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Home , 1st millennium, Astana Cemetery, Expedition 13, Expedition 21, Han dynasty, Lacquerware

The Roads in by daniel c. waugh

here is an endless popular fascination with cultures and peoples, about whose identities we still know too the “Silk Roads,” the historic routes of eco- little. Many of the exchanges documented by archaeological nomic and cultural exchange across . research were surely the result of contact between various The phrase in our own has been used as ethnic or linguistic groups over time. The reader should keep a metaphor for Central Asian oil pipelines, and these qualifications in mind in reviewing the highlights from Tit is common copy for the romantic exoticism of the history which follows. expensive adventure travel. One would think that, in the - tury and a third since the German geographer coined the term to describe what for him was a The Beginnings quite specific route of east-west some 2,000 years ago, there might be some consensus as to what and when the Silk Among the most exciting archaeological discoveries of the Roads were. Yet, as the Penn Museum exhibition of 20th were the frozen tombs of the nomadic pastoral- artifacts demonstrates, we are still learning about that history, ists who occupied the Altai mountain around Pazyryk and many aspects of it are subject to vigorous scholarly debate. in southern in the middle of the 1st BCE. Most today would agree that Richthofen’s original concept These horsemen have been identified with the who was too limited in that he was concerned first of all about the dominated the steppes from Eastern to . The movement of silk overland from east to west between the “great ” of and . Should we extend his concept to encompass striking evidence from the Eurasian and Early Ages, and trace it beyond the European (15th to 17th ) 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 is a narrative about movement, resettlement, and interactions across ill-defined but not necessarily over long distances. It is also the story of artistic exchange and the spread and mixing of , all set against the background of the rise and fall This detail of a pile , recovered from Pazyryk Barrow 5 and dated 252–238 of polities which encompassed a wide range of BCE, depicts an Achaemenid-style horseman. Collection of the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

www.penn.museum/ merly thought of as purely nomadic in fact were mixed soci mixed were fact in nomadic purely as of thought merly for peoples Asian Inner that consensus growing a supports the beginnings of the Silk Roads. Evidence about the was telling, conventional the in what, stimulated process the in and Asian Inner great the of first the be to sider beginning of the BCE, established what most con of center the around the emerged —who Xiongnu—the the controlled Eurasia, have might that polity larger any that . distance contacts well before Chinese political power extended BCE sites in reinforce the evidence about active long- and north . Discoveries from to way the all boundaries forest-steppe the along extending complex, cultural Asian northeast vague somewhat yet a with connectionsuggestburialgoodsa the origin.aspects Otherof Eastern Middle of be to seem fabrics dyeing of nology tech and dyes the motifs; Persian) (ancient Achaemenid has tion. The earliest known pile carpet, found in a Pazyryk tomb, produc textile local to point would that evidence little curi ously but textiles, wool woven and felts contain graves The . bronze and silk Chinese with buried were deceased the China:connectionsdocumentwithclearly tombsPazyryk Whiledifficultisit locateto thePazyryk pastoralists within 10 volume 52, number 3 number 52, volume ------of this was a shift in the balance of power between the Xiongnu Wall and establishing the garrisons to man it. While one result time well into Central , in the process extending the Great silk but also spices, iron, olive oil, and much more. only not included products whose trade, maritime and land interconnectedoverimportanceof the to attestdesert Syrian eastern the in as such emporia caravan prosperous of emergence the and Mediterranean, the to leading routes controlled which , Parthian the of The China. reachedthe Mediterranean or that Roman reached ever merchants Han that evidence no have we although East, Middle the of parts and Asia Central with trade direct of ing open the in resulted also ” “Western the to missions Chinese . and horses received Chinese the which for return in trade, and rulers, the to paid Han the tributeincluded goods of flow ThisMediterranean world. Chinese of the to beyond and Asia Inner into way their made now goods quantities Substantial China. agricultural world and steppe northern the between boundaries permeable the alonginteraction regular and substantial a was fact this to Related life. of way their into and sites settlement permanent as such elements sedentary incorporating eties, The expanded Chinese dominion for the first Dynasty bowl with metal rim. rim. metal with bowl lacquer Dynasty Han a and , meal, ritual a of remains the containing cauldron bronze a included Mongolia from burial CE century 1st middle to BCE century 1st late this in Objects goods. grave of types various contained tombs Xiongnu - -

