.” Orientations 35.4 (2004):30-36.
Cammann, Schuyler. “Notes on the Origin of Chinese K’o-ssu Tapestry.” Artibus Asiae 11 (1948):90-109.
Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh. Persian Myths. London: British Museum, 1993.
Farkas, Anne. “Filippovka and the Art of the Steppes.” In The Golden Deer of Eurasia: Scythian and Sarmatian Treasures from the Russian Steppes, edited by Joan Aruz, Anne Farkas, Andrei Alekssev, and Elena Korolkjova. New York and New Haven: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2000.
Gervers, Michael, and Veronika Gervers. “Felt-making Craftsmen of Anatolian and Iranian Plateaux.” Textile Museum Journal 4.1 (December 1974):14-29.
Keller, Dominik, and Regula Schorta, eds. Fabulous Creatures from the Desert Sands: Central Asian Woolen Textiles from the Second Century BC to the Second Century AD. Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 2001.
Knauer, Elfriede R. The Camel’s Load in Life and Death. Zurich: Akanthus, 1998.
Schorta, Regula, ed. Central Asian Textiles and Their Contexts in the Early Middle Ages. Riggisberger Berichte 9. Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 2006.
Sheng, Angela. “Reading Costumes as ‘Texts’ and Decoding Ethnic Visual Culture of Southwest China.” Writing with Thread, pp. 13-41. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Art Gallery, 2009.
Zhao, Feng. Treasures in Silk. Hong Kong: The Costume Squad Ltd., 1999.
(22)
Xin
jiang
Inst
itute
of
Arc
haeo
logy
Col
lect
ion,
(23)
Bild
arch
iv P
reus
sisc
her
Kul
turb
esitz
/ A
rt R
esou
rce,
NY
; Mus
eum
fue
r A
siat
isch
e K
unst
, Sta
atlic
he M
usee
n, B
erlin
, Ger
man
y, P
hoto
grap
h: Ir
is P
apad
opou
las,
(24)
Xin
jiang
Uyg
hur
Aut
onom
ous
Reg
ion
Mus
eum
Col
lect
ion
(25,
26,
27,
28)
Xin
jiang
Uyg
hur
Aut
onom
ous
Reg
ion
Mus
eum
Col
lect
ion
25
26
27
28
ExpedWinter2010.indd 43 12/7/10 10:52 AM
Bronze Age Languages of the Tarim Basin
by j . p . mallory
The earliest accounts of the Tarim Basin depict
a society whose linguistic and ethnic diversity
rivals the type of complexity one might oth-
erwise encounter in a modern transportation
hub. The desert sands that did so much to
preserve the mummies, their clothes, and other grave goods
also preserved an enormous collection of documents, written
on stone, wood, leather, or—
employing that great Chinese
invention—paper. A german
expedition to the Tarim Basin
in the early 20th century
returned with texts in 17 differ-
ent languages.
We can get some appre-
ciation of the linguistic com-
plexity if we put ourselves in
the place of a traveling mer-
chant working the Silk Road
in the 8th century CE. A typi-
cal trader from the West may
have spoken Sogdian at home.
He may have visited Buddhist
monasteries where the liturgi-
cal language would have been
Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, but
the day-to-day language was
Tocharian. If his travels took him south to Khotan, he would
have to deal in Khotanese Saka. Here, if he had been captured
by a raider from the south, he would have had to talk his way
out of this encounter in Tibetan or hoped for rescue from an
army that spoke Chinese. He could even have bumped into
a Jewish sheep merchant who spoke Modern Persian. And if
he knew which way the wind was blowing, he would have his
44 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
West meets East at Bezeklik in the 9th to 10th century CE. Here we see a “western” and an oriental monk depicted together.
Alb
ert
von
Le C
oq,
1913
, C
hots
cho,
Ber
lin,
D.
Rei
mer
, 21
.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 44 12/7/10 10:52 AM
www.penn.museum/expedition 45
Xin
jiang
Uyg
hur
Aut
onom
ous
Reg
ion
Mus
eum
Col
lect
ion
(top
), Ja
mes
R. M
athi
eu (b
otto
m)
sons investing their time in learning uyghur, the language
of a major Turkish tribe who would descend on the Tarim
Basin in the 9th century to form its next major ethno-lin-
guistic group.
The many languages of the Tarim Basin can be
approached in a variety of ways. Normally, a linguist would
first examine them in terms of their genetic relationship
by language group. But here, where we are attempting to
relate them to the mummies and artifacts of the Bronze
and Iron Ages, another approach may be more efficient.
Some of the languages were clearly intrusive, derived from
outside of the Tarim Basin, and their use was probably con-
fined to certain contexts; others may have been “native”
(i.e. spoken over broad areas of the Tarim Basin since the
Bronze Age) and, consequently, may have been the spoken
languages of the people whose mummified remains have
captured so much attention.
