Silk Roads, cross-cultural contacts btw. East and West

This paper investigates cultural adaptations of ancestral traditions between the Hellenistic and local elites in Western and Central Asia from an iconographic and symbolic point of view. It is recognized that the hegemonic Greek population made use of symbols such as the cornucopia and the mural crown (together with those emerging from the local background) in order to reiterate their control over resources. This can be also maintained from a merely symbolic perspective where the divinities legitimize the power of the new rulers and grant a fortunate, wealthy rule over a fertile rich-producing land. In considering select examples of material culture, this paper will look at the diffusion of some “western” symbols and their popularity in various later artefacts of the Indo-Iranian borderlands. Following the introduction of Hellenistic elements in the eastern regions the religious imagery was subject to a series of adaptations that in some cases had a longer life in local variations. This can be exemplified by the appropriation of “adapted symbols” by subsequent waves of conquerors that ended up in controlling the land that formerly was under the rule of Seleucus I.

In the 1580s, the Jesuit priest Alessandro Valignano sent four young pupils from the seminary at Arima to tour Europe, in a mission that has since been referred to as the ‘Tensho embassy’ — without a doubt a remarkable episode in the history of East-West contact. The Japanese boys were celebrated and shown remarkable hospitality and generosity throughout their stay in Spain and Italy, and even met Philip II of Spain and the Popes Gregory XIII and Sixtus V. This paper explores in what ways can the mission be described as an embassy by recalling comparable embassies in the early modern period, and will propose theories as to why these so-called ambassadors from a distant and unfamiliar land were feted so magnificently by the European political elite.

Around 1500, Nuremberg merchants began to market all over Europe brass thimbles produced in this city by specialized artisans. Nuremberg thimbles quickly became THE export commodity.

Germans merchants based in Lisbon, used Lisbon, its shipping routes and trade networks to export Nuremberg thimbles to Portuguese Asia and further abroad in the Far East, as the 1533 shipwreck of the Bom Jesus nau off the Skeleton Coast in Namibia confirms. Dozens of Nuremberg thimbles were found in the excavations.

This article examines Nuremberg brass thimbles exported to Ceylon in the 16th century, and how craftsmen at the royal court of Kotte transformed European models into exclusive luxury goods made of gold and set with precious stones.

The article focuses on one such rare Ceylonese thimble to have survived - a hybrid commodity linking east and west.

Pakistan is located at the cross-roads of plate boundaries, experiencing multiple hazards of earthquake, flood, glacier lake outburst flooding, drought, salinization, water-logging and recurrent landslides. This paper attempts to examine the impact of 2010 Attaabad landslide on livelihood of upper stream population of upper Hunza, Pakistan. A total 128 questionnaires were filled in from the disaster affected victims. However, secondary data were obtained from the Geological survey of Pakistan, National disaster management authority and Focus Humanitarian Assistance for Pakistan. The upstream population of upper Hunza lost their major source of income from potato which is due to landslide induced lake and lake water inundated into agricultural land and submerged Karakoram highway. On other side the export and import of agricultural products, fruits and access to basic needs of life such as health care, electricity and education of students and children severely affected. The study findings revealed that the high uncertainty about their future, because of unintended creation of Attaabad Lake. The roadblock has limited the accessibility of these food supplies and inflated prices beyond what most people can afford. This has inflicted terrible damages to human lives, standing crops, housing, infrastructure and other properties. The landslide induced lake teaches important lessons about hazard assessment, disaster management and most importantly, public communication during crises.

A native of Bruges (now part of Belgium), Jacques de Coutre was a gem trader who spent nearly a decade in Southeast Asia in the early 17th century. In addition to a substantial autobiography written in Spanish and preserved in the National Library of Spain in Madrid, he wrote a series of memorials to the united crown of Spain and Portugal that contain recommendations designed to reverse the decline in the fortunes of the Iberian powers in Southeast Asia, particularly against the backdrop of early Dutch political and commercial penetration into the region. Translated into English for the first time, these materials provide a valuable first-hand account of the bigger issues confronting the early colonial powers in Southeast Asia, and deep insights into the societies De Coutre encountered in the territory that today makes up Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

This book chapter presents the first results and interpretations of a selected dataset of rock carvings from the Karakorum mountains. The research is focused on early Buddhist carvings and their spread and role within networks of the early Silk Roads in Central Asia from the 2nd–1st century BCE. The rock carvings and their archaeological context are studied to gain insight into routes from Gandhara through the Karakorum range. The first part presents the general aims and relevance. The second and third parts describe the analysis and interpretation of the Karakorum dataset, followed by the main points of discussion and conclusions to incite future investigations.

