Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery, British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG
26 September 2024 – 23 February 2025
This magnificent exhibition celebrates and expands the concept of the ‘Silk Road’. The derivation of the Silk Road began in the 18th century reflecting on the trade of expensive Chinese silk. However, there were multiple routes by land and sea which spanned continents.
Silk Roads addresses the multiple roads, routes and networks that allowed the movement of goods, ideas and culture by these east-west trade routes focusing on AD 500 to AD 1000. It was a connected world, a diversity of ideas, and commerce spreading across continents
There are over three hundred exhibits of such detail and craftsmanship that require very careful and measured viewing. Here follows a small selection showing the geographical and cultural diversity of the show.
From the tomb of the general Liu Tingxun, Louyang, China, AD728. This beautiful, colourful clay figurine represents a Bactrian camel, the beasts of burden for desert journeys.
One of the oldest copies of the Qur’an, these pages details the Hajj, the religious duty of visiting Mecca, which began in the AD 600s. A map of Mecca, Cairo, Egypt, Original by ai-Idrisi, about 1154, this version 1533.
Cave 17, Mogao Caves, Dunhuang, China, about AD 700s. This embroidery depicts the Buddha emerging from a rock mountain. It is suggested that this textile was commissioned by a monk at the major Buddhist complex at the Mogao Caves.
Wall painting. Palace of Varakhsha, Bukhara region, Uzbekistan, about AD 730.
Shoe, Mazar Tagh, China, Late AD 700s-800s. This shoe was found in the guard station at a desert hill fort. A simple shoe for everyday use on the Silk Roads.
Ceramicists both east and west started to use, imitate and develop styles and techniques from the two-way exchange between Chinese and Islamic ceramics.
Sculpture, Corridor 28, Ajina-Tepa, Vakhsh Valley, Tjikstan, AD 600s-700s. The robe or ‘kaftan’ on this figure with its lapels formed by overlapping front panels was popular across Eurasia.
This stucco panel with its abstract and geometric designs illustrates how these compositions spread through the Muslim world, suggesting the movement of artisans. Samarkand (Afrasiab), Usbekistan, AD 800-1000.
Byzantium and the Sasanian Empire. Riding coat and gaiters, Sheikh Ibada, Egypt. Coat, cashmere and sheep’s wool fabric, AD 450-550. Gaiters, linen and silk, AD 400-700. Byzantine splendour. Byzantine and the Sasanian Empire.
Kingdom of Ghana, land of gold, original map by Al-Idris (1100-66), copied 1300-1500. By the end of the AD 800s the Kingdom of Ghana was being described as ‘the land of gold’.
This gold vessel is modelled on an Indo-Pacific nautilus shell. The Avers were a formerly nomadic people who migrated West from the Asian Steppe to the east of Francia, present-day central Europe.
The Lichfield Angel, is a foreign-influenced sculpture made in the kingdom of Mercia, about AD 800. Christian art in early medieval England was shaped by imported ideas.
