SILK ROAD WEEK 2020

SILK ROAD WEEK is an annual event first introduced and organized by China National Silk Museum, the International Association for the Study of Silk Road Textiles (IASSRT) and the Chinese Museums Association’s Committee of Museums along the Silk Road. In 2019, these institutions jointly proposed the “Hangzhou Initiative for Dissemination and Promotion of the Silk Road Spirit” which aims to raise recognition of the historic value of the Silk Road and strengthen the protection of the Silk Roads sites and relics.

Silk Road Week 2020 is the first edition of the annual event hosted by the National Cultural Heritage Administration and the Province of Zhejiang, with the theme of “The Silk Roads: Mutual Learning for future Collaborations” in Hangzhou, China. The event features a vast array of museum-led activities, including: exhibitions, performances, reports, book releases and seminars.

Silk Road Week marks the anniversary of the inscription of the Silk Road – from Chang’an to the Tianshan Corridor -, onto UNESCO’s list of World Heritage, in June 2014.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

MUSEUMVIEWS (IMWD International Museum Workers Day, and GSHA Global Sports Heritage Association) wishes to thank Ms. Ye Ke, Executive Editor of In Zhejiang for inviting us to promote the stunning celebration of the inaugural SILK ROAD WEEK alongside international cultural institutions, curators and scholars in the field of Silk Road Studies.

We congratulate Mr. Feng Zhao, Director of China National Silk Museum; as well as scholars and museum professionals at the International Association for the Study of Silk Road Textiles (IASSRT) and the Chinese Museums Association’s Committee of Museums for founding and organizing this critical and timely project.

We also applaud Mr. Yuan Yachun, Chief Editor of Zhejiang University Press, with assistance from Mr. Reckon Yu, for helping to promote SILK ROAD WEEK 2020 via a stunning range of scholarly publications that enhance our understanding of this valuable field of research. 2 SILK ROAD WEEK 2020 4 Acknowledgement 6-7 Introductions 9-17 SILK ROAD Conversation with ... 19-21 SILK ROAD WEEK 2020 (Persian, Chinese, Arabic) 23-39 Sports Heritage Along the SILK ROAD

C 41-44 Projects & Activities During SILK ROAD WEEK 2020 O

N 45-48 Outreach T E

N 48-49 List of Illustrations T 51 Toward SILK ROAD WEEK 2021 SILK ROAD Conversations with ... MUSEUMVIEWS

On International Museum Day (May 18) 2020, celebrating “Museums for Equality: Diversity and Inclusion,” MUSEUMVIEWS introduced a year-long transmedia program of interviews and activities rooted in the spirit of one of the earliest global networks that embodied diversity and inclusion for millennia: The Silk Road.

Inspired by the inaugural SILK ROAD WEEK 2020, ”SILK ROAD Conversations with ...” revives “Conversations with …” artists, curators, collectors, dealers and filmmakers which we have been conducting since 2010. Sports Heritage Along the SILK ROAD

We are equally thrilled to use this opportunity to launch GSHA Global Sports Heritage Association during SILK ROAD WEEK.

GSHA's mission is to promote sporting heritage in various fields, across generations, and around the globe.

Equally relevant to the mission of SILK ROAD WEEK is the celebration of the spirit, heritage & histories of various sports – football (cuju), martial arts, equestrian sports, archery, wrestling, board games, weight lifting, etc. - whose foundations may be found along the Silk Road.

SILK ROAD Conversations with ...