European terms for ‘silk’ display exceptional variation for deriving ultimately from a single Old Chinese source. It is suggested here that Old Norse silki ‘silk’, transmitted via the Varangians’ trade in Byzantium through Kievan Rus to Scandinavia in the 9th c., and Old English seoluc, Old High German silihho possibly in a separate wave a couple of centuries earlier, are loanwords from the Iranian language Alanic (Sarmatian) at the Western end of the Silk Road. It reflects a regular Alanic development of *ri > l, the original form being *sirika- which leaves several possibilities open: Either a) it is a productive inner-Iranian formation with the suffix *-(V)ka-, possibly meaning ‘silk man, inhabitant of Silis’; b) it is a nativization of Greek σηρικόν (sērikón); or c) it has entered Alanic via Turkic *sir(e)-lek ‘silk garment’ or Mongolian sirkeg ‘silk fabric’. Modern Ossetic zæly, zældag, despite its typical loanword characteristics, may be inherited directly from Alanic *silika-, only reshaped in analogy with zældæ (today ‘young grass; turf’) which must have preserved its original meaning ‘golden; yellow’ into medieval Iassic and preserved with that meaning as a loanword in Hungarian zöld.

This succinct article envisages depicting the study of the origin of languages since antiquity till the 18th and mid 19th centuries. Numerous papers  have been written on the subject of the history of linguistics or topics related to linguistics, especially so after oriental scholars deciphered the starting point of European languages by the middle of the 19th century, with the discovery of  Sanskrit and Old Persian languages, thus coinciding with the unearthing of the family tree of Indo-European languages. From an historical perspective, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophers who  first questioned the nature of languages; to the Romans who divulged Latin throughout the Empire; to the study of Hebrew during the early Middle Ages; to the preliminary comparison of Sanskrit during the Renaissance; and finally ending with various European scholars who  intellectually linked East and West throughout the Oriental Renaissance in the late18th century, this article will highlight the most significant traits of this discovery. To sum up, who and what led to this breakthrough. Lastly, wherever relevant it may be, this expose will also bring to light, European travelers to the Indian continent who may have willingly or unwillingly contributed to the decipherment of the Indo-European languages.

Keywords: Indo-European,  oriental scholars, discovery, languages.

After having been in contact already in the third millennium BC, there were again maritime and overland relations between the cuneiform cultures of the Near East and India during the first millennium BC. The article presents evidence for direct contact and interaction between people from the Ancient Near East and India and examines the possibility of an intellectual exchange of ideas and knowledge.

The French Jesuit mission in Shanghai in the mid-nineteenth century created a unique musical workshop with the construction of a pipe organ with bamboo pipes in 1856-57. Destroyed in the Cultural Revolution in 1966, the 'Bamboo Organ of Tungkadoo' nonetheless had a kind of legendary status and remained an artifact of cultural memory into the 1990s. This article, relying on unpublished documents found in archives in France, reveals the full story of the instrument, and the many other bamboo organs constructed during the era of the Taiping Rebellion and the Second Opium War, and identifies the one surviving example, now in Paris. It also explores the symbolic importance of these cross-cultural instruments and offers a new perspective on aesthetic and musical exchanges in an age of imperialism.

In this paper I will present a preliminary overview of the architectural and artistic styles that reached the Kashgar oasis, at the westernmost edge of the Tarim basin.
A typical ‘culture of interferences’—to use a definition dear to Mario Bussagli—came about in the Kashgaria region at the beginning of the Common Era. Despite the limited archaeological evidence Buddhist architecture in Kashgaria can be related to the building styles that characterised the Bactrian and Gandharan Buddhist centres during the Kuṣāṇa period. In addition to this, fragments of sculptures and other stone and terracotta artefacts can assist in reconstructing some of the elements that contributed to the formation of this eclectic culture that came about at the beginning of the Common Era and that continued to develop for some centuries in the oasis of Kashgar.