Daniel C. Waugh (both pages) The Qizilqagha beacon tower, northwest of , Xinjiang, dates from the Han Dynasty. It is located near an important Buddhist cave temple complex and stands approximately 15 m tall.

www.penn.museum/ local rulers. The earliest clearly documented Chinese transla Chinese documented clearly earliest The rulers. local of support active the with China and Asia Central into ously During the 2nd century CE, began to spread vigor China and the West—the great sedentary empires fragmented. in when—both period subsequent the in Eurasia across tions century CE, there is ample evidence of very important interac to be important with the decline of the Han Dynasty in the 2nd west.Although Richthofen felt that the Silk Road trade ceased the to farther traded was hands Xiongnu through passing silk silk .There is good reason to assume that much of the stunning and mirrors, bronze high-quality , Chinese lacquered , Chinese abundant contain Mongolia north-central in CE century 1st the through BCE century 1st and the Chinese in favor of the latter, Xiongnu tombs of the late od. Below, this map charts major routes and sites of the Silk Road. Road. Silk the of sites and routes major charts map this peri Below, Wei od. Northern the in carved first were here temples cave The China. Region, Antonomous Grottoes, Xumishan at located is the of Future, Buddha the , of period Tang high m 19 the Right, The Silk Roads and 12 volume 52, number 3 expedition 3 number 52, volume - - - -

Daniel C. Waugh, Emily Toner (map) Maijishan or “Wheatstack Mountain,” in eastern , is a Buddhist cave site first established under the Dynasty in the .

tions of Buddhist scriptures date from this period, although 5th century down to the time of the Mongol Dynasty the process of expanding the Buddhist canon in China and in the . One of the most famous travelers on the adapting it to Chinese religious traditions extended over sub- Silk Roads was the Chinese monk , whose route to sequent centuries. Understandably, many of the key figures in the sources of Buddhist wisdom in took him along the the transmission of the faith were those from who northern fringes of the , through the mountains, commanded a range of linguistic skills acquired in the multi- and then south through today’s and . ethnic oasis towns such as Kucha. Buddhism also made its way When he returned to China after some 15 years, stopping at east via the coastal routes. By the time of the Northern Wei along the way, he brought back a trove of scrip- Dynasty in the 5th and early 6th centuries, there were major tures and important images. Buddhist cave temple sites in the Chinese north and extending Many of the sites that we connect with this spread of across to the fringes of the Central Asian . Perhaps the Buddhism are also those where there is evidence of the best known and best preserved of these is the Sogdians: Iranian speakers who were the first great at the commercial and garrison town of Dunhuang, where of the Silk Roads. From their homeland in there is a continuous record of Buddhist from the early and the Zerafshan River Valley (today’s Uzbekistan and Daniel C. Waugh

