Silk, Slaves, and Stupas

Material Culture of the Silk Road

Susan Whitield

University of Califor nia Pr ess

UC_Whitfield-text.indd 3 1/4/18 5:47 PM

 CON T EN TS

List of Illustrations vii

Acknowledgments xi
Note on Transliteration and Names xiii

Introduction 1
1 • A Pair of Steppe Earrings 9
2 • A Hellenistic Glass Bowl 34
3 • A Hoard of Kushan Coins 57
4 • Amluk Dara Stupa 81
5 • A Bactrian Ewer 111
6 • A Khotanese Plaque 137
7 • he Blue Qurʾan 164
8 • A Byzantine Hunter Silk 190
9 • A Chinese Almanac 219
10 • he Unknown Slave 250

Bibliography 273
Index 313

UC_Whitfield-text.indd 5 1/4/18 5:47 PM

 Introduction
We are surrounded by things, and we are surrounded by history.
But too seldom do we use the artifacts that make up our envi-
ronment to understand the past. Too seldom do we try to read
objects as we read books—to understand the people and times
that created them, used them, and discarded them.
— S t e v e n Lu b a r a n d W. Dav i d K i ng e r ,
History rom hings: Essays on Material Culture

This is a book about things on the Silk Road.1 hings or

objects speak to us, in the sense of causing us to create a narrative. he narra-
tive, however simple—“his is a receptacle made to hold my tea”—is depen-
dent not only on the object’s qualities and context but on our qualities and
context. his is a dialogue. he initial narrative might be one of many pro-
voked by the object for one individual, let alone across individuals with dif-
ferent experiences, knowledge, beliefs, and cultural backgrounds. A drink-
ing receptacle might be recognized as such across individuals, although some
might see it as a cup for drinking wine, others as a cup for water. Outside
its initial context—outside the space and time in which it was created—the
object might no longer invoke the narrative intended by its creator. Such is
oten the case with objects created for religious or ritual purposes. Historians
and archaeologists seek to understand more about the context in order to try
to recreate the narrative of the object, its biography or history: How, why,
when, and by whom was it made? Where, how, and by whom was it used, and
for what purposes? Did it travel? Was it adapted, changed, broken, repaired?
Without direct access to the original context, we have to accept that at times
we might get the answers to these questions spectacularly wrong.2

1. I use the terms objects and things interchangeably here. See below for my explanation
of their scope.
2. he South African ilm he Gods Must Be Crazy used this scenario to good efect. A
tribe living in the Kalahari Desert are perplexed by a Coca-Cola bottle that lands in their
village ater having been thrown from a small plane. In this new context, the object, which

UC_Whitfield-text.indd 1 1/4/18 5:47 PM

 Telling history through objects rather than people or events is not a new
approach, but over the past two decades it has become more central in teach-
ing and in popularizing world history.3 Particularly successful has been the
history of commodities. 4 his approach has increasingly been adopted by
academic institutions, especially for modern history.5 Seeking alternative
sources for history is not, however, restricted to commodities, and new text-
books in this area range across the mundane, the ornamental, the useful, and
the built. 6
his book focuses on made rather than raw materials but takes a broad
view of objects or things—including commodities; “natural” and animate
things such as people, horses, and camels; and complex created things, such
as jewelry, glass, paintings, and buildings. I do not exclude texts. Instead of
arguing that texts are distinct from other things—that texts are “not neutral
epistles . . . like other products of human creativity” but are “active in the pro-
duction, negotiation and transformation of social relationships”7—I view the
nontextual objects of human creativity also to be active in the production,
negotiation, and transformation of these relationships. his book therefore
takes the approach of historical archaeology, described by John Moreland as
recognizing “that people in the past conducted their social practice, and con-
strued their identities, through the Object, the Voice and the Word in spe-
ciic historical circumstances.”8
For some historiographers, the seduction of a key object is similar that of
a “great man,” whereas others look at the humble but plentiful potsherds to
understand the past. his book attempts to take a middle line, concentrating
most chapters around a single object but considering its context by looking at
related objects—including people. he objects selected have complex stories

they see as a git from the gods, is bestowed with all sorts of meaning completely unrelated
to its original function. It should be noted that even access to the culture does not guarantee
that an outsider will correctly interpret the situation, as some anthropological reports have
shown.
3. Most notably with MacGregor (2011).
4. See, e.g., Mintz (1985); Kurlansky (2002).
5. Such as the project “Commodities in World History, 1450–1950,” carried out by the
University of California Santa Cruz’s Center for World History.
6. See, for example, Harvey (2009) and Hicks and Beaudry (2010).
7. Moreland (2001: 31).
8. Moreland (1991: 119).

