Silk Road Links

: requires a Kenyon network connection.

Websites

History

Maps

Travelers

Buddhism

Dunhuang

Other religions

Kushan

Ethnic groups

Mongols

Christianity

Mummies

News

Misc.

Since my retirement from teaching in 2014 these links have been updated only sporadically.

Websites:

• Silk Road Seattle: excellent site, with many internal links
  • Silk Road Cultures
  • Primary texts
  • Religions of the Silk Roads
  • Historical texts (translations of primary sources)
• The Silk Road Foundation: very good site (link corrected)
• The Silk Road: journal, with full-text articles (link corrected)
• Association for Central Asian Civilizations & Silk Road Studies
• The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith (British Library)
• The Silk Road and Central Asia: good list of links (Univ. of Washington)
• Mongols, China, and the Silk Road
• SERICA: China and the Ancient Mediterranean World (McQuarrie University)
• Secrets of the Silk Road (Univ. of Penn. interactive exhibit)
• Yale Silk Road Database
• ECAI Silk Road Atlas (UC Berkeley)
• Monks and Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China (Asia Society)
• Silk Road Chicago: Art Institute exhibit, 2006-07
• Digital Silk Roads: maps, photographs, rare books
  • Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books (contains both color and high-resolution b/w images of every page, including photographs)
• Mark Aurel Stein: includes Ancient Khotan, 2 vols; Serindia, 5 vols., Innermost Asia, 4 vols, Ruins of Desert Cathay (including Dunhuang), and The Thousand Buddhas
• Paul Pelliot, Les Grottes de Touen-Houang, 6 vols. (photographs of every cave plus the exterior site, taken in 1908)
• Silk Road Museum (Jiuquan, Gansu Province)
• The Silk Road: Materials for an e-History (collected pieces by Daniel C. Waugh)
• The Silk Road: exhibit at American Museum of Natural History (a bit superficial, but worth a look)
• Central and Inner Asia Studies (University of Toronto)
• From Silk to Oil: Cross-Cultural Connections along the Silk Roads: high-school level curriculum guide (China Institute)
• Re-Conceptualizing Asia in World History (special issue of World History Connected, Feb. 2012)
• The "Silk Roads" in Time and Space: Migrations, Motifs, and Materials, edited by Victor H. Mair (Sino-Platonic Papers, July, 2012)
  
  History:
  
• "Roman Views of the Chinese in Antiquity" by André Bueno (Sino-Platonic Papers, May 2016)
• China and the Ancient Mediterranean World: A Survey of Ancient Chinese Sources (Sino-Platonic Papers, 2013: online book)
• Textiles as Money on the Silk Road (special issue of Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, April 2013)
• "Silks and Religions in Eurasia, c. A.D. 600-1200" by Liu Xinru (JSTOR)
• Articles by Valerie Hansen (Yale University):
  • "The Impact of the Silk Road Trade on a Local Community: The Turfan Oasis, 500-800"
  • "How Business was Conducted on the Chinese Silk Road during the Tang Dynasty, 618-907"
  • "Religious Life in a Silk Road Community: Niya During the Third and Fourth Centuries"
  • "The Hejia Village Horde: A Snapshot of China's Silk Road Trade"
  • "The Astonishing Finds from the Turfan Oasis: What They Reveal about the History of the Silk Road"
  • "Introduction: Turfan as a Silk Road Community"
  • "A Brief History of the Turfan Oasis"
• Silk Road Chronology (Silk Road Foundation)
• Histories of the Silk Road:
  • by Morris Rossabi
  • by Oliver Wild
• "The Western Regions according to the Hou Hanshu" translated by John E. Hill
• "Silk Road" by Richard Taupier (The Oxford Companion to Archaeology, 2nd ed.)
• Traveling the Silk Roads (special issue of Saudi Aramco World, 1988)
• Religions of the Silk Road (Silk Road Seattle)
• Essays on Central Asia by Andre Gunder Frank
• Bibliography of the Silk Road (Marilyn Shea)
• "Gutenberg and the Koreans: Did East Asian Printing Traditions Influence the European Renaissance?" by Thomas Christensen
• China and Rome (website accompanying The Dragon and the Eagle: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese and Roman Empires)



Satellite view of the Taklamakan Desert (Tarim Basin) - click for larger view

Maps:

• Interactive Silk Road map (Stanford University)
• China, Central Asia, Roman Near East (McQuarrie University)
• Ancient Trade Routes Between Europe and Asia (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
• East Asia in Geographic Perspective (Asia for Educators, Columbia University)
• East Asia topography
• China satellite
• Buddhist sites in Gansu Province (John C. Huntington)
• Dunhuang and Taklamakan (Silk Road Seattle)
• Han Empire
• Eurasian trade routes (1)
• Eurasian trade routes (2)
• China's foreign imports and trade routes
• Silk Road Atlas (Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative)
  
  Pilgrims and Travelers:
  

Stone carving of Xuanzang in Hangzhou

• Travelers on the Silk Road (Silk Road Foundation)
• Travel Records of Chinese Pilgrims to India (Tansen Sen)
  
  
• Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms by Fa-hsien [Faxian] (Project Gutenberg)
  • excerpt 1 (Silk Road Seattle)
• excerpt 2 (Brooklyn College)
  
  
• Record of the Western Regions, by Xuanzang (trans. Samuel Beal)
  • Book 1
  • Complete
• Travels of Hsuan-tsang (Xuanzang) by Irma Marx (Silk Road Foundation)
• Xuanzang and the Buddhist "Conquest of China" by Daniel Waugh (Silk Road Seattle)
• Xuanzang by Der Huey Lee (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• The World of Xuanzang and the Silk Road (National Taiwan University - in Chinese)
• Biography of Xuanzang (from an ancient Buddhist text, not clearly identified here)
  
  
• "The World of Marco Polo and His Heirs" by Daniel C. Waugh (Silk Road Seattle)
• In the Footsteps of Marco Polo (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
• In the Footsteps of Marco Polo: An International Symposium on Italy-China Cultural Exchange in the 13th-17th Centuries (Library of Congress)
• "Marco Polo: Journey to the East" (Biography Channel film, 1995)
• " In the Footsteps of Marco Polo" (PBS film)
  • Timeline: Marco Polo’s Journey
    
    
• Sven Hedin short biographies: 1 | 2
• Sven Hedin Chronology and Bibliography by Daniel Waugh
  
  
• Sir Aurel Stein (online book)
• Aurel Stein and the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas (Hungarian Academy of Sciences)
• "Fascinated by the Orient: Aurel Stein, 1862-1943" (Hungarian Academy of Sciences and University of Hong Kong)
• Aurel Stein's grave in Kabul (International Dunhuang Project News): 1 | 2
  
  
• Paul Pelliot's Dunhuang texts at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France
  
  
• "Japanese exploration of Central Asia: The Ōtani expeditions and their British connections" by Imre Galambos and Kitsudō Kōichi (BSOAS)
  
  
  Buddhism:
• Buddhism and its Spread Along the Silk Road (Silk Road Foundation)
• Buddhism on the Silk Road (International Dunhuang Project)
• Buddhism and trade: see also sidebar links (Silk Road Seattle)
  • printable version
• Buddhist Art and the Trade Routes (Asia Society)
• "Monuments in the Desert: A Note on Economic and Social Roots of the Development of Buddhism along the Silk Road" by Connie Chin (Silk Road Foundation Newsletter, 2005)
• Buddhism Among Iranian Peoples by Ronald E. Emmerick (Encyclopedia Iranica)
• The Historical Interaction between the Buddhist and Islamic Cultures before the Mongol Empire by Alexander Berzin
• Buddhism Across Boundaries: The Interplay of Chinese, Indian, and Central Asian Source Materials
  
  
Dunhuang:
• International Dunhuang Project
  • Silk Road topics
  • IDB Newsletter
  • The Story of Dunhuang, Gansu
• Dunhuang Academy
• Dunhuang cave art (from Caves of the Singing Sands: Buddhist Art from the Silk Road)
• Dunhuang cave art, by Ning Qiang (from Silkroad Foundation)
• The discovery of the Library Cave at Dunhuang (Silk Road Foundation)
• "Dunhuang Art Through the Eyes of Duan Wenjie" (Director of Dunhuang Research Academy)
• Article on temple remains in front of caves (JSTOR)
• "Khotanese Felt and Sogdian Silver: Foreign Gifts to Buddhist Monasteries in Ninth- and Tenth-Century Dunhuang" by RONG Xinjiang (Asia Major, 3rd series, vol. 17, part 1, 2004)
• "The Dunhuang Chinese Sky: A Comprehensive Study of the Oldest Known Star Atlas"
• Merit, Opulence, and the Buddhist Network of Wealth (10th-century Dunhuang art)
• Site conservation at the Mogao and Yungang Grottoes (Getty Foundation)
• Dunhuang Frescoes Enter the Digital Age
• 360° Quicktime view of Mogao cave site
• 360° images of two caves
• Cave Temples of Dunhuang (Getty Institute exhibit, 5/7/16 - 7/4/16)
  