This discussion of languages begins with those that are
liturgical, the languages for which we find sacred texts or
the accounts of specific religious communities. For exam-
ple, followers of the Iranian prophet Zarathustra entered
the Tarim Basin in the 7th century CE to establish their
fire temples in Khotan; they conducted their services in the
ancient Iranian language of Avestan. Buddhist missionar-
ies possessed liturgical texts in what is known as Buddhist
Hybrid Sanskrit, a language originating in northern
India. Sogdian, whose homeland is west Central Asia, was
employed not only by merchants but also for the religious
documents of Buddhists, Manicheans, and Nestorian
Christians. Whether from India or greater Iran, all of these
languages were carried into the Tarim Basin by religious
communities or merchants from outside the region during
the 1st millennium CE.
A second group of languages are associated with docu-
ments that were not exclusively religious, but also admin-
istrative. This may indicate that the languages were spo-
ken by considerable numbers of the local population.
Buddhists in the region of Krorän (Chinese loulan), for
example, employed an Indic language, Prakrit, in admin-
istration. Tocharian was used both to translate Buddhist
texts and as an administrative language, which suggests that
it was spoken by a wider range of people than exclusively
monks. Another major language was Khotanese Saka, the
language spoken in the south of the Tarim Basin at the site
Alb
ert
von
Le C
oq,
1913
, C
hots
cho,
Ber
lin,
D.
Rei
mer
, 21
.
Above, this text is an example of the Sogdian language and records a bill of sale for a female slave, dating from the Gaochang Kingdom (639 CE). Sogdian merchants traded throughout Eurasia and were important players in the econ-omy and culture along the Silk Road. Below, modern tour-ists along the Silk Road take a camel ride up the Flaming Mountain near the Bezeklik Buddhist Cave complex.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 45 12/7/10 10:52 AM
of Khotan as well as at northern sites such as Tumshuq and
Murtuq and possibly Qäshqär, the western gateway into the
Tarim Basin. The Khotanese texts date to the 7th to 10th cen-
tury, but they belong to a much wider group of Saka languages
spoken across the Eurasian steppe. And unlike Tocharian,
which became extinct, there were small pockets of Saka speak-
ers who survived in the Pamir Mountains. Among them are
the Sarikoli who relocated to the Tarim Basin to settle near
Tashkurgan. Finally, there was a third and obvious ethno-
linguistic group that had been established in the region: the
Han Chinese. Before the Han Dynasty the Tarim Basin was,
according to Chinese history, very much in the huang fu or
“wild zone”: the frontier world of fabulous peoples and beasts.
We do not begin to obtain good evidence of this region until
the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), when Zhang Qian made
his famous journeys to the west. How much earlier Chinese
had settled in the Tarim Basin is estimated by archaeological
and anthropological evidence.
In addition to these major players, the presence of some
groups of people can only be confirmed from about the
time of the Han Dynasty. These were nomadic peoples who
were variously in alliance or confrontation with the world of
ancient China. Most formidable were the xiongnu, the horse-
riding warriors of the steppe whose repeated attacks prompted
the Chinese to build major sections of the great Wall. The
xiongnu also controlled the Tarim Basin during the 2nd and
1st centuries BCE, until they were finally routed and replaced
by the Chinese at the end of the 1st century CE. They left no
written records, but if the xiongnu were the historical Huns,
they probably spoke an Altaic language related to Turkish or
Mongolian. Among the “peoples of the bow” who were tem-
porarily subjected to the leadership of the xiongnu were the
Wusun; this group settled the northern part of the Tarim
Basin in the first centuries CE in a territory previously occu-
pied by Saka tribes.
once one excludes all the languages imported by foreign
missionaries, outside merchants, Chinese administrators, and
later Turkic invaders, we are effectively left with two main
language groups in the Tarim Basin that might be associ-
ated with at least some of the Tarim mummies of the Bronze
Age and Iron Age: Khotanese Saka (or any other remnant
of the Scythians of the Eurasian steppe) and Tocharian. of
course, totally different languages may have been spoken by
these populations, especially if they were derived from native
Neolithic groups, whose languages did not survive into the
historical record.
Saka belongs to the eastern branch of the Iranian lan-
guages, which was one of the most widespread of the Indo-
European family of languages spoken in most of Europe, Iran,
India, and other parts of Asia. our primary knowledge of this
language group derives from documents from ancient Iran.
However, the borders of the language vastly exceeded those
of ancient Persia or modern Iran, as it was spread over most
of Central Asia and across the Eurasian steppelands from the
Danube to the yenisei River. The sub-branch to which Saka
belongs also included Sogdian, Bactrian, and Avestan. Most
archaeologists and linguists believe that the Iranian languages
appeared earliest in the steppelands and only later moved
southward through the agricultural oases of Central Asia into
the region of modern Iran. The Iranian language group is very
closely related to Indo-Aryan, the branch of Indo-European
that occupies the northern two thirds of India; these language
46 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
This text is in Khotanese Saka. (KS 01 from the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin–Preussischer Kulturbesitz Orientabteilung, published at titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/tocharic/tht.htm.)