2 • I n t roduc t ion

UC_Whitfield-text.indd 2 1/4/18 5:47 PM

 to be told, and this book aims to give this “thick description,” a close-grained
analysis of each object in its times and places.9
Movement of objects—including people—is essential to the concept of
the Silk Road, and most of the objects chosen here have journeyed along the
Silk Road. But the vast majority of such objects—everyday or luxury, traded
or not—have long disappeared: food, wine, and medicines were consumed;
slaves, elephants, and horses died; textiles, wood, and ivory decayed; glass
and pottery were broken.10 Only in rare cases did objects survive by design
or accident, as in hoards of metal or glass, or in burials when objects were
suiciently valued to be interred with corpses, as in the case of three of the
objects discussed here (chapters 1, 2, and 5). Texts are oten the only evidence
for the existence of other objects, but both the archaeology and the texts are
extremely fragmentary.
Objects are not neutral and inert in this story: they change and also efect
change. his is where a material culture approach is especially relevant to the
Silk Road. In the interaction of the objects with the cultures they encoun-
tered—those that made them, carried them, received them, used them, sold
them, discarded them—we can gain new perspectives on those cultures at
those times. his book seeks to take account of more recent discussions of
“things” to include their interactions with humans (themselves “things”), the
usual approach to material culture, but also the interdependence of things
and humans—their entanglement.11
his is a book set in a period and places characterized by such entangle-
ment. Most of the objects selected here have more than one cultural context
and ind themselves entangled with things—including people—of diferent
cultures and times. I do not restrict discussion to the object in its original
setting but in many cases bring the story to the present, looking at a range of
very diferent relationships—the entanglement of the object and the conser-
vator, the curator, the scholar, the collector, the looter, and others.
Several of the objects I discuss are luxury or monumental objects—the

9. “Culture is not a power, something to which social events, behaviours, institutions,

or processes can be casually attributed; it is a context, something within which they can be
intelligibly—that is, thickly—described” (Geertz 1973: 316).
10. “Transport of horses and elephants from India both to Sri Lanka and southeast Asia”
(Ray 1994: 39).
11. For a recent and detailed discussion of the entanglement of humans and things, see
Hodder (2012).

I n t roduc t ion • 3

UC_Whitfield-text.indd 3 1/4/18 5:47 PM

 earrings, ewer, silk, Qur’an, and stupa. he pair of earrings (chapter 1), were
discovered in a tomb in the territories of the Xiongnu Empire and show char-
acteristics and materials from a variety of cultures subsumed under the impe-
rial labels of “Xiongnu” and “Chinese.”12 he presentation of their story oten
tends to veer to the dichotomous—steppe and settled, nomad and agricul-
turalist, barbarian and civilized—and I very much hope to avoid that here,
as I believe it to be crude and unhelpful.13 he discussion is intended to chal-
lenge the use of binary labels or any such hard distinctions. hese include
those sometimes made between trade and tribute and between government
and private trade. One intention of this book is to show that the issues are
more complex than sometimes presented, to sow uncertainty and to give ref-
erences for further reading..
he environment is an essential part of the stories of all the things dis-
cussed in this book. It provided materials, conditions, and impetus for the
development of technologies, the exploitation and manufacture of items, and
the movement of peoples.14 he changing environment, for example, is a cata-
lyst in the story of the earrings: some scholars have argued that the Xiongnu
peoples originated in the Altai but were forced out by changes in climate in
the fourth century BC, thus moving south into Central Asia and the borders
of China, where we encounter them in chapter 1.15 In turn, it is argued, this
movement forced the existing population, the Yuezhi, to move west, where
they established the Hephthalite Empire, possibly the makers of the Bactrian
ewer discussed in chapter 5.
Another similarly complex issue raised in this irst chapter is the question
of where, by whom, and for whom things were made. Technologies, materi-
als, fashions, and cratsmen all traveled—I would argue this is an important
characteristic of the Silk Road—and we have at best tentative hypotheses
about where these earrings were made. We have to accept that these might be

12. he steppe (and sea) routes links across Eurasia were included under the “Silk
Road” rubric in a 1957 report on Japanese scholarship on the Silk Road (Japanese National
Commission 1957 and Whitield 2018).
13. Whitield (2008).
14. For the relationship between objects, people, and the environment, see Ryan and
Durning (1997).
15. Schlütz and Lehmkuhl (2007: 114). hey might also have spread to the borders of
Europe, if we accept that these are the peoples subsumed under the term Huns in the lit-
erature of the settled. For a critique of this assumption, see Kim (2016: 141) and chapter 1.