SPAIN Jose Maria Chiquillo Barber (UNESCO) USA Courtney Ann Stewart (Senior Researcher, Islamic Arts) UK Kevin Moore (Former Director Nationa Football Museum) CHINA Vikki Zhang (Artist) OMAN Rahma Qassim Jabir Al-Farsi (UNESCO) NETHERLANDS César Rodríguez Salinas (Conservator) NEPAL Roshan Mishra (Curator) IRELAND Kristine Rose-Beers (Conservator) BULGARIA Petya Andreeva (Art Historian) IRAN Golnaz Golsabahi (Curator) AFGHANISTAN Omaid Sharifi (Artivist) NETHERLANDS Cornelis van Lit (Scholar) PORTUGAL Vania Assis (Conservator) NIGERIA Ovigwe Eguegu (Afripolitika ) IRAN Fatemeh Ahmadi (Curator) IRELAND Frank J Cunningham (IMWD/GSHA) USA Homa Taj (MUSEUMVIEWS) Q – How do you describe your work to people who don’t know anything about your field?

A - As a member of the International Network - Focal Point of Spain - and from the responsibility of the presidency of the international network of focal points along the Silk Road, to contribute to recover, preserve and disseminate the historical legacy of the Silk Routes, their great contribution to intercultural dialogue and value our common cultural heritage forged for more than 2,000 years.

SPAIN - SILK ROAD Conversations with Jose Maria Chiquillo Barber (UNESCO) Q - What is the most memorable object you’ve researched, or worked with?

A - The illustration I did with the National Silk Museum, located in Hangzhou, China, for Silk Road Week...

Except for winged horse, there were dragon, tiger, camel, deer, double- headed bird, lion, peacock…accompanied by people from China, Persia, Indian, Arabia, and others, to show goods and ideas exchanged through the trade road. Animals show up frequently in my other works. I wish to convey my expectation of protecting the Earth and biodiversity through my artwork, where humans and nature live in a balanced and harmonious basis. That’s another voice hidden in these images, in the context of the outbreak of COVID-19 and many other natural disasters.

CHINA - SILK ROAD Conversations with Vikki Zhang (Artist) Q – How do you describe your work to people who don’t know anything about your field?

A - I am the Director of Media and Communication for the Sultanate of Oman Focal Point to UNESCO Silk Roads Program. Our work includes collecting, analysing and transmitting information and data on Silk Roads heritage and activities in our countries to be integrated in the UNESCO Silk Roads Online Platform. We inform national stakeholders about the activities related to Silk Roads undertaken by UNESCO and its partners. And, we also encourage and advise national authorities and stakeholders in initiating, implementing and promoting activities related to Silk Roads. Then, there is the exchange of experience and expertise with other members of the Network to facilitate cooperation and partnership. Lastly, we contribute to the promotion of mutual understanding, intercultural dialogue, reconciliation and cooperation among nations and people sharing the Silk Roads common heritage.

SULTANATE OF OMAN - SILK ROAD Conversations with Rahma Qassim Jabir Al-Farsi (UNESCO) Q – How do you describe your work to people who don’t know anything about your field?

A - Did you know the vast majority of what people have written is in handwriting? Think about it; the vast majority of all ideas worth putting on paper, our collective memory, is to a very large part only available in manuscripts, many of these ideas surviving in only one copy. Of these manuscripts, again, the vast majority predates our own time. And this makes reading those ideas pretty difficult; accessing and deciphering ancient manuscripts is an actual skill. It is my job to roam back rooms of libraries, scouring shelves for manuscripts worth picking up. Sometimes there are centuries in between me and the last reader: I wipe the dust off and let the ideas come to life once more. I am particularly trained to do this for Arabic and Persian manuscripts from the Islamic world. And I am a pioneer in doing this in a digital environment, developing new tools (software) to do this type of work better, faster, and in ways unimagined before.

NETHERLANDS - SILK ROAD Conversations with Cornelis van Lit (Scholar) Q – What is your most memorable experience of travelling along the Silk Road?

A - The most memorable experience is traveling to Bamyan in the central highlands of Afghanistan which was also part of the Silk Road, and meeting my wife.

Q – Which city or region along the Silk Road are you looking forward to visit, for the first time?

A - I would love to visit all of them but the priority is Kashgar (喀什, China).