ExpedWinter2010.indd 46 12/7/10 10:52 AM
Jam
es R
. Mat
hieu
, Xin
jiang
Uyg
hur
Aut
onom
ous
Reg
ion
Mus
eum
Col
lect
ion
(inse
t)
Above, the Buddhist temple complex in the ancient city of Gaochang is near Turfan and in the region where Tocharian A appeared. Left, this text is written in Tocharian A. (THT 677 from the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin–Preussischer Kulturbesitz Orientabteilung, published at titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/tocharic/tht.htm.)
www.penn.museum/expedition 47
ExpedWinter2010.indd 47 12/7/10 10:52 AM
Jam
es R
. Mat
hieu
groups presumably shared a common origin
in the steppe region during the Bronze Age,
perhaps about 2500 BCE.
The other major language group in the
Tarim Basin is Tocharian, which is subdivided
into two languages: Tocharian A, found in
documents near Turfan and Qarashähär, and
Tocharian B, found mainly around Kucha
in the west but also in the same territory as
Tocharian A. The documents, dating from
the 6th to the 8th centuries CE, suggest that
Tocharian A was by that time probably a dead
liturgical language, while Tocharian B was still
very much in use. In addition to Tocharian,
administrative texts have been discovered in
Prakrit, an Indian language from the territory
of Krorän; these documents contain many
proper names and items of vocabulary that
would appear to be borrowed from a form of
This chart compares Saka and Tocharian B with Latin, another Indo-
European language; except for English “ask,” all other English words
listed here are also cognate with the Latin and the languages of the Tarim
Basin, that is, they derive from the same Proto-Indo-European source.
saka tocharian B latin english
duva wi duo two
drai trai tres three
tcahora stwer quattuor four
hauda sukt septem seven
sata kante centum hundred
päte pacer pater father
mata macer mater mother
brate procer frater brother
assa- yakwe equus horse
gguhi- keu bos cow
bar- pär- fero bear (carry)
puls- park- posco ask
-
-
-
-
-
-
´
48 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
A market scene in modern-day Kucha, a city where Tocharian B once flourished.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 48 12/13/10 3:50 PM
www.penn.museum/expedition 49
Jam
es R
. Mat
hieu
J. P
. Mal
lory
Tocharian (sometimes known as Tocharian C) spo-
ken by the native population. The Kroränian docu-
ments date to ca. 300 CE and provide our earliest
evidence for the use of Tocharian. For our purposes
here, it is also very important to note that the ear-
liest evidence for the mummified remains of “west-
erners” in the Tarim Basin is found in cemeteries at
xiaohe (Small River) and Qäwrighul, both of which
are located in the same region as Tocharian C.
Tocharian documents consist primarily of trans-
lations of Buddhist texts, but also include secu-
lar documents such as permits for caravans to pass
through the territory. Two important features about
Tocharian make it stand out among all the languages
of the Tarim Basin. The first is that it has no outliers:
no evidence of an outside source such as that which
can be found for any of the Iranian, Turkish, Chinese,
or Tibetan documents. Tocharian is only known in
the Tarim Basin. Second, although the Tocharian
languages belong to the great Indo-European family
of languages, they are not closely related to the only
other group of Indo-European languages in greater
Asia: the Indo-Iranian languages. Indeed, many lin-
guists prefer to seek out the closest relatives of Indo-Iranian
among European languages such as greek or germanic, or
they argue that Indo-Iranian separated from the rest of the
Indo-European world at a very early date. From a linguistic
point of view, it is difficult to imagine that the Tocharians
originated in the same place and time as Iranian-speaking Saka.
Iranians
From a linguistic point of view, we need to explain how lan-
guages from two major Indo-European language groups man-
aged to spread into the Tarim Basin, and evaluate as far as pos-
sible whether they were the languages spoken by those Bronze
Age individuals whose remains were mummified. Purely from
a geographical perspective, neither language is likely to have
entered the Tarim Basin from either the east (where we find
Chinese) or the south (Tibetan), thus limiting their approach
to either the mountains to the west or the steppes to the
north. We also know that the Saka were known to the ancient
greeks as Scythians, and were clearly a people of the north-
ern steppes, famous as horse-riding nomads who periodically
challenged the civilizations to their south. They are attested
in historical and archaeological sources from about the 8th
century BCE, and are identified with ancient regional cultures
such as the Tagar of the Minusinsk Basin (8th to 1st century
BCE), located to the north of the Tarim, or cemeteries to its
west such as Shambabay/xiangbaobao on the Chinese side of
the Pamirs.
