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Silk Roads” in Time and Space: Migrations, Motifs, and Materials

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Silk Roads” in Time and Space: Migrations, Motifs, and Materials SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS Number 228 July, 2012 The “Silk Roads” in Time and Space: Migrations, Motifs, and Materials edited by Victor H. Mair Victor H. Mair, Editor Sino-Platonic Papers Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 USA [email protected] www.sino-platonic.org SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS FOUNDED 1986 Editor-in-Chief VICTOR H. MAIR Associate Editors PAULA ROBERTS MARK SWOFFORD ISSN 2157-9679 (print) 2157-9687 (online) SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS is an occasional series dedicated to making available to specialists and the interested public the results of research that, because of its unconventional or controversial nature, might otherwise go unpublished. The editor-in-chief actively encourages younger, not yet well established, scholars and independent authors to submit manuscripts for consideration. Contributions in any of the major scholarly languages of the world, including romanized modern standard Mandarin (MSM) and Japanese, are acceptable. In special circumstances, papers written in one of the Sinitic topolects (fangyan) may be considered for publication. Although the chief focus of Sino-Platonic Papers is on the intercultural relations of China with other peoples, challenging and creative studies on a wide variety of philological subjects will be entertained. This series is not the place for safe, sober, and stodgy presentations. Sino- Platonic Papers prefers lively work that, while taking reasonable risks to advance the field, capitalizes on brilliant new insights into the development of civilization. Submissions are regularly sent out to be refereed, and extensive editorial suggestions for revision may be offered. Sino-Platonic Papers emphasizes substance over form. We do, however, strongly recommend that prospective authors consult our style guidelines at www.sino-platonic.org/stylesheet.doc. Manuscripts should be submitted as electronic files, preferably in Microsoft Word format. You may wish to use our sample document template, available here: www.sino-platonic.org/spp.dot. Beginning with issue no. 171, Sino-Platonic Papers has been published electronically on the Web at www.sino-platonic.org. Issues 1–170, however, will continue to be sold as paper copies until our stock runs out, after which they too will be made available on the Web. Please note: When the editor goes on an expedition or research trip, all operations (including filling orders) may temporarily cease for up to three months at a time. In such circumstances, those who wish to purchase various issues of SPP are requested to wait patiently until he returns. If issues are urgently needed while the editor is away, they may be requested through Interlibrary Loan. You should also check our Web site at www.sino-platonic.org, as back issues are regularly rereleased for free as PDF editions. Sino-Platonic Papers is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Victor H. Mair, ed., “The ‘Silk Roads’ in Time and Space” Sino-Platonic Papers 228 (July 2012) The “Silk Roads” in Time and Space: Migrations, Motifs, and Materials Edited by Victor H. Mair Contents Victor H. Mair Introduction: Reconsidering and Reconfiguring the “Silk 3 Roads” Matthew Anderson The Languages and Writing Systems of the Tarim Basin 5 Pablo N. Barrera Wind and Water: Anthropogenic Use of Landscape at 20 Small River Cemetery No. 5 Vivian Chen “Weather” You Like It or Not: The Effects of Macro- 55 Climatic Fluctuations on the Tarim Basin Amelia Williams Ancient Felt Hats of the Eurasian Steppe 66 Julia Becker The Tarim Basin Beauties of Xiaohe and Krorän 94 Kimberly M. Castelo The Loulan Coffin: The Cultural Influence of Han 122 Dynasty China in the Tarim Basin Eiren Shea Warneck Representations of Tocharians in Buddhist Paintings 156 Robert Glasgow The Evolution of Sogdian Identity 202 Joel Dietz Hidden Dragon: Indo-European, Near Eastern, and 228 Chinese Poetic Themes 1 Victor H. Mair, ed., “The ‘Silk Roads’ in Time and Space” Sino-Platonic Papers 228 (July 2012) ZHOU Ying Jia Yi’s Proposal of the “Three Exemplifications and Five 253 Means of Allurement” and the Han-Xiongnu Relationship in Early Western Han Period Rebecca Shuang Fu A Misinterpreted Transmission: The Kang Poem in 273 Dunhuang Manuscript S. 5381 and the Kong Poem in Benshi shi Rashon Clark The Northwestern Muslim Rebellions 289 2 Introduction: Reconsidering and Reconfiguring the “Silk Roads” Victor H. Mair The papers in this volume were originally written as part of the requirements for a course entitled “Mummies of the Silk Road” that I taught at the University of Pennsylvania during the spring semester of 2011. There were over seventy students and auditors in this class. The present collection represents