AFGHANISTAN - SILK ROAD Conversations with Omaid Sharifi (Artivist) Q – What is the most memorable object you’ve researched, or worked with?

A - This is a hard choice, but I would have to go with the gold treasures found in modern-day Kazakhstan, particularly the “Golden Man” of Issyk. This refers to a burial of an Iron-Age nomadic chieftain, whose body was found covered in 400 golden plaques of superb design and craftsmanship. A close contender would be a gold headdress topped by a turquoise bird excavated from Aluchaideng in modern-day Inner Mongolia.

BULGARIA - Silk Road Conversations with Petya Andreeva (Art Historian) Q – What is the most memorable object you’ve researched, or worked with?

A - Undoubtedly that has to be the Tangut documents from Kharakhoto, unearthed by Aurel Stein in 1914 and part of the British Library’s collection. Their state was so fragmentary back when they were found, that recovery was deemed impossible, leaving the documents untouched until the International Dunhuang Project (IDP) launched a conservation project.

Imagine heavy bundles with a papier-mâché like appearance, where a safe method must be found to unfold and recover material, but the paper is as soft as cotton wool.

These were some of the most challenging objects I have worked on to this day, but the rewards were also unbeatable. The bundles contained manuscripts, early woodblock printed material, pieces of textiles, plants and seeds. All placed in stupas by the Tanguts until the end of their empire, in 1227 A.D..

PORTUGAL - Silk Road Conversations with Vania Assis (Conservator) Q – How do you describe your work to people who don’t know anything about your field?

I was trained as general conservator where I learned how to treat different objects for their good preservation. Since 2011, I am solely working with textiles and fashion objects, and what I do is to keep all of those objects as best as I can for future generations. To be a fashion conservator at Kunstmuseum Den Haag (KMDH) is a huge responsibility, because I am dealing with heritage that belongs to The Netherlands and which has an incredible history value behind.

So, in order to keep all of them in good conditions, a fashion conservator, must gain a widespread knowledge of different materials such as textiles, leather, fur, glass or even modern materials such as plastics to keep them safe for future generations. That´s mean, to know very well their composition, their degradation process and their possible conservation treatments.

NETHERLANDS - Silk Road Conversations with César Rodríguez Salinas (Conservator)

2020丝绸之路周

“丝绸之路周”是一个年度活动，首次在中国丝绸博物馆举办， 由国际丝绸之路纺织品研究协会（IASSRT）和中国博物馆协 会丝绸之路博物馆委员会组织。这些协会共同提出了“杭州丝 绸之路精神传播与促进的倡议”，旨在提高人们对丝绸之路价 值的认识，并加强对丝绸之路遗址和文物的保护。

首届该年度活动“2020丝绸之路周”将在中国杭州举办，由国 家文化遗产局和浙江省人民政府主办。其主题为“丝绸之路： 互学互鉴促进未来合作”。丝绸之路周将举办博物馆主导的活 动，例如展览、演出、报告和研讨会，以庆祝“起始段长安－ 天山廊道的路网”于2014年6月成功被列入教科文世界文化遗 产列表。

丝 绸 之 路 周

SPORTS HERITAGE Along the SILK ROAD SPORTS HERITAGE Along the SILK ROAD

MUSEUMVIEWS & GSHA Global Sports Heritage Association extends an invitation to scholars, historians, atheletes and sports lovers to celebrate the histories of various sports – football (cuju), martial arts, equestrian sports, archery, wrestling, board games, weight lifting, etc. – and re-consider their origins and practices around the world. This is especially the case in the West where insufficient attention is given to the arts, cultures and sports traditions beyond our spheres of interest. We hope to inspire future generations of scholars, historians, atheletes and sports lovers to examine the wealth of visual and textual material available in archives, museums and libraries around the world. They include numerous references in ancient texts in Latin, Arabic, Persian, Sanksrit, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, among others. “There is nothing that gentlemen compete over (zheng). If at all, it is in archery…when ascending to the shooting platform and upon descending offering drink- such competition is truly of gentlemen.” The Analects of Confuscious Many in the West and the East agree that archery has a very long history in Asia.