Saka cemeteries generally involve inhumation burial within
some form of timber chamber—anything from a solid piece
of wood to a timber-built chamber—covered by a kurgan or
mound. The identification of Saka tombs in the environs of
the Tarim Basin itself includes Zhongyangchang in the Tian
Shan, where there are about 30 kurgans (ca. 550–250 BCE)
attributed to the Saka before the area fell to the Wusun. The
site of Alwighul/Alagou is a multi-period and apparently
multi-ethnic cemetery; the latest burials (3rd to 2nd century
BCE) are assigned to the Saka, as they are found in pine-built
chambers and accompanied with animal-style art famous
from Scythian/Saka tombs across the Eurasian steppe. on the
Keriya River we have both the fortified settlement of yumulak
The cross-hatched areas of this map show the distribution of evidence for the Saka language and archaeological sites, identified as Saka or earlier Iranian, in the Tarim and Jungghar basins.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 49 12/7/10 10:53 AM
50 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
J. P
. Mal
lory
Kum/yuansha and adjacent cemeteries. one of the cemeteries
goes back to the 7th century BCE and is believed to have been
associated with the Saka, based on evidence including timber-
built tombs, high peaked hats, Europoid physical type, and
Saka-compatible pottery. In terms of distribution, the Saka
sites tend to lie to the north, east, or south of where most of
the mummified remains have been recovered; however, they
have also been identified among the later burials at Alwighul.
The tall hats of the female mummies from Subeshi might also
pass for a Saka trait, and so identification of some of the mum-
mies with the Saka or Iranian speakers in the northeast Tarim
is a serious possibility. But here we are dealing with people
and languages which, if our archaeological identifications
can be trusted, date only to the last half of the 1st millennium
BCE. Can we determine an earlier date for Iranian speakers in
the Tarim?
The Bronze Age antecedent to the Iron Age Scythians/Saka
is the Andronovo cultural complex, a series of related cultures
that spanned the area between the urals and the yenisei from
ca. 2000–900 BCE. Its linguistic identification is somewhere
within the general Indo-Iranian branch of languages and, at
least within the steppeland regions, it is presumably Iranian
before the 1st millennium BCE. The Andronovo cultural com-
plex provides a broad umbrella of cultural traits which impor-
tantly include the use of tin bronze, an extensive series of char-
acteristic metal implements and ornaments, the use
of chariots, and distinctive horse-gear. Economically,
the culture was versatile: in some regions, it was clearly
semi-nomadic, while in others, it adopted irrigation
agriculture. Its presence is attested in the Jungghar/
Zhunge’er Basin at cemeteries at Sazicun and
Adunqiaolu, where the ceramics are clearly related to
the Andronovo complex. People associated with this
cultural complex may have lived in the Tarim Basin,
although the evidence is strongly circumstantial. We
do not have clear examples of Andronovo settlements
marked by its distinctive ceramic styles. While some
of its burials share what may be generic elements with
those found in the Tarim—use of timber chambers or
stone cists—the Andronovo type of east Kazakhstan,
the Fedorovo culture, practiced cremation as well as
inhumation.
In short, direct evidence for Andronovo sites is so
far absent from the Tarim Basin. It must be noted that
Andronovo metalwork has been recovered from a number
of sites, e.g. xintala, Qizilchoqa, and yanbulaq as well as the
Agarshin hoard from Toquztar. In addition, the initial appear-
ance of horses and wheeled vehicles in the Tarim, and the intro-
duction of the chariot to China, are all attributed to Andronovo
contacts. This evidence dates from ca. 1300 BCE onwards and
advances considerably the potential presence of Iranian speak-
ers in the Tarim, although it does not provide us with the settle-
ments and burials that might better constitute a “smoking gun.”
Tocharians
The one language group that is most clearly anchored in the
Tarim, Tocharian, lacks any obvious external source. So the
line of reasoning that might link linguistic evidence with the
archaeological record becomes even more dubious. To ren-
der matters even more difficult, Iranian speakers from the
Andronovo culture of the Iron Age could enter the Tarim
Basin from both the north and the west, so this would seem,
at first, to remove any potential homeland for the Tocharians
since they should not have come from precisely where we
derive another language group. There are two ways out of this
problem. The first involves suggesting a long and untrace-
able trek across the Eurasian steppe to the Tarim Basin. As
The distribution of the Andronovo cultural complex is shown on this map.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 50 12/7/10 10:53 AM
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J.P
. Mal
lory
J. P
. Mal
lory
the Andronovo culture is sister to the Timber-grave culture of
the European steppe— also seen as the antecedent to Iranian-
speakers—this trek would have to start somewhere to the west
of the Dnieper and would rival prehistoric journeys such as
the migration of southern Athabascans from Canada to the
American Southwest. Such an extraordinary historical event is
rarely the type of solution that is likely to satisfy either archae-
ologists or linguists.