  
Other religions:
• Manichæism (Catholic Encyclopedia)
• Manichaeism in China, by Samuel L.C. Lieu

Kushan Empire:
• Kushan Empire (2nd c. BCE - 3rd c. CE, northwestern India)
• Kushan History
• The Kushan Empire (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
• Kushan History
• Coins of Kushan Dynasty

Ethnic groups:

• Indo-European ethnic groups
  
  
• "The Division and Destruction of the Xiongnu Confederacy in the first and second centuries AD" by Rafe de Crespigny (2004)
• "The Hsiung-nu [Xiongnu] Imperial Confederacy: Organization and Foreign Policy" by Thomas J. Barfield (1981)
• Xiongnu bibliography (Daniel Waugh)
  
  
• "Sogdian Trade" by Etiènne de la Vaissière (Encyclopedia Iranica)
• Sogdian Trade (Zoroastrian Heritage website)
• The Sogdian Ancient Letters
• "Sogdians and Buddhism" by Mariko Namba Walter (Sino-Platonic Papers, 2006)
• "The Yuezhi Migration and Sogdia" by Craig Benjamin
• "The Sogdian Trade Diaspora in East Turkestan During the Seventh and Eighth Centuries" by Jonathan Karam Skaff (Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 2003)
• "Traces of Buddhist Art in Sogdiana" by Matteo Compareti (Sino-Platonic Papers, August, 2012)
  
  
• Sasanian Dynasty (Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies)
• Turks and Uighurs
• Bibliography of the Chinese Uyghurs (2002)
• History of the Turks
  
  Mongols:
• The Mongols in World History
• The Mongol Invasions of the Islamic world (University of Calgary)
• Modern Mongolia: Reclaiming Genghis Khan (Univ. of Pennsylvania exhibit)
• Mongolia Today (online magazine)
• Karakorum (Silk Road Seattle)

Christianity:
• "The rhetoric of antiquity: politico-religious propaganda in the Nestorian stele of Xi'an" by Max Deeg (Cardiff University)
• The Nestorian stele
• Accounts of Christian travelers and missionaries (scroll down)
• The Lotus & the Cross: East-West Cultural Exchange along the Silk Road (Ricci Institute, University of San Francisco)
  
  Tarim mummies:
• The Mummies of Xinjiang
• The Mysterious Mummies of China (PBS Nova)
• "The Dead Tell a Tale China Doesn't Care to Listen To" (NY Times, 11/19/08)
• Oldest Tarim mummies found (NY Times, 3/15/10)
  
  News articles:
• A Lost Asian Culture (NY Times, 5/13/01)
• Buddhist Treasures Emerge From Asia (NY Times, 12/26/01)
• Under Centuries of Sand, a Trading Hub (NY Times, 7/7/02)
• American-Mongolian team finds tombs near birthplace of Genghis Khan (Univ. of Chicago, 8/16/01)
• Finding Hidden Tomb Of Genghis Khan Using Non-Invasive Technologies (Science Daily, 10/20/08)
• Retired geologist claims discovery of Genghis Khan mausoleum (People's Daily Online, 6/14/12)
• Remains of Genghis Khan Palace Unearthed (Associated Press, 10/6/04)
• Tang shipwreck (National Geographic, June 2009)
• "The Last Days of Mes Aynak" (PBS Newshour report on Buddhist archaeological site in Afghanistan, 12/13/12)
• Rebuilding the Bamiyan Buddhas (NY Times, 3/22/14)
  
  Misc.
• Silk Road bibliography (Naomi Standen)
• The Silk Road Project (organized by cellist Yo-Yo Ma to explore the cultural traditions of the Silk Road)
• Silk Road Dance Company
• How the Romans learned of silk (slightly romanticized)
• Classical World Cities in East Asia: 1000 BC to1000 AD by George Modelski (University of Washington)
• Orientalism: A Bibliography
• Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul
• Silk Road Luxuries from China: exhibit at Freer Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.)
• Conference on southern Taklamakan (2012)