4 • I n t roduc t ion

UC_Whitfield-text.indd 4 1/4/18 5:47 PM

 challenged by future inds. In other words, in many cases, when dealing with
the material culture of the Silk Road, we are on shaky ground.
he earrings survived, as they were buried in a tomb, and this is the case
with another two objects discussed here: the Hellenistic glass bowl (chap-
ter 2) and the Bactrian ewer (chapter 5). hese were found in elite tombs, and
it is possible that such objects were considered to be “foreign” or “exotic” and
that their inclusion in the tombs was intended to heighten the status and cos-
mopolitanism of the owner. his would assume, in turn, that cosmopolitan-
ism was considered positively in the owners’ societies.
he chapter on the Bactrian ewer raises the important and oten over-
looked role of the transmission of intangible cultural heritage on the Silk
Road. Like the material object itself, which has antecedents in Roman and
then Sasanian vessels but which has developed its own characteristics, the
story depicted on the vessel, most probably part of the Trojan War cycle, has
developed its own characteristics. Not least among these is the depiction of
Paris holding two fruits, little resembling apples. Of course, we have no evi-
dence to suggest that there was any direct knowledge of Roman ewers or the
Trojan War epic, and the cratsmen who made this object and the original
owner might well have seen it as an entirely local production representing a
local story. However, as it moved eastwards into China, it would certainly
have been viewed as foreign—as coming from the “west” even if that west
was Central Asia and not the borders of Europe.
Glass and glass technology, discussed in chapter 2 on the Hellenistic glass
bowl, present an interesting comparison and contrast to sericulture on the
Silk Road (see chapter 8). he raw materials for glass were readily available
throughout much of Eurasia. he techniques were also present, at least the
iring of raw materials to transform them and the use of lux to reduce the
iring temperatures. he technology was invented or difused across Eurasia
from at least the irst millennium BC. But whereas silk started in the East,
for glass the technology was reined in West Asia on the fringes of Europe—
and spread east into Sasanian Persia and to China and Korea. he South Asia
tradition might have developed independently but was certainly informed
by objects arriving from West Asia. And, also unlike silk technology and its
products, which were mastered and valued in all the major cultures across the
Silk Road, glass technology had a stuttering progress in China. Perhaps this
is because other materials—jade and increasingly ine ceramics—illed the
aesthetic need for a translucent but hard material that glass illed in other cul-

I n t roduc t ion • 5

UC_Whitfield-text.indd 5 1/4/18 5:47 PM

 tures where ceramic technology was far less developed. But glass was clearly
valued by some, as shown by the existence of items in elite tombs, the impor-
tance of glass in Buddhism, and the adoption of and experimentation with
the technology at diferent times in China.
Silk is an ongoing and central part of this story, and in chapter 8 I have
chosen a piece to discuss that comes from fairly late, from the eighth to tenth
centuries, so that I can explore the spread of silk technologies—moricul-
ture, sericulture, weaving—from their origins in China. While silk was not
always the major trade item over the whole period or even the major item
across some of the networks, it certainly remained signiicant. he raw and
inished materials continued to be valued and traded throughout the period.
We also see the development of new weaves as the materials and technolo-
gies spread outside China.
Silk—and glass—were both part of the story of Buddhism, playing an
important role in the practice of the faith. Buddhism is explored further in
the discussion of the main stupa at Amluk Dara Stupa in chapter 4. As an
architectural object, this stupa has not moved along the Silk Road, but it
relects the movement of Buddhism and the changing landscape—environ-
mental, cultural, religious, political—of a place, in this case the Swat valley.
It also brings into discussion the complex logistics involved in the transmis-
sion of architectural forms.
he wooden plaque, discussed in chapter 6, also belongs to the story of
Buddhism, but I chose it because of the other narratives it tells, especially
about the importance of the horse and the role of smaller and oten forgot-
ten Silk Road cultures: in this case, that of the Khotanese. It also exempli-
ies how far we have to travel yet as scholars to understand the Silk Road: it
depicts iconography that is commonly found throughout Khotan but that we
are still struggling to interpret.
he three textual objects in this book are selected because in each the text
has a diferent context. Chapter 3 looks at a hoard of coins from the Kushan
Empire. Coins fall on the cusp of text and object, and it is therefore perhaps
not surprising that numismatics is a discipline that straddles both history and
archaeology. In many cultures coins conirm other sources about the chro-
nology and names of rulers and sometimes complete gaps. For the Kushan
Empire, coins are the main source for reconstructing this chronology. heir
inscriptions enable historians to reconstruct a time line of rulers, even though
there has been considerable dispute about where to place the start of this time