The history of archery as a sport is well documented with references in various classical art, and ancient texts in Arabic, Assyrian, Persian, Sanskrit, Chinese, Korean & Japanese, among others. S S I L p K o r R t O s

A H D e r

( i t A a R g C e H

A E l o R n Y g ) t h e

“I am constantly inquisitive and research in a wide range of fields, including 19th century English history, Museum Studies , sports history and cultural studies. I am currently working on an academic paper on the ancient Chinese game of football, CUJU. My interest in China, and Chinese culture, came from the fact that in 2015 I had 蹴 the very great honour of welcoming President Xi Jinping of China to the National Football Museum for England, and to show him some of 鞠 the artefacts in our collection. When the President arrived the first thing I said to him was that the English had invented the modern game of football, Association football, or soccer, in 1863. However, I knew that the Chinese had invented the first game of football, Cuju, over 2,000 years ago! I was told afterwards that the President was very pleased to hear these words from me, as I was the first person during his State Visit to the UK to recognise this unique historic significance of football in China.”

Sports Heritage Along the SILK ROAD (Cuju-Football): A Conversation with Dr. Kevin Moore 蹴 鞠

The first Women’s World Cup was founded in 1991, and appropriately held in China, the original home of football or cuju where women played football for centuries.

Guangzhou, Foshan, Jiangmen, Panyu, and Zhongshan hosted 510,000 (19,615 average per match) fans cheering for the participating teams from USA, Brazil, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Nigeria, China PR, Japan, Chinese Taipei, New Zealand. Team USA defeated Norway in the final match of the inaugural Women’s World Cup.

Sports Heritage Along the SILK ROAD (FIFA World Cup) Until today, only once have non-Western countries hosted a World Cup. The 17th FIFA WORLD CUP 2002 was held in Japan (ワールドカップ 韓国/日本) and South Korea(월드컵 한국/일본), from May 31 to June 30, 2002. The final match hosted by Japan at International Stadium in Yokohama.

Two decades after Japan and Korea made history as the first non-western countries to host the FIFA World Cup, Qatar is two years away from making history by being the first country in West ASIA (and the Middle East) to host the twenty-second World Cup, November 21-December 18, 2022.

Sports Heritage Along the SILK ROAD (FIFA World Cup) 蹴鞠 2 2 0 2

年 亚 洲

ASIAN OLYMPICS ALONG The SILK ROAD On OLYMPIC DAY 运

Since Olympic Day coincides with the (5th day of) International SILK ROAD WEEK, we celebrate the Olympic Council of 动 Asia’s The Asian Games whose 2022 edition (年亚洲运动会), or XIX Asiad (第十九届亚洲运动会), will be held from September 10-25, 2022, in the UNESCO inscribed city of Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. 会

Silk Road Week: The Olympic Games Along The Silk Road “HANGZHOU is one of a number of excellent example cities that acted as ‘hubs’ along the SILK ROADS. These were centres of intense exchange where different civilizations and their cultural elements moved from one place to another through trade across the land and maritime routes interacting with each other as they 年 did so. As travellers would settle in other lands, living amongst local 亚 people the result would be great 洲 cultural exchange and synthesis 运 (UNESCO).” 动 PH. China National Silk Museum, 会 Hangzhou, Zhejiang 0 2 0 2

年 夏 季 オ Asia has hosted the Summer Olympics three times, in Tokyo, リ Japan (1964), Seoul, South Korea (1988), and Beijing, China ン ピ (2008). In 2021, Japan will host the Games for the 4th time. Due ッ to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics have ク been postponed to July 23-August 8, 2021. 年 亚 洲 运 动 会

The official motto of the 2022 ASIAN GAMES is “Heart to Heart, 44 venues will be used during the Games, which 30 venues @Future” which aims to reflect the ability of the digital age to connect are already existing in the city, 10 are under construction and people from all over the globe, through the Asian Games. another 4 venues are in the planning stage. The most recent Asian Games were held in Jakarta and Palembang, Indonesia from August 18 to September 2, 2018. The next ASIAN GAMES will be held in Hangzhou, China, September 10-25, 2022.

