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The legacy of the Silk Road课文概
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NEW HAVEN: Despite all the talk in diplomatic circles of a new Silk Road and restoring trade in Central Asia, in actuality, the routes were among the least traveled in human history - possibly not worth studying if tonnage, traffic or the number of travelers at any one time were sole measures. The Silk Road found a place in history becau of its rich cultural legacy in written records and artifacts, and becau trade and tolerance were so intertwined.父亲猜女儿在线
Trade was not the primary purpo of the Silk Road, more a network of pathways than a road, in its heyday. Instead, the Silk Road changed history, largely becau the people who managed to travel along part or all of the Silk Road planted their cultures like eds of exotic species carried to distant lands. Thriving in new homes, newers mixed with local residents and often absorbed other groups who followed. Sites of sustained economic activity, oasis towns like Turfan, Dunhuang or Khotan, enticed still others to cross over mountains and traver oceans of sand. While not much of a mercial route, the Silk Road
became the planet’s most famous cultural artery for the exchange between East and West of religions, art, languages and new technologies.
We u the term “Silk Road” to refer generally to the exchanges between China and places farther to the west, specifically Iran, India and, on rare occasions, Europe. Most vigorous before the year 1000, the exchanges were often linked to Buddhism.
And that’s why cities of Khotan and Kashgar in Xinjiang, northwestern China, are famous for their Sunday markets, where tourists can buy locally made crafts, naan and grilled mutton on skewers. As visitors watch farmers fiercely bargaining over the price of a donkey, it’s easy to imagine Xinjiang always this way, but that's an illusion. The predominantly non-Chine crowds in the northwest prompt a similar reaction: Surely the are the direct descendants of the earliest Silk Road ttlers.
凤凰火御魂In fact, though, a major historic break divides modern Xinjiang from its Silk Road past. The Islamic conquest of the Buddhist kingdom in 1006 brought a dramatic realignment to the region. Eventually Xinjiang’s inhabitants converted to Islam making that the principal r
eligion in the region today. They also gradually gave up speaking Khotane, Tocharian, Gandhari and other languages spoken during the first millennium AD for Uighur, the language one hears most often in the region today.
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Excavated materials shed light on the nature of the Silk Road trade. The materials, written on paper, silk, leather and wood, survive only in dry locales, places like Niya, Loulan, Kucha, Turfan and Khotan in Xinjiang; Samarkand in Uzbekistan; Chang’an, Dunhuang in Gansu province; and Chang’an, the capital during the Former Han dynasty (206 BC-9 AD) and the Tang (618-907). The documents were recovered not only fromtombs, but also from abandoned postal stations, shrines and homes, beneaththe dry dert - the perfect environment for the prervation of documents as well as art, clothing, ancient religious texts, ossified food and human remains.
Many documents, found by accident, were written by people from all social levels, not simply the literate rich and powerful. The documents were not pod as histories. Their authors did not expect later generations to read them, yet they offer a glimp into the past that's often refreshingly personal, factual, anecdotal, and random.
Documents later recycled as shoes for the dead or in the arms of figurines show that Silk Road trade was often local and small in scale. Even the most ardent believer in a high-volume, frequent trade must concede that there is little empirical basis. Scholars offer varying interpretations of the scraps of evidence, but there's no denying that the debates concern scraps, not massive bodies, of evidence.
老年机推荐The modern discovery of the Silk Road began in 1895 when the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin launched his first expedition into the Taklamakan Dert in arch of the source of the Khotan River. After 15 days, he discovered that he was not carrying enough water for himlf and the four men with him. He did not turn back, not wanting to admit his expedition had failed. When their supply ran out, he began a desperate arch, eventually locating a stream, but not before two men perished.
Enlarge ImageCourtesy ofThe International Dunhuang Project.The Silk Road:
As he made his way out of the dert, Hedin encountered a caravan of merchants and pack animals, and he purchad three hors, saddles, maize, flour, tea, utensils and bo
ots. This list, described in his biography, is revealing. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, almost all the goods traded in the Taklamakan were locally made necessities, not foreign imports.
Similarly, during the first millennium, markets offered more local goods for sale than foreign-made imports. At one market in Turfan in 743, local officials recorded prices for 350 items, including typical Silk Road goods like ammonium chloride, ud for dyeing cloth and softening leather, as well as aromatics, sugar and brass. Of cour, locally grown vegetables, staples and animals, some brought over long distances, were also available.