www.penn.museum/ elnd Msi mrhns f aiu ehiiis would ethnicities replace the Sogdians in key roles controlling various Silk Road trade. of merchants Muslim influence declined. Sogdian century, 8th early the in Arab by homeland Sogdian the of conquest final the With China. to way their made also had Eastern and both time which by century, 8th the in the religions—to Eastern Middle major the of —another of sion in exchange for horses. Sogdians played a role in the transmis Empire.UyghursThe received hugequantities Chineseof silk Byzantine the and Europe Eastern into trade promoting in influential were and Asia Inner of much across control their extended time a for Turks The Uyghurs. the and steppes,Turks the northern the from regimes emerging newly the of some also but Chinese the only not served they as commerce, (a beyond well wentimportance ).Their of form traditions religious indigenous their seems, it retaining, while culture Chinese of aspects some adopted and service GansuCorridor into . Sogdians entered Chinese extending from Samarkand through Dunhuang, and along the network Sogdian a document Dunhuang, of west just found letters, Sogdian century 4th Early Asia. southeast of the to and , of mountains the the through to south Sea, Black west reach their extended Sogdians the ), erosion are visible on the plateau above the cliff. cliff. the above plateau the on visible are erosion wind reduce to years recent in added Fences Zetian. Tang throne, the of usurper female the by century 7th the of end the at commissioned Maitreya of statue high m 30 a covers façade The 1936. in restored was that right) the (on façade temple a includes Dunhuang, oasis, Mogao the of portion southern the of This 14 volume 52, number 3 expedition 3 number 52, volume - from Persia. to styles hair importedgame a ,playedwomen Evenmusic. anddance and the makeup among from rage everything the elite: all Chinese was culture foreign Asia, into Central control Chinese extend to (618–906), again Dynasty once Tang managed which the of time the By more. much and Mediterranean, eastern the from metalwork, Asian Central and Eastern Middle of numerousexamples , Sasanian from are There interaction. east-west of dence evi abundant contain Asia, Central and China connecting n te xets o Esen hitas otiue t the to contributed Eastern of expertise the and continued, traditions Persian Earlier .” “Islamic as simply designate to tend we what of fabric complex the up made threads Many prosperity. of period new a entered Asia —western at capital its with , Abbassid the of establishment the and Asia Central in control Arab of tion consolida the century—with 8th the of half second the By Tombs of the 5th to , along the northern routes The Impact of the and the

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Daniel C. Waugh Chronology of Selected Travelers

136–125, 119–115 BCE. Qian, emissary sent by Han is the best known and arguably most influential of the early Dynasty Wu Di to the “,” who sup- European narratives about Asia. plied important commercial and political intelligence. 1325–1354. Abu Abd Allah , 629–645 CE. Xuanzang (Hsuan-tsang), Chinese Buddhist Moroccan whose travels even eclipsed ’s in their monk who traveled through to India, studied there, extent, as he roamed far and wide between West and and once back in the Chinese capital Chang’an () was an China, and once home dictated an often remarkably detailed important translator of . description of what he saw. 821. Tamim ibn Bahr, Arab emissary, who visited the impres- 1403–1406. Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo, Spanish ambassador to sive capital of the Uyghurs in the valley in (Tamerlane), who carefully described his route through Mongolia. northern Iran and the flourishing of Samarkand. 1253–1255. (Ruysbroeck), Franciscan 1413–1415, 1421–1422, 1431–1433. Huan, Muslim inter- missionary who traveled all the way to the preter who accompanied the famous admiral capital of and wrote a remarkably detailed account (Cheng Ho) on his fourth, sixth, and seventh expeditions to about what he saw. the and described the and commer- 1271–1295. Marco Polo, Venetian who accompanied his cial emporia along the way. father and uncle back to China and the court of Yuan Emperor 1664–1667, 1671–1677. John Chardin, a French Hugenot Kublai . Marco entered his service; after returning to jeweler who spent significant time in the , Persia, Europe dictated a romanticized version of his travels while in and India and wrote one of the major European accounts of a Genoese prison. Despite its many inaccuracies, his account Safavid Persia.