年 亚 洲 运 动 会 2 0

2 The Olympic 2 Council of Asia has announced that the 年 ASIAN GAMES will feature 40 sports, 亚 including the 28 permanent Olympic 洲 sports as well as events in other 运 non-Olympic sports. 动 会 During Winter Olympic Games Beijing 2022, seven new events -- women’s monobob, freestyle skiing big air (men’s and women’s), and mixed team events in short track 第 s p e e d s k a t i n g t e a m r e l a y , s k i 二 jumping, freestyle skiing aerials and 十 snowboard cross -- are added to the 四 sports programme. This promises to 届 b r i n g a b o u t t h e m o s t g e n d e r - 冬 balanced Olympic Winter Games in 季 history, with more female athletes 奥 (45.44 %) and women's events than 林 at any previous Games. 匹 克 运 动 会 With GSHA Global Sports Heritage Association, we aim to serve as a unifying global & cross-generational voice for sports heritage, we invite scholars, historians, atheletes and sports lovers to celebrate the histories of various sports and re-examine their origins and practices, many of which are rooted along the ancient SILK ROAD.

- Temporary exhibitions ‘The Silk Roads: before and after Richthofen’ and ‘Mutual Learning on the Silk Roads: Stories of the Silk Road Treasures’;

- Launch of the ‘Annual Report of Silk Road Cultural Heritage 2019’;

- Official launch of the ‘World Map of Silk Project’;

- Museum curators symposium;

- Release of new books on aspects of the Silk Road (by Zhejiang University Press, among others); - Live stream from conservation on the Silk Road;

- Live stream from Museums, which will allow viewers to remotely visit the special exhibitions of 20 museums along the Silk Road in China;

- Short videos from 100 Silk Road Museums;

- Online ‘Poster Relay’ of Silk Roads: museums along the Silk Road are invited to post several photos of their most representative Silk Road objects and artifacts. Silk Road theme exhibitions seem to have been all the rage throughout Asia and Europe, in 2019. The subjects explored in these museum shows range from the Palaeolithic era to the 18th century AD, from Bukhara to Mongolia, from the Taklamakan Desert to the south China Sea. They cover overland trade & trading settlements, nomadic societies, and maritime silk roads.

In the “Annual Report of Silk Road Cultural Heritage 2019”, eight international experts were invited to review and comment on the exhibitions exploring aspects of Silk Roads histories.

Top 10 Silk Road Theme Exhibitions of 2019 MUSEUMVIEWS is proud to promote two scholarly books on the SILK ROAD, published by Zhejiang University Press:

Critical Approaches to Heritage: The Reinwardt Academy Exploration of New Boundaries which not only serves as a valuable text for students of museology, it is also a celebration of Sino-Dutch (China-Netherlands) cultural friendship.

And, Chinese Silk on Russian Military Flags in Swedish Collection by chief editor (& curator of China National Silk Museum), Zhao Feng.

We look forward to continuing to engage with Mr. Yuan Yachun (Chief Editor of Zhejiang University Press), and assistant Mr. Reckon Yu, to advocate the study of the arts, heritage and cultures of the SILK ROAD. OUTREACH

MUSEUMVIEWS' outreach program for SILK ROAD WEEK 2020 follows the same strategy as that which we have implemented for IMWD (International Museum Workers Day), since its founding in 2015.