The alternative approach is to select a staging area much
closer to the Tarim Basin that predates any of the proposed
Iranian-associated migrations. one culture that might fit
the bill is the Afanasievo culture of the Altai and Minusinsk
regions. This was an Early Bronze Age culture which may have
appeared before 3000 BCE (the start date is a serious prob-
lem) and continued to ca. 2500 BCE. The Afanasievo is known
from settlements that practiced both cereal agriculture and the
raising of domestic livestock; however, most evidence of this
culture comes from about 50 cemeteries. The Afanasievo buri-
als are in pits, either single or collective, surrounded by stone
enclosures, both rectangular and circular. grave goods include
ceramics that are generally decorated over much of their body;
shapes are large pointed base vessels and small footed vessels
that have been interpreted as censers for burning either an
aromatic or hallucinogenic substance. The Afanasievo culture
is linguistically attractive because its own antecedents appear
to lie in the European steppe, the same region that provides
the point of departure for the Indo-Iranian expansion some
thousand years later. This provides a convenient explana-
tion for why the Tocharian languages are ultimately related
to Indo-Iranian as members of the Indo-European language
family, but also as to why they are very different, in that they
separated from the rest of the Indo-Europeans at an early
date. Admittedly, this still requires an enormous trek from the
volga-ural region east to the yenisei with very little evidence
of intermediate “stop-overs” other than an Afanasievo cem-
etery near Karaganda.
The Afanasievo culture apparently expanded to the
south. Recent excavations by Alexei Kovalev and Diimaajav
Erdenebaatar have uncovered Afanasievo burials in north-
west Mongolia at the site of Khurgak-govi that date to ca.
3000–2500 BCE. of great importance was the discovery of the
Above, the distribution of the Tocharian languages in the Tarim Basin and the locations of some of the most significant discoveries of mummified remains are shown here. Right, Afanasievo burials are in pits surrounded by circular or rectangular stone enclosures. They may be single or collective burials.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 51 12/7/10 10:53 AM
remains of a wheeled vehicle in one of the graves. Before
this, the only evidence that the Afanasievo culture pos-
sessed vehicles was found engraved on stones within their
cemeteries. Also, in the foothills of the Jungghar Basin—
the natural approach to the Tarim Basin from the north—
we find the Qiemu’erqieke (Turkish Shamirshak) culture.
Although so far not precisely dated, this culture’s ceramics
(both pointed base vessels and footed ones) are similar to
those known in the Afanasievo, and here too graves may
be marked off with rectangular stone enclosures. Another
linking trait is that some of the burials lie on their backs
but with their legs flexed: this peculiar posture is also
known both in the Afanasievo culture and among the
burials of the European steppelands, but it is very rare
anywhere else. Similarly, the footed bowls—interpreted
as lamps in China but as “censers” in the Afanasievo cul-
ture—are also linked to the east European steppe. Finally,
the Qiemu’erqieke, Afanasievo, and European steppe cul-
tures all share a tradition of erecting stone anthropomor-
phic stelae. Although the Qiemu’erqieke is located in the
far north of the Jungghar Basin, similar pottery has been
recovered from the site of xikan’erzi, not far from both
Ürümchi and the territory of the Tocharians.
Further Afanasievo influence is difficult to substanti-
ate. our earliest cemeteries with Caucasoid populations
are at xiaohe and Qäwrighul, and their connection to the
Afanasievo culture is hardly robust, although a case can be
made. A key problem is that neither cemetery employed
ceramics as grave goods; consequently, the most sensitive
52 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
J. P
. Mal
lory
Some have compared this type of basket from the Qäwrighul cemetery with the ceramics of the Afanasievo culture (see previous figure, object C).
Above, the Afanasievo culture expanded to the south, as depicted by the cross-hatched area on this map. Below, these drawings show a comparison of material culture (bowl and “censer”) from Qiemu’erqieke (A, B) and Afanasievo (C, D) sites.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 52 12/7/10 10:53 AM
index of cultural affinity at this time is absent and may sug-
gest profoundly different cultural behavior. However, among
the baskets deposited with the burials, some certainly bear a
generic resemblance to Afanasievo vessels both with respect
to shape and ornament. While we do not find the characteris-
tic stone enclosures of the Afanasievo graves, Qäwrighul does
reveal concentric rings of timber posts that may have served
a similar purpose. Moreover, one might argue that the spec-
tacular wooden figures recovered from xiaohe are related to
the erection of stone stelae in the Qiemu’erqieke, Afanasievo,
and European steppe cultures. The fact that the deceased
are Caucasoids has also been regarded as circumstantial evi-
dence that they must have come from either the north or the
west, although their actual place of origin is still in question.