6 • I n t roduc t ion

UC_Whitfield-text.indd 6 1/4/18 5:47 PM

 line.16 Few other extant written records have been found that are produced by
the Kushans themselves, and the names of rulers in the annals of neighbor-
ing empires, such as the Chinese Later Han dynasty, are diicult to recon-
struct. herefore archaeology plays a much greater role in our understanding
of Kushan history than in many other literate cultures. he cache of coins
considered here have a further story to tell, as they were discovered, not in
Kushan or a neighboring country that was a trading partner, but thousands of
miles away in a Christian monastery in what is now Ethiopia. he reason for
their journey is not certain, although we can hypothesize, but the fact of their
making it is indicative of long-distance routes across sea and land at this time.
he second text considered here (chapter 9) is from a culture (China)
where evidence from text and evidence from archaeology are both plentiful
and have sometimes supported each other—notably, for example, in the case
of the Shang rulers. In China, there are numerous texts, including detailed
political histories. And Chinese history has given primacy to the word over
the archaeological and other evidence, though as Charles Holcombe has
pointed out, “hree subjects that mainstream traditional Chinese historians
seldom addressed were trade, Buddhism and foreigners.”17 he transmitted
texts are very much the voice of the literate and oicial elite. But the textual
fragment here comes from an archaeological context, not subject to the same
selection, and thus gives voice to another part of the culture. It is a fragment
of a printed almanac, a popular but proscribed text at the time. his chapter
considers the role of texts in largely illiterate or semiliterate societies, arguing
that they also “spoke” to these groups.
he third text is a sacred object, a folio from the “Blue Qurʾan” (chapter
7) that was produced by the elite. his copy of the Islamic text was written
in Arabic using gold and silver on indigo-colored parchment. Its provenance
and inspiration are both uncertain and have been subject to much debate.
Possible links to similar texts being produced thousands of miles away in
Buddhist East Asia have been suggested.
Although I have tried to cover a wide range of topics, some have inevita-
bly been neglected. I would like to have discussed music, medicine, and food-
stufs, and I have not included a speciically military item. My decision to

16. On Kushan chronology, see Falk (2014a).

17. Holcombe (1999: 285). See also chapter 1 for tensions between the Chinese historical
records and archaeology regarding the peoples of the Xiongnu alliance and others on China’s
borders.

I n t roduc t ion • 7

UC_Whitfield-text.indd 7 1/4/18 5:47 PM

 include a slave, though, was very deliberate. Slaves are found across the Silk
Road, regardless of period or culture, and they undoubtedly formed a major
part of Silk Road trade. Despite this, they oten appear only in passing in his-
tories of the Silk Road.
I have worked with Silk Road things for over three decades, but I remain
surprised that, when I come to ask more about the objects, I encounter a lack
of understanding of—or interest in—their materiality. In some cases this is
because what they are made of or how they are made is not certain: we have
lost techniques mastered by past cratsmen and struggle to replicate methods
and, sometimes, materials. But oten it seems to be a matter of a lack of inter-
est, either to ind out or to question assumptions made without any evidence.
his leads to numerous cases in which the material descriptions of the
object are at best imprecise and at worst inaccurate. An example of the for-
mer is the designation in many catalogs of Western medieval manuscripts of
the medium as “vellum.” his tells us only that the parchment is inely made
and does not specify the animal skin from which it is made (see chapter 7).
he same can be said for the use of the terms hemp and mulberry to describe
the paper of East Asian medieval manuscripts. hese are also imprecise terms,
usually denoting quality of paper rather than its main iber, and as such are
oten misunderstood. While centuries of work have been done on identifying
texts, much less efort has been spent on identifying the parchment or paper.18
A striking case of inaccuracy is found in descriptions of most glass exca-
vated in China, dating from around Han-period contexts and deemed to be
foreign. Such glass has usually been labeled “Roman”—even though some
pieces are certainly Hellenistic and some were probably locally produced.19
In an exhibition I curated in 2009, I assumed that the description given in
the institutional records of the glass bowl discussed in chapter 5 as “Roman”
was correct. But when I started to study glass in more detail my misjudgment
became clear, and, as at so many other times in my scholarly career, I had to ques-
tion what I thought I had learned. his book is a part of this process: an attempt
to accept the many uncertainties of Silk Road history and material culture while
trying, by listening to the many “things” of the Silk Road, to ind some small
areas of irm ground on which to base further research and knowledge.

18. his is not to undervalue the contributions of people who have worked in this area
and asked these questions.
19. See chapter 5. Also see Watt et al. (2004) and Whitield (2009) for acceptance of
this description.

8 • I n t roduc t ion

UC_Whitfield-text.indd 8 1/4/18 5:47 PM