It is a combination of social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, etc) posts; email invitations (including auto-replies); and direct LinkedIn messages to old and new international contacts in worlds of heritage, culture, museum and sport.

For its third edition, IMWD2018 was marked in 21 languages, across 12 platforms, with increased engagement from 20 new countries (170 countries in total).

For SILK ROAD WEEK 2020, following the same routes, we sent personal invitation messages to 2,500 of our LinkedIn connections affiliated with UNESCO, ICOM, FIFA, The Olympic Asian Games, and others major institutions, in seventy-four countries. They include (in alphabetica order): Afghanistan Algeria Angola Argentina Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bangladesh Barbados Belgium Brazil Cameroon Canada Chile Comoros Croatia Denmark Dominican Republic Egypt England Finland France Georgia Germany Greece Hungary India Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Kazakhstan Korea Kyrgyzstan Lebanon Lesotho Macedonia Madagascar Malaysia Mexico Mongolia Morocco Myanmar Netherlands New Zealand Norway Pakistan Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Saudi Arabia Senegal Seychelles Singapore Somalia South Africa South Sudan Spain Sultanate of Oman Sweden Switzerland Syria Tajikistan Turkey Turkmenistan Ukraine United Arab Emirates United States Uzbekistan Venezuela We received an overwhelming number (427) of reply messages from the 2,500 heritage and sports professionals in 74 countries whom we contacted regarding SILK ROAD WEEK 2020. Here is a sampling of those communications:

Thank you very much! It seems to be very interesting! POLAND

I will be very happy to join in the celebrations of the first annual Silk Road Week. I don't speak English, but that's the magic of being online, with translations available, to be connected with these problems that concern us as humans. (Google translate) VENEZUELA

Reading and learning about Silk Road has been one of my interests. Thank you so much for sharing! IRAN

Thank you for sharing! I will definitely read it! SOUTH SUDAN

I'm gonna have a good time with this. Thank you. KOREA

Oh, it seems so great job. Thank you! JAPAN

Thank you - What a terrific range of topics. Kind regards. AUSTRALIA

Thank you very much for your kind message and for the invitation. Yes I'll be delighted to join you on the 1st annual Silk Road Week. BRAZIL

Thank you very much for this initiative. I appreciate it. CAMEROON I am part of a group called The Muscat Study Group here in Oman. We will add this to our ToDo list for the next season. SULTANATE of OMAN

Fabulous. Thanks for sharing. EGYPT

Very interesting. SENEGAL

Please send me your contact details. Will run it by our team. (Al Jazeera) QATAR

I will read the contributions with a great interest and joy! Such a fine idea to organise a discourse and week about the topic! HUNGRY

Thanks for the invitation. I will make sure this is shared with my colleagues working in the culture area. AFGHANISTAN

Thank you very much for this, it seems very interesting. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Thanks for sharing Also, i'm willing to join in the celebrations of the 1st annual Silk Road Week (June 19-24). EGYPT

Thank you very much, it seams very interesting! ITALY

Thanks for sharing. It looks very interesting. I will do my best to join the celebrations and also will follow the relevant articles. GREECE Unless specified below (with page numbers), photo credits SILK ROAD WEEK 2020, & MUSEUMVIEWS