Analyses of the physical type of the Qäwrighul population have
produced mixed results, with physical anthropologist Han
Kangxin suggesting that they are closest to the Afanasievo, but
Brian Hemphill arguing that they do not resemble any neigh-
boring population. More recent ancient DNA analysis indi-
cates that the population from the xiaohe cemetery derives
from two sources: some individuals bear the same haplogroup
type widely found in eastern Europe, and others possess a type
more at home in the east Eurasian steppe of Siberia. Thus,
there is good circumstantial evidence that might associate the
earliest Bronze Age mummies with an expansion of Tocharian
speakers from the north who were formerly settled in the
region of the Altai mountains and Minusinsk Basin.
j. p. mallory is Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Author of numer-ous articles and books, his most recent book, with D.Q. Adams, is The oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World (2006). He is also the author, with Victor H. Mair, of The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West (2000).
For Further Reading
Jia, Peter Wei Ming, Alison V. G. Betts, and Xinhua Wu. “Prehistoric Archaeology in the Zhunge’er (Junggar) Basin, Xinjiang, China.” Eurasia Prehistory 6 (2009):167-198.
Kuz’mina, Elena E. The Origin of the Indo-Iranians. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Lebedynsky, Iaroslav. Les Saces. Paris: Éditions Errance, 2006.
Li, Chunxiang, et al. “Evidence that a West-East Admixed Population Lived in the Tarim Basin as Early as the Bronze Age.” BioMedCentral 8, 15. www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/8/15
Mallory, J. P., and Victor H. Mair. The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000.
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The concentric circles of timber posts found at Qäwrighul have been compared with the stone enclosures surrounding Afanasievo burials (see page 51 in this issue).
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54 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
GIfT fROM EUSEBA AND WARREN KAMENSKY ENDOWS NAGPRA POSITION
Penn Museum is pleased to announce a generous gift from
Mr. Warren F. Kamensky, long-time Penn Museum mem-
ber and volunteer, to endow the position of NAgPRA
(Native American graves Protection and Repatriation Act)
Coordinator. The gift will directly support the full-time staff
position currently held by Stacey Espenlaub. The position’s
new title will be the Euseba and Warren Kamensky NAgPRA
Coordinator of the American Section.
Penn Museum’s NAgPRA Coordinator position, estab-
lished initially in 1995 on a part-time basis, was formalized
as a full-time duty in 1997. It has proven to be of increasing
importance to the Penn Museum’s mission, not only in the
care of the collection, but also in developing and maintaining
relationships with tribes and Native American communities
across the united States.PENN MUSEUM CO-HOSTS INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON SOUTHEAST ASIAN CERAMIC ARCHAEOLOGY
From November 4 through 8, 2010, the Penn Museum,
in partnership with the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler
galleries, co-hosted the International Workshop on Southeast
Asian Ceramic Archaeology: Directions for Methodology and
Collaboration. More than 30 international scholars from
laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, and vietnam, as well
as Japan, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and North America
gathered to view a special exhibition Taking Shape: Ceramics
in Southeast Asia in Washington, DC, and, in Philadelphia, to
examine and discuss one of the most significant collections of
legally excavated ancient Southeast Asian pottery outside of
the region—more than 500 vessels including material from
Ban Chiang, Thailand.
The workshop was co-organized by Dr. Joyce C. White,
Associate Curator, Asian Section, Penn Museum, and Director
of the Museum’s Ban Chiang Project and its Middle Mekong
Archaeological Project and louise Allison Cort, Curator of
Ceramics at the Freer and Sackler galleries. The program was
made possible with funding from the Henry luce Foundation
and the university of Pennsylvania Research Foundation.
museum mosaic
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People, Places, Projects
Warren Kamensky (seated on left) on the Penn Museum’s Susan H. Horsey Deck, with American Section staff, clockwise from top left, Stacey Espenlaub, NAGPRA Coordinator; William Wierzbowski, Associate Keeper; and Lucy fowler Williams, Ph.D., Keeper.
International scholars from ten countries participated in the Southeast Asian Ceramic Archaeology workshop.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 54 12/7/10 10:54 AM
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reviewed by mandy chan, Ph.D. student in the
Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the
University of Pennsylvania.
Few regions in the world have captured popular imagination
as much as the “Silk Road,” the overland trade routes that con-
nected the great cities of xian and Rome through the Central
Asian oases. However, long before silk was traded as a com-
modity along this fabled route, intensive cultural interaction
between the East and the West had been taking place, from as
early as the Bronze Age (ca. 2000 BCE) in the Eurasian Steppe.
In The Prehistory of the Silk Road, eminent Russian archae-
ologist Elena Kuzmina presents a critical overview of the cul-
tural conditions in Eurasia’s past that may have precipitated
the establishment of the Silk Road, and how these conditions,
in turn, profoundly impacted the development of the old
World. This book marks the first major scholarly effort that
synthesizes a large body of interdisciplinary subject matter on
Eurasian archaeology into a comprehensive account.