silk road timeline

400 BCE 200 BCE 0 200 CE 400 CE 600 CE 800 CE 1000 CE 1200 CE 1400 CE 1600 CE

Mediterranean

Macedonians

Seleucids Sassanians Persia Parthians Islamic

Northen India Mauryans Guptas Mughals Afghanistan Kushans Sogdians

Central Asia Uyghurs Timurids

Xiongnu Juan-juan Khitans Mongols

East Asia Han Dynasty Sui Dynasty Ming

Hu Peoples Northern Wei Tanguts (Xi ) Timeline: Anne Marie Kane, after Daniel C. Waugh

www.penn.museum/ Left, Timurid work may have been influenced by Chinese lacquerware. This example of tile work is from the Mausoleum of Shad-i Mulk, ca. 1372, -i Zinda, Samarkand. Right, a gilded silver Tocharian or Bactrian ewer from the 5th or CE depicts the story of Paris and Helen of Troy. The ewer was found in the tomb of Xian (d. 569) near , Ningxia Hui Antonomous Region, China. From the Collection of the Guyuan Municipal Museum. emergence of Baghdad as a major intellectual center. Even substantial impact on artistic production in the , though Chinese silk continued to be imported, centers of where ceramicists devised new techniques in order to imitate silk production were established in Central Asia and north- Chinese wares. Conversely, the transmission of -and- ern Iran. Considerable evidence has been found regarding white pottery decoration moved from the Middle East to importation of into the in the China. The apogee of these developments came substantially 8th through the . The importance of maritime later in the period of the Mongol Empire, when in the 13th trade for the transmission of Chinese goods would continue and 14th centuries much of Eurasia came under the control to grow as Muslim merchants established themselves in the of the most successful of all the Inner Asian dynasties whose ports of southeast China. The Chinese connection had a homeland was in the steppes of Mongolia. Daniel C. Waugh

16 volume 52, number 3 expedition 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 , and Marco Polo a few decades later. Genoese merchant families took up residence in Chinese cities, and for a good many decades there was an active Roman Catholic missionary church in China. The reign of 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 successors The Mongol Ilkhanid at Takht-i Suleyman in northwestern Iran (1270–1275) was probably the source of this lusterware tile with a in China and the Timurids in the Middle East, active Chinese motif. From the Collection of the Victoria and Albert commercial and artistic exchange between East and Museum (no. C.1970-1910).

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This modern , shown with the monuments, Daniel C. Waugh Samarkand, in the background, is evocative of the Silk Road. The buildings are the medrese (religious school) of Ulugh Beg and the Shir Dor medrese.

www.penn.museum/ West continued into the . Timurid Samarkand relative value of overland and sea trade now changed, as did and were centers of craft production and the caravan the identity of those who controlled commerce. Yet, despite trade. The early Ming sponsored the sending of huge fleets growing political disorders disrupting the overland routes, through the Indian Ocean, which must have flooded the mar- many of them continued to flourish down through the 17th kets in the West with Chinese goods, among them the increas- century. New trading emerged, with Indian and ingly popular (pale green) and blue-and-white porce- Armenian merchants now playing important roles. Trade in lain. The centers of Chinese ceramic production clearly began traditional products such as horses and spices continued, as to adapt to the tastes of foreign markets, whether in Southeast did the transmission of substantial amounts of silver to pay Asia or the Middle East. The legacy of this can be seen in the for the Eastern goods. Among the Chinese goods now much ceramics produced in northern Iran, which decorated in demand was , whose export to the Inner Asian pastoral- and shrines, and in the later collections of imported ists had grown substantially during the period of the Yuan and assembled by the Ottoman and Safavid rulers in the 16th and early Ming dynasties. Trade along the Silk Roads continued, 17th centuries. Persian , which reached its apogee in even if transformed in importance, into the . the 15th and 16th centuries, was substantially influenced by Chinese models. Conventional of the Silk Roads stop with the Re-discovery of European Age of Discovery and the opening of maritime routes the Silk Roads to the East in the late 15th century. Of course, there had already long been extensive maritime trade between the Middle East, An important chapter in the history of the Silk Roads is the , Southwest Asia, and . Undoubtedly the story of their re-discovery in modern . Over the centu-

On the left is a Ming porcelain dish created in the 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 . Both dishes from the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (no. 1712-1816; no. C.206-1984). Daniel C. Waugh