8 - Vikki Zhang 张文绮插画, Illustration for SILK ROAD WEEK 2020 10 - Oriente y el Mediterráneo. La Ruta de la Seda, Carles Magraner, Capella de Ministtrers, Spain 11 - Vikki Zhang 张文绮插画, Illustration for SILK ROAD WEEK 2020 12 - “Sohar” Ship in the (Sindbad Trip), November 1980, courtesy Ministry of Heritage and Culture, Oman 13 - Nicholas Roerich (Никола́й Константи́нович Ре́рих), 1874-1947, by his son Svetoslav Roerich, 1933 14 - Omaid Sharifi, Afghan Equestrian, c. 2020 15 - Golden Man, Kazakstan, courtesy Alamty-Travel 16 - Documents (pre-conservation) from International Dunhuang Project (IDP), Ph. Vania Assis 17 - Emperor Huizong (1082-1135), Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk, copy of Shinu hua in Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), Boston MFA 19 - The Ruzbihan Qur'an (detail), mid 16th century Shiraz, The Chester Beatty Collection, Dublin, Ireland. 21 - "Rosette Bearing the Names and Titles of Shah Jahan", Folio from the Shah Jahan Albumrecto, c. 1645, India, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 21 - A Japanese archer with targets, Ink on paper, 1878 23 - Emperor Jian Tuo Shuo (帝鑒圖說), Ming Dynasty (1368 -16440, Bibliothèque nationale de France. 24 -Stag Hunt, Attributed to Huang Zongdao (Chinese, active ca. 1120) 25 - Huang Shen (清黄慎, 1687-1772), Cuju, 18th century 25 - Toyohara Chikanobu (豊原周延, 1838–1912), Target Archery with the Yumi, woodblock print, 1898 27 - Costumes de circassiens et d’orienteaux, école française du début du XIXème siècle, Sotheby’s 29 - Su Hanchen (蘇漢臣, 1130–1160s), One Hundred Children in the Long Spring (長春百子圖), Song Dynasty (960-1279) 30 - Du Jin (杜堇, 1465-1509), Ladies playing Cuju, Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) 32 - Bruce Lee, courtesy Bruce Lee Family Foundation; and, Zhang Weibang and Yao Wenhan portrays Bingxi, Qing Dynasty (1636-1912), collection The Palace Museum 33 - Photo of (& courtesy) China National Silk Museum, Hangzhou 34 - Hishikawa Moronobu, Cuju Being Played by Nobles, Edo period (1615–1868), Metropolitan Museum of Art 35 - Giuseppe Castiglione, S.J. (郞世宁, 1688-1766), Ayuxi, a Zunghar warrior who fought for the Qing, The Qianlong Emperor (1711-1799) 36 - Abu'l Qasim Firdausi, "Siyavush Plays Polo before Afrasiyab", Folio 180v from the Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Shah Tahmasp, c. 1525-1530, Metropolitan Museum of Art 37 - Kano Furunobu (1696-1731), Tartars Playing Polo, Edo period (1615-1868) 38 - Du Jin (杜堇, 1465-1509), Ladies playing Golf, Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). 39 - Henri Emilien Rousseau (French, 1875-1933), La chasse au faucon 40 - Women Playing Cuju, Bronze Mirror, Tang dynasty (618-907) 43 - Tapestry on display in “Cultural Exchange Along the Silk Road: Masterpieces of the Tubo Period (7th–9th Century)”, in the Dunhuang Academy, Gansu Province Toward SILK ROAD WEEK 2021 ...

As we (already) eagerly await SILK ROAD WEEK 2021, we will continue with MUSEUMVIEWS' “Silk Road Conversations with ...” scholars, curators, conservators, artists, designers, architects and other creatives, around the globe.

We also look forward to inviting international museum, archive, library and heritage professionals to engage with the sixth annual IMWD International Workers Day celebrations (October 22, 2020), with the theme of Sports Heritage, along the Silk Road.

Likewise, the activities and focus of the very newly founded (May 2020) GSHA Global Sports Heritage Association is set to focus on Sports Heritage along the Silk Road. This includes, the very first GSHD Global Sports Heritage Day (February 21, 2021).

As an art historian and a museologist born on the ancient Silk Road, in West Asia, our Founder, Homa Taj, is extremely proud of her cultural heritage. “We are passionate about the recent revival of Silk Road Studies since its mission, as we understand it, is a call to humanity to unite and thrive. A potent anti-dote to historic residues of divide and conquer.”

MUSEUMVIEWS Homa Taj, BA, CMS, MSt., MPhil, DPhil!, Founder Frank J Cunningham, VP Global Development