The book begins with an introduction to steppe ecology,
emphasizing the interrelationship between the environment
and the cultural development of Copper and Bronze Age
Eurasian communities. Kuzmina views the emergence of a
mobile economy on the Eurasian Steppe as an adaptive strat-
egy devised by early populations to counterbalance unfavor-
able ecosystems, as evidenced by the first major migration of
Indo-Europeans from the Pontic Steppe into Central Asia in
the 3rd millennium BCE, which coincided with a period of cli-
matic shift in the steppe grassland. With the advent of this new
economy, the spread of wheeled transport technology intensi-
fied, laying the foundation for semi-nomadic pastoralism as
the predominant lifestyle of the Eurasian Steppe.
To provide a proper cultural context, Kuzmina discusses
the complex cultures of Bronze Age Eurasia and their regional
interactions. She specifically references the Andronovo cul-
ture, known for its spoked-wheeled chariots and metal-
lurgy, whose cultural influences were felt as far as the Shang
Dynasty in China. Kuzmina argues against the idea that the
horse-drawn chariot first appeared in the Near East. Instead,
she proposes the Eurasian Steppe as the chariot’s place of ori-
gin. To support her argument, the author cites the evidence
of the early remains of spoked-wheeled chariots, cheek pieces,
and bones of sacrificed horses discovered at the graves of the
Sintashta-Petrovka culture in the ural Mountains. Though a
consensus has yet to be reached on the chariot’s origin, the
extensive amount of data presented in support of her hypoth-
esis has nevertheless demonstrated the central role of prehis-
toric Eurasian populations in the diffusion of cultural and
technological ideas throughout the region.
The last part of the book examines the role of Indo-Europeans
in the development of xinjiang and its neighboring territories.
looking at funerary customs and craniological research from
the gumugou burials in xinjiang, Kuzmina identifies the popu-
lation at this site as Tocharian. In addition, the author discusses
different indigenous archaeological cultures along the northern
and southern rims of the Tarim Basin—the routes that corre-
spond to those of the future Silk Road—to illustrate the inten-
sity of the historical process that transpired there.
As a student in the archaeology of China, I benefited
immensely from the book’s analysis of the complex prehistory of
the Silk Road. It provides not only an account of Eurasian prehis-
tory, but also insight into mankind’s ability to adapt and inno-
vate. Kuzmina’s research provides a much-needed framework
to bridge the theoretical vacuum between Chinese and Western
scholarship on the transcultural phenomenon of Bronze Age
Eurasia. While some of her hypotheses still await corroboration
from future archaeological research, her effort to make Eurasian
archaeology more accessible to a broad audience makes this
book an indispensable resource. Scholars will find this book a
helpful research summary and reference guide to Eurasia’s pre-
history, and informed readers will find a gateway through which
to further explore the rich cultural tapestry of the steppe.
book news & reviews
Before the Silk Road
The Prehistory of the Silk Road
by E. E. Kuzmina. victor H. Mair, ed. (Philadelphia, PA: university of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). 264 pp., 73 illustrations, cloth, $65.00, ISBN 978-0-8122-4041-2
ExpedWinter2010.indd 55 12/7/10 10:54 AM
56 volume 52 , number 3 expedition
call toll free: 1-800-537-5487www.penn.museum
ORIGINS OF AGRICULTURE IN WESTERN CENTRAL ASIAAn Environmental-Archaeological StudyDavid R. Harris
Archaeologist David R. Harris addresses questions of when, how, and why agriculture and settled village life began east of the Caspian Sea. The book describes and assesses evidence from archaeological investigations in Turkmenistan and adjacent parts of Iran, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan in relation to present and past environmental conditions and genetic and archaeological data on the ancestry of the crops and domestic animals of the Neolithic period. It includes accounts of previous research on the prehistoric archaeology of the region and reports the results of a recent environmental-archaeological project undertaken by British, Russian, and Turkmen archaeologists in Turkmenistan, principally at the early Neolithic site of Jeitun (Djeitun) on the southern edge of the Karakum desert.