the best of the fifty or so papers that were turned in during that semester. With these papers, we wish to problematize the very idea of a Silk Road or Silk Roads. To be sure, during roughly the period from the late second century BCE to the end of the ninth century CE, there was a trans-Eurasian traffic that spanned from one end of the Eurasian super- continent to the other, but it was not monolithic, nor was it of high volume. This was what may be termed the classic Silk Road, and silk was indeed one of the most important commodities transported along this route. Yet, even during this period, many other goods and products were traded by stages along the so-called Silk Roads: glass, beads, silver, gold, medicines, spices, wool, furs, and so forth. Still further back in time, we know that jade was being exported to the Central Plains of East Asia from the mountains along the southern rim of the Tarim Basin. Even more importantly, during the second millennium BCE bronze metallurgy was transmitted from west to east,1 as were wheat, the chariot, the domesticated horse, domesticated ovicaprids, and other important elements of civilizations. During the first millennium BCE, iron metallurgy spread along these same routes. In terms of technology, industry, military affairs, and the general economy, surely wheat, bronze, iron, and the chariot are of far greater consequence than silk. Thus, referring to the Eurasian transcontinental trade routes as the “Silk Road” truly does present considerable difficulties. 1 Andrew Sherratt, “The Trans-Eurasian Exchange: The Prehistory of Chinese Relations with the West,” in Victor H. Mair, ed., Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006), pp. 30–61. 3 Victor H. Mair, ed., “The ‘Silk Roads’ in Time and Space” Sino-Platonic Papers 228 (July 2012) Furthermore, starting from the third millennium BCE, trans-Eurasian contact and exchange was not at all simply about goods and products. Equally important were intangible assets such as ideas and ideologies. Religions, burial practices, art forms, musical instruments and styles, calendrical and astronomical sciences, scripts and languages, and many other intellectual and cultural properties and practices were transferred from place to place across the length and breadth of Eurasia. Above all, peoples and the languages they spoke also spread across the megacontinent. The means for tracking their movements and migrations are becoming increasingly sophisticated with genetics, physical anthropology, historical linguistics, archeology, and other disciplines all playing key roles in the analysis of the abundant data. The papers in this volume cover a rich assortment of large and small topics, ranging from climate to caps, from mythical dragons to Muslim rebellions. Some of the papers look at various phenomena in startlingly new ways (e.g., the aerodynamics of a desert necropolis), while others go over new materials using tried and trusted methods (e.g., a close philological examination of an old poem in the light of recently recovered manuscripts). 4 The Languages and Writing Systems of the Tarim Basin Matthew Anderson The Tarim Basin during the first millennium CE was remarkably diverse linguistically. The Berlin Ethnological Museum expeditions to the northern Tarim and Turfan basins1 from 1902 to 1914 claimed to have collected documents written in 17 languages in 24 different scripts.2 Doug Hitch counts over 20 languages written in at least 20 scripts in first millennium CE Turfan alone; his not necessarily comprehensive list includes Old Turkic, Chinese, Sanskrit, Sogdian, Middle Persian, New Persian, Parthian, Tibetan, Mongolian, Prakrit, Tumshuqese, Tocharian A and B, Bactrian, Khotanese, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Tangut, Greek, and Khitan.3 Of all the locations in the Tarim Basin region, Turfan was the most linguistically diverse; however, as Hitch has given a comprehensive description of the situation in this region in his 2009 article, it will not be the focus of this discussion. While Turfan is unique, perhaps, in its having the highest level of linguistic and scriptural diversity, it is simply the most extreme case in the region — it is clear that the populations of many of the ancient urban centers of the Tarim Basin, from Kucha to Khotan, made use of many different languages and writing systems. According to Hitch, Khotan, for example, had seven languages — Khotanese, Sanskrit, Chinese, Prākrit, Old Turkic, Tibetan, and New Persian — and Kucha had six — Tocharian B (Kuchean), Old Turkic, Sanskrit, Chinese, Sogdian, and Prākrit.4 1 Some scholars treat the Tarim Basin and Turfan Basin as separate regions; Doug Hitch, for example, does this (see Hitch 2009, p. 3, n. 7). For the purpose of this article I take the broader view, including the Turfan Basin as a region within the Tarim Basin. 2 Mallory and Mair 2000, p. 102. 3 Hitch 2009, p. 1. 4 Hitch 2009, p. 3, n. 8 and n. 9. 5 Victor H.
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