18 volume 52, number 3 expedition Marco Polo’s Travels: Myth or Fact?

n 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 Ithat 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.

ries, many of the historic cities along the Inner Asian routes British Indian government, inaugurated serious archaeologi- declined and disappeared as a result of climate change (where cal of the sites in western China. His most famous water supplies dried up) or changes in the political map. Only accomplishment was to purchase from the self-appointed p. 37, #20. episodically did the ancient sites attract the attention of local keeper of the Mogao cave temples near Dunhuang in 1907 a rulers; at best, oral tradition preserved legends which bore significant part of a treasure trove of and paint- little relationship to the earlier history of the ruins. In Europe, ings discovered there only a few years earlier. A year later, the it was travel accounts such as that of Marco Polo which French sinologist shipped another major portion helped to alert early explorers of Central Asia to the possibil- of this collection back to Europe. In the meantime, pursuing ity of unearthing traces of Silk Road civilizations now buried leads suggested by earlier Russian exploration, German expe- beneath the sands. ditions had been active along the . There The foundation for modern Silk Road studies was laid they removed large chunks of from the most impor- between the late 1880s and the eve of World I. Somewhat tant Buddhist cave temples in the Turfan and Kucha regions by accident, the Swedish explorer discovered sev- and sent them back to . The Germans also found manu- eral of the ruined towns along the southern Silk Road, includ- script fragments and imagery from Christian and Manichaen ing Dandan Uiliq, north of Khotan, and Loulan, near the dried- temples. Such was the quantity and range of the textual and

The Silk Road on Land and Sea , 1989. China Pictorial Publications, up bed of Lake . Inspired by such information and artistic materials obtained by these early expeditions that their the trickle of antiquities that was now coming out of Central analysis is still far from complete. Part of the challenge was Asia, the Hungarian-born , an employee of the to decipher previously unknown languages and scripts. The Marco Polo from

www.penn.museum/ Merchant Diasporas and belated Chinese response to what they came to Our Knowledge of characterize as a plundering of their antiquities finally put a stop to most foreign exploration Silk Road Trade by the mid-1930s. In recent decades, new excavations have ur knowledge of the mechanisms for commercial added substantially to our knowledge of this exchange along the Silk Roads is still limited. Most com- part of Asia. One focus of Chinese archaeol- Omerce was “short-haul” between one oasis or town and ogy has been on the very early cultures of Inner the next, and probably never generated any written records. There Asia, which antedate the traditional “begin- were also long-distance caravans and merchant diasporas often ning of the Silk Roads.” The ongoing discover- located far from the “home office.” The Sogdians were involved in ies from locations such as the Astana , long-distance trade, documented first in Sogdian letters written by dating from the Tang period, are enabling us members of that diaspora in the early , and later from to now write a serious social and economic documents unearthed in the Turfan oasis, among them a famous history of some of the flourishing oasis com- example of a contract for the purchase of a slave. Religious affilia- munities, in a time when silk was still a major tion may have bound communities of entrepreneurs who were oth- that fueled commerce. erwise isolated minorities in larger population groups. Thus Eastern Our knowledge of the cultures in the Christians (Nestorians) played important roles in trade from the northern steppes commenced with the work Middle East to India and beyond. With the rise of Islam, it was not of Russian archaeologists beginning at the long before Muslim merchants were resident in the ports of south- end of the . Russian expeditions and in the Chinese capital of Chang’an. A vast repository organized by the famous Orientalist Wilhelm of Hebrew documents preserved in describes the activities of a Radloff documented sites in southern Siberia far-flung Jewish community all across the Mediterranean world into and northern Mongolia, providing some of the and through the Middle East. Italian merchants were first evidence about “cities in the steppe” and helping to publicize the earliest texts in a Turkic active all along the Silk Roads, even sending their representatives to language. Russian-Mongolian expeditions China in the time of the Mongol . revealed the richness of Xiongnu elite burials at Although Middle Eastern silk production was by now very sub- the site of Noyon uul (Noin Ula) in the moun- stantial, imports of Chinese raw silk were significant in the emergence tains of north-central Mongolia, and were of as a major center of silk weaving. One of the most valuable responsible for the first serious excavation of sources about products and prices is a commercial handbook com- the 13th century capital of the Mongol Empire, piled by the Florentine agent Pegalotti in in the 14th Karakorum. at sites throughout century. In it, he reports that the routes to China are generally safe for the Eurasian steppes has resulted in dramatic travel. By the late 16th and 17th centuries, Armenian Christians were discoveries, and forced us to question many placed in charge of the Safavid (Persian) silk trade. One of the most of our assumptions about when meaningful remarkable documents from this late period in the history of the Silk exchange across all of Eurasia began. Roads is an account by an Armenian, Hohvannes, who started Yet this is only part of the story, for equally at the home office in a of , traveled south to , dramatic discoveries have been made in recent then on to the Indian Ocean coast, where he boarded a to India. years regarding maritime trade. From the Once he arrived in the , he continued his buying and to the Mediterranean, nauti- selling, aided by a mechanism for cashing in letters of credit and for cal archaeology is documenting the cargoes of shipping goods back home even as he went on, ultimately spending everything from scrap metal to fine porcelain. time in before returning to India. Surprisingly, Hohvannes Excavations along the Sea and the East used double-entry bookkeeping and thus has left us an invaluable, African coasts have expanded our knowledge detailed account of goods and prices.

