Silk Road

The Silk Road was a transcontinental network of trade routes that linked China with the West, passing through India, Central Asia and the Middle East. The 6400-kilometre overland route stretched from Xi’an to the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and was complemented by a series of port cities and sea trade routes across the Mediterranean. One of the earliest recorded uses of the Silk Road dates to the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE–9 CE).
 

The term ‘Silk Road’ was coined by the German geographer-explorer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen (1833–1905) in 1877, based on the importance of the East-West silk trade on the historic trading conduit. Glassware was among the varieties of commodity—along with perfumes, jewels, precious metals and ceramics—that were transported across borders and territories. Merchants, regardless of sociocultural background, rarely travelled the entire route, and goods could change hands multiple times through middlemen and traders. This complex commercial exchange complicates the provenance of the glass objects in this exhibition, and many other types of merchandise and excavated artefacts.
 

The Silk Road was of vital importance in the ancient and medieval world, both for its economic significance and because it served as a highway for cultural interaction and technological transmission. Manufacturing techniques and material culture were transported by and exchanged between merchants, travellers, explorers and migrants from a variety of cultural and religious backgrounds and disparate geographical regions. Asian technologies such as silk production and papermaking migrated westward, whereas the glass manufacturing techniques and stylistic characteristics seen in this collection of vessels is testament to the eastward cultural exchange along this elaborate Eurasian network.