The term ‘Silk Road’ conjures a range of romantic images. Camel caravans crossing desert dunes. Merchants trading silk and spices. Far-flung commerce between ‘East’ and ‘West’. The reality was far richer.
Focusing on a defining period between 500 and 1000 CE, this beautifully illustrated book reimagines the Silk Roads as a web of interlocking networks linking Asia, Africa and Europe, from Japan to Ireland, from the Arctic to Madagascar.
Ambitious in its scope and vast in its geographical range, this publication is the first in the Museum’s history to have a multi-curatorial approach, featuring chapters written by expert curators Sue Brunning, Luk Yu-ping and Elisabeth R. O’Connell, along with external Silk Roads scholar Tim Williams and including dazzling objects from around the world.
It tells a remarkable story of people, objects and ideas flowing in all directions, through the traces these journeys left behind – including ceramics from Tang China recovered from a shipwreck in the Java Sea, sword-fittings set with Indian garnets buried in England, and a selection of letters and legal texts from a synagogue in Cairo revealing a Jewish community’s links from India to al-Andalus.
Woven throughout, encounters with various peoples active on the Silk Roads, from seafarers to Sogdians, Aksumites and Vikings, reveal the human stories, innovations and transfers of knowledge that emerged, shaping cultures and histories across continents centuries before the formation of today’s globalised world.
Silk Roads
By Sue Brunning, Luk Yu-ping, Elisabeth R. O’Connelland Tim Williams
Sue Brunning is Curator, European Early Medieval Collections at the British Museum. Luk Yu-ping is Basil Gray Curator: Chinese Paintings, Prints and Central Asian Collections at the British Museum.
Elisabeth R. O’Connell is Curator, Byzantine World at the British Museum.
Tim Williams is Emeritus Professor of Silk Roads Archaeology at University College London.
Open Saturday to Thursday 10.00–17.00, Friday 10.00–20.30. Last entry 15 minutes before closing. Early bird tickets from £14, under-16s free when accompanied by a paying adult, 2-for-1 tickets for students on Fridays, and concessions and group rates available.
About The British Museum Press
The British Museum Press publishes award-winning illustrated books for general readers, families, academics, and students. Inspired by the famous collections of the British Museum, our titles range across the fine and decorative arts, history, archaeology, and world cultures.
Published to accompany the British Museum’s innovative exhibition programme, to celebrate key areas of the collection, and to tell the stories of some of its amazing objects, our books shed light on new discoveries of global interest and provide fresh insights into well-known objects and periods of history.
Beautifully produced and written by experts in their fields, our titles are sold throughout the world in many languages with all profits going to support the work of the British Museum. The British Museum Press is a division of the British Museum Company Ltd, a company and a charity wholly owned by the Trustees of the British Museum.
Where to buy
For UK and Export trade orders please contact sales@thameshudson.co.uk. For individual customer orders please visit the British Museum online shop. The accompanying major exhibition, Silk Roads, opens at the British Museum on 26 September 2024.
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