20 volume 52, number 3 expedition of contacts with India and the . 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 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 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

A 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 CE. From the Collection of the , Berlin (MIK III 6876a).

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 on the men and the intentional Daniel C. Waugh defacement of the mural. From the Collection of the Museum of Asian Art, Berlin (MIK III 8691).

www.penn.museum/ analytical tools such as DNA testing and remote sensing from Komaroff, Linda, and Stefano Carboni. The Legacy of Genghis satellites, at the very least should persuade us that the study of Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in , 1256–1353. this history is still young. Who knows what secrets remain to New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. be uncovered from the desert sands? , Xiaoshan, and Wang . The Ancient Culture in Xinjiang along daniel c. waugh is Professor Emeritus in History, the Silk Road. Ürümqi: Xinjiang renmin chubanshe, 2008. International Studies, and Slavic Languages and at Tucker, Jonathan. The Silk Road: Art and History. London: Art the in Seattle. He is the current direc- Media Resources, 2003. tor of the Silk Road Seattle Project and editor of the journal of the Silkroad Foundation. 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.

For Further Reading Whitfield, Susan. Life along the Silk Road. London: John Murray, Baumer, Christoph. Southern Silk Road: In the Footsteps of Sir Aurel 1999. Stein and Sven Hedin. Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2000. Whitfield, Susan, and Ursula Sims-Williams. The Silk Road: Trade, Hulsewé, F. P., and M. A. N. Loewe. China in Central Asia: The Early Travel, War and Faith. Chicago: Serindia Publications, 2004. 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. Websites Jackson, Peter, and David Morgan, trans. and eds. The Mission of William of Rubruck: His Journey to the Court of the Great Digital Silk Road (http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/). Khan Möngke 1253–1255. London: , 1990. Silk Road Seattle (http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad). Juliano, Annette L., and Judith A. Lerner. Monks and Merchants: The International Dunhuang Project (http://idp.bl.uk). Silk Road Treasures from : Gansu and Ningxia, 4th–. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., with The Asia The Silkroad Foundation (http://silkroadfoundation.org). Society, 2001.

About 130,000 ceramic vessels were recovered from a shipwrecked Chinese near Ca Mau, . 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 to Batavia (). From the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (nos. FE.49:2 to 179:1, 2-2007). Daniel C. Waugh

22 volume 52, number 3 expedition