2010 | 328 pages | 8 1/2 x 11 | 102 illus. | Cloth | $65.00
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM PUBLICATIONS
Explore your love for learning,
adventure, and travel! Published three times a
year, Expedition magazine is a full-color peer-
reviewed popular journal that offers direct
access to the latest findings of archaeologists
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order Today! Email publications@museum.upenn.edu or call (215)898-4050.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 56 12/7/10 10:54 AM
www.penn.museum/expedition 57
U n i v e r s i t y o f P e n n s y l v a n i a m U s e U m o f a r c h a e o l o g y a n d a n t h r o P o l o g y f o U n d e d 1 8 8 7
indexvolume 52 – 2010
No. Page
3 5 Anderson, E. N. – What in the World: Ancient and Modern Foods from the Tarim Basin
3 55 Chan, Mandy – Book News & Reviews – Before the Silk Road
1 4 Gürsan-Salzmann, Ayse, and Evin H. Erder – From the Field: A Conservation Management Plan for Preserving Gordion and Its Environs
1 31 Hendrickson, Carol – Ethno-Graphics: Keeping Visual Field Notes in Vietnam
1 2 Hickman, Jane – From the Editor
2 2 Hickman, Jane – From the Editor
3 2 Hickman, Jane – From the Editor
1 3 Hodges, Richard – From the Director
2 3 Hodges, Richard – From the Director
3 3 Hodges, Richard – From the Director
1 44 Hodges, Richard – Book News & Reviews: Off the Beaten Path in England and Spain
2 6 Hamilton, Elizabeth – From the Field: Penn Museum in Laos
2 5 Hughes, Heather – What in the World: A Hidden Gem at the Penn Museum
2 43 Jensen, Erin, and Jennifer Reifsteck – Around the Museum: Summer in the City
2 48 Kauer, Jane – Book News & Reviews: The World of Soy
2 8 Lertcharnrit, Thanik – From the Field: An Early Ivory Bracelet from Central Thailand
3 23 Mair, Victor H. – The Mummies of East Central Asia
3 44 Mallory, J.P. – Bronze Age Languages of the Tarim Basin
1 46 Museum Mosaic: People, Places, Projects
2 46 Museum Mosaic: People, Places, Projects
3 54 Museum Mosaic: People, Places, Projects
2 9 Ousterhout, Robert G. – Archaeologists & Travelers in Ottoman Lands: Three Intersecting Lives
2 4 Pezzati, Alessandro – From the Archives: The Pennsylvania Declaration
1 40 Possehl, Gregory L. – Research Notes: Ernest J. H. Mackay and the Penn Museum
1 22 Raczek, Teresa P., and Namita S. Sugandhi – In the Heart of the Village: Exploring Archaeological Remains in Chatrikhera Village, Rajasthan, India
1 9 Romano, David Gilman, and Mary E. Voyatzis – Excavating at the Birthplace of Zeus: The Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project
1 8 Sharer, Robert – Portrait: Remembering Bill Coe
3 33 Sheng, Angela – Textiles from the Silk Road: Intercultural Exchanges among Nomads, Traders, and Agriculturalists
3 7 Steinhardt, Nancy Shatzman – Research Notes: The Luohan that Came from Afar
2 33 van der Sluijs, Marinus Anthony, and Anthony L. Peratt – Astronomical Petroglyphs: Searching for Rock Art Evidence for an Ancient Super Aurora
3 9 Waugh, Daniel C. – The Silk Roads in History
3 4 White, Donald – Portrait: Dr. Elfriede R. (Kezia) Knauer
2 21 Zrałka, Jarosław, and Wiesław Koszkul – New Discoveries about the Ancient Maya: Excavations at Nakum, Guatemala
¸
´
call toll free: 1-800-537-5487www.penn.museum
ORIGINS OF AGRICULTURE IN WESTERN CENTRAL ASIAAn Environmental-Archaeological StudyDavid R. Harris
Archaeologist David R. Harris addresses questions of when, how, and why agriculture and settled village life began east of the Caspian Sea. The book describes and assesses evidence from archaeological investigations in Turkmenistan and adjacent parts of Iran, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan in relation to present and past environmental conditions and genetic and archaeological data on the ancestry of the crops and domestic animals of the Neolithic period. It includes accounts of previous research on the prehistoric archaeology of the region and reports the results of a recent environmental-archaeological project undertaken by British, Russian, and Turkmen archaeologists in Turkmenistan, principally at the early Neolithic site of Jeitun (Djeitun) on the southern edge of the Karakum desert.
2010 | 328 pages | 8 1/2 x 11 | 102 illus. | Cloth | $65.00
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM PUBLICATIONS
now
Order Today! Email publications@museum.upenn.edu or call (215)898-4050.
ExpedWinter2010.indd 3 12/13/10 3:15 PM
Preserved forever.Here for a moment in time.
february 5 - june 5, 2011
only east coast aPPearance
Photographs courtesy of the Cultural Relics Bureau of Xinjiang and Wang Da-Gang. Exhibition organized by the Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, California in association with the ArchaeologicalInstitute of Xinjiang and the Urumqi Museum.
3260 South Street Philadelphia, PAwww.penn.museum/silkroad
The landmark exhibition Secrets of the Silk Road tellsa tale of long-forgotten cultures along the world’s mostlegendary trading route, featuring the most amazinglypreserved mummies ever found, and rare artifacts neverbefore seen in the West.
Timed tickets available now.Visit www.penn.museum/silkroad
or call (877)77-CLICK.For group tickets, call (215) 746-8183
or email grouptickets@museum.upenn.edu
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