The Ever-Changing Technology and Significance of Silk on the Silk Road

2020 ◽  
pp. 221-235
Author(s):  
Zhao Feng
Keyword(s):  
Southern China ◽  
Classical System ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Traditional System ◽  
Pattern Structure ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The Silk Road

Silk production was invented in China, where the development of its technology did not stop, having been stimulated especially by cultural exchange along the Silk Road. There were four steps of the development of silk technology on the Silk Road. All of the information is based on archaeological and scientific research rather than derived from historical or linguistic sources. The first development was of the ancient system during the Han dynasty in China (second century BCE–second century CE) consisting of sericulture in northern China, hand silk reeling, Chinese dyes, multiheddle patterning loom, and warp-faced pattern structure. This was succeeded by the Central Asian system in early middle period (second–seventh centuries CE): no-killing sericulture, silk spun from cocoons, Western dyes, the development of the picking-up patterning loom, and weft-faced pattern structure. The third step was the classical system in southern China (seventh–twelfth centuries CE) with the development of sericulture in southern China, treadle-controlled silk reeling, new Chinese dyes, the real drawloom, and both warp and weft pattern structure. Last comes the traditional system in Europe (thirteenth–sixteenth centuries CE), with sericulture and silk reeling in Europe, European dyes, and the development of the drawloom to the Jacquard loom, allowing new weaves and patterns.

scholarly journals CLUSTER APPROACH IN CULTURAL HERITAGE TOURISM CASE OF THE CENTRAL ASIAN SECTION OF SILK ROAD

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Mukhambetov ◽  
M. Ottenbacher
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Economic Science ◽  
Cluster Approach ◽  
Model Calculations ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The Silk Road

Modern social and economic science pays little attention to the development of tourism based on new approaches to its management and organization. As a result, the most important sector of the economy develops in practice on the basis of not always effective traditional models. The research problem of the development of a new approach to the organization of tourism products with cross-border nature is developed in this article. The purpose was to develop a methodological toolkit for the development of cross-border tourism based on the cluster approach. To achieve this goal, the study design was based on the study of tourism features that affect the planning and clustering process. The highlighted stages of clustering in the form of identifying tourism objects, designing clusters, forming cluster structures form the basis of a new socio-economic model of the tourism industry. To design a regional cross-border tourism cluster, a method is substantiated and applied to correlate all indicators of cluster tourism development to the number of cultural and historical objects. The selected 19 indicators of development are combined into 6 groups, which make it possible to comprehensively assess the cluster organization of tourism in the region. The approbation of the indicators was carried out on the example of all five countries of the Central Asian section of the Silk Road. Model calculations of the developed set of analytical cluster indicators made it possible to combine the identified objects in each region into homogeneous clusters. In this case, Ward’smethod was used, and the square of the Euclidean distance was used as the objective function and criterion of similarity and difference. The proposed cluster maps make it possible to activate and increase the competitiveness of the tourism product as a whole and give impetus to socio-economic development in each country of the Central Asian region. Key words: tourism, tourism competitiveness, social and economic development of the region, the Silk Road, tourism cluster, cluster design.

scholarly journals The Lashkendar Church and the Alan-Abkhazian Cultural Contacts: Prospects of Studying

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 298-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Yu. Endoltseva
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Close Proximity ◽  
Krasnodar Region ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Silk Road ◽  
Christian Beliefs

The article studies the Alan-Abkhazian cultural contacts by analyzing architectural decorations of these peoples. Actuality of the study is determined by considering the architectural decorations as a cultural marker of Abkhazians and Alans in the period of the 8th—10th centuries. This point of consideration is primarily important for studying the material culture of the ethnic groups living in close proximity to the route of the Silk Road, which is regarded as a powerful catalyst for cultural exchange between the numerous tribes and peoples each having its own unique and diverse artistic skills. The article compares a number of artifacts: some fragments of the altar barrier from Anacopia (Republic of Abkhazia, New Athos) and some fragments of the altar barrier from the Ilyichevskoe Hillfort (Krasnodar Region, Otradnensky District). This allows the author to state that there existed common ornamental schemes in the monumental art of those peoples in the period preceding the 13th—14th centuries. The article analyzes the patterns and zoomorphic images of “animals in a heraldic pose” from the church on Mount Lashkendar (Republic of Abkhazia, Tkuarchalsky District), and a dog from the Alan tomb of the Kyafarskoe Hillfort (Karachay-Cherkess Republic, Zelenchuksky District), providing additional arguments for the animals’ identifi cation. The author explores the system of images of the Alan tomb to determine the semantics of the dog’s image in the Christian church’s decoration and comes to the conclusion that the symbolism of the dog’s image originates from pre-Christian beliefs (namely, those Zoroastrian). The article emphasizes the fruitfulness of studying the Alan-Abkhazian contacts using the example of architectural decoration: it makes possible to identify some images and specify their dates. The author offers a variant of identifi cation of the relief from Mount Lashkendar; defi nes the place of this unique monument in the course of formation of the original artistic culture of the Abkhazian Kingdom; notes the heterogeneous infl uences on this process, coming both from the territories of different regions of the Byzantine Empire (Constantinople, Cappadocia, etc.) and from Transcaucasia (Armenia, Georgia). The Alan-Abkhazian layer of cultural contacts is highlighted.

Silk Road Christians and the Translation of Culture in Tang China

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 15-38
Author(s):  
Scott Fitzgerald Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Silk Road ◽  
Cultural Translation ◽  
Cultural Environment ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The World ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Silk Road ◽  
Previous Scholarship

This article attempts to analyse the famous ‘Nestorian Monument’ from Xi'an, set up in 781 by Syriac Christians, as a document of cultural translation and integration. Previous scholarship on the monument has tended to privilege either the Syriac or the Chinese sections of the inscription. By combining the two, and by making use of recent advances in the study of Syriac Christians along the Silk Road, this article argues that the Syriac Christians who set up the monument were using their long history, extending from Persia to China, as a means of establishing their community publicly in new political circumstances of China in the 780s. The role of Syriac on this monument was twofold: it signalled to the local Syriac-speaking community their fundamental ties to the world of Persian and central Asian Christianity, while it also allowed, through ideological and linguistic interaction with Chinese, the maintenance of a Syriac Christian identity through the process of translation. The language of Syriac therefore provides the background of a community looking both backward and forward in a foreign, changing cultural environment.

scholarly journals Russian-Chinese cooperation in Central Asia in the context of ‘Belt and Road Initiative:’ Historical retrospective and economic prospects

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 845-864
Author(s):  
Stanislav E. Martynenko ◽  
Nickolay P. Parkhitko
Keyword(s):  
Silk Road ◽  
Belt And Road Initiative ◽  
Economic Stability ◽  
Chinese Investment ◽  
Political Independence ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
History Of ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Silk Road

This article examines Russo-Chinese investment cooperation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (originally the Silk Road Economic Belt). At the same time, it also studies bilateral agreements, as well as investment and mechanisms. Another focus is the impact of the BRI in Central Asian countries on Russian interests in the region. Research is based on an analysis of the history of joint Russian and Chinese initiatives for economic development to determine the feasibility of cooperation in the BRI. Meanwhile, the authors discuss the BRI’s impact on the economic and foreign policy of the two partners, as well as the risks and opportunities for Russia. The article is based on content and statistical analysis combined with a historical approach. It concludes that Russia and China are actively developing investment cooperation in the framework of the BRI, including the Silk Road Fund. The principal elements of the partnership involve the economy and processing and transporting energy resources. Its objective is to attain both regional economic stability as well as maximizing economic and political independence.

The Kushan Empire

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinru Liu
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Local Institutions ◽  
Large Area ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The Silk Road

The Kushan Empire was a political power that started as a nomadic tribe from the Central Asian steppe and became established as sedentary state across South Asia and Central Asia. Migrating from the border of agricultural China in late 2nd century bce to north Afghanistan, by the 1st century ce, the Yuezhi nomads transformed themselves into a ruling elite in a large area from Afghanistan to the Indus Valley and North Indian Plain, embracing many linguistic and ethnic groups. Adapting the Persian satrapy administrative system into Indian kshatrapa administration, the Kushan regime gave much autonomy to local institutions such as castes, guilds, and Buddhist monasteries and meanwhile won support from those local communities. Legacies from Achaemenid Persia and Hellenistic cities, the cultures of various nomadic groups from Central Asia, and Buddhist and Brahmanical traditions merged to create a cosmopolitan Kushan material culture and art. Mahāyāna Buddhist theology and institutions matured in the Kushan economic and cultural environment and were propagated to Central Asia and China from there. Having under their control several important commodities, such as silk, lapis lazuli, and horses, demanded by elites from the Roman Empire, the Han Empire, and the Parthian Empire, the Kushan court sat on a key location of the Eurasian trade networks, or the Silk Road. The Kushan Empire benefited from the Silk Road trade economically and meanwhile received knowledge of faraway countries and facilitated transferring the information to the visions of the Romans, Parthians, and Chinese.

The Silk Road between Syria and China

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David F. Graf
Keyword(s):  
Han Dynasty ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
The State ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
The Silk Road

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the archaeological and written evidence for the so-called Silk Roads and the development of trade along them between the second century BC and the end of the Han dynasty in the early second century AD. The Silk Road trade at the Chinese end originated epiphenomenally on the practice of state tribute and diplomatic embassies, as tribute in kind and diplomatic gifts were resold by their enterprising recipients. As trade developed along the routes westwards and gained its own momentum, its value was harnessed by the state in the form of heavy customs dues. Rather than a coordinated route utilized by merchants travelling the length of the terrain between China and Rome, the picture emerging is that of segmented trade involving various merchants.

The ‘Silk Road’: Historical Perspectives and Modern Constructions

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-39
Author(s):  
Ravi K. Mishra
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Mongol Empire ◽  
Historical Past ◽  
The Silk Road

As it is frequently the case in the modern world, the term ‘Silk Road’ or ‘Silk Roads’ is of colonial provenance. The elaborate network of ancient routes originating in the fourth millennium bc and linking various parts of the Eurasian landmass through Central Asia was re-imagined and reinvented in the late nineteenth century as a ‘Silk Road’ connecting China with the Roman Empire, thereby undermining the role of the steppe with its various nomadic and oasis cultures which had always been at the heart of this Eurasian system of trade and other exchange. Ever since, historiography has focussed on the role of sedentary civilisations in this system of exchange, with a particular emphasis on China and the West, thus undermining the role of other sedentary civilisations such as India. Contrary to the dominant narrative, the antiquity of the Eurasian trade network goes back to several millennia before the rise of either the Han Empire or Rome. Whereas this network did connect the agrarian civilisations, this happened primarily through the agency of central Asian intermediaries whose culmination is represented by the rise of the vast Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century. The idea of the ‘Silk Road(s)’ is thus anachronistic in the sense that it is a backward projection of present into the historical past, especially in view of the fact that silk was only one among several important items of exchange, such as horses, cotton, precious stones, and furs.

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