International Symposium in Commemoration of Istanbul-Gyeongju World Culture Expo 2013 - Encounter between Ancient East and West : capital cultures and directions for their confluent developments : September 5-7, 2013 ... Istanbul, Turkey / Capital Culture Research & Scholarship foundation.
Impressum Istanbul : Capital Culture Research & Scholarship Foundation, 2013.

Note: Given that this paper is a conference abstract, I was told not to include footnotes and bibliographical references. I would like to stress that I refer to work, which is not my original research several times.

Çin’in  önderliğini  yaptığı  Yeni  İpek  Yolu  Projesi  ile  Rusya’nın  önderliğini yaptığı  Avrasya  Birliği  Projesi  Türkiye  ve  Kazakistan’ın  gelecek  planlamasında  önemli  bir  yeri vardır. Yeni İpek Yolu Projesi, Çin için özellikle de Çin'in yeni lideri Xi Jinping için kişisel bir projedir.  Kazakistan  Cumhurbaşkanı  Nazarbayev  de  tarihi  İpek  Yolu  Projesine  verdiği  değeri birçok konuşmasında dile getirmiştir. Türkiye bu yeni projeye olan ilgisini Asya Altyapı Yatırım Bankasına kurucu üye olarak göstermiştir.
Kazakistan  bağımsızlığını  kazanmasından  sonra  çevre  ülkelerin  refahı  ve  barışı  için  Orta Asya  Birliği  ve  Avrasya  Birliği  ile  ilgili  bir  dizi  proje  önermiştir.  Bu  projeler  başta  Türkiye tarafından  ilgi  çekici  bulunmuştur.  Türkiye  ve  Kazakistan,  Avrasya  Projesi  ve  Yeni  İpek  Yolu
Projesi’ni bir refah projesi olarak değerlendirmektedir. Orta Asya’nın çok eski devirlerden itibaren Doğu-Batı  ve  Avrupa-Asya  arasında  bir  köprü  olduğu  düşünülürse  yeni  yüzyılda  bu  coğrafi avantajın yerinde kullanılması tüm ülkelerin menfaatine olacaktır.Türkiye  ve  Kazakistan  açısından  bakıldığında  Eski  Sovyetler  Birliği  bölgesinde  Rusya'nın öncülük ettiği Avrasya Birliği Projesinin aksine Çin’in ortaya attığı Yeni İpek Yolu Projesi çevre ülkeler  açısından  daha  ilgi  çekicidir.  Çünkü  bu  proje  kesin  bir  şekilde  tanımlanmış  sınırları olmayan,  açık  bir  siyasi  ve  ekonomik  projedir.  Bunun  bir  sonucu  olarak,  Çin’in  çok  taraflı işbirliğini inşa etmesine uygun zemin hazırlamaktadır.

This book explores the dissemination of ideas and information on the early silk roads between Europe and China, through the first detailed study of the Sinicization of foreign objects in Chinese poetic writing of the third century CE.

Third-century literary developments and the prevailing literary works from that era leave us with an impressive amount of information concerning exotic objects, such as plants, animals, and crafts, and record the cultural exchange between distant peoples whose goods, ideas, and technologies entered China.

These hitherto-forgotten rhapsodies express the profound interest and excitement of learned men for foreign objects. They bear witness to the cultural exchanges between China and other civilizations and provide a more nuanced insight of early medieval China as an integrated society rather than an isolated one.

The beginning of the Modern era (ca. 1400) was marked by two great shifts: the start of the global age of empire building, and of large-scale population movements around the world. As more people travelled for longer distances, art and culture increasingly moved with them. This began an accelerated process of inter-and intracultural exchange. European art and culture, which formerly had been a part of territories and landscapes exclusive to Europe, now 'territorialized' parts of non-European lands from the sixteenth century onward. The Jesuit missions in Asia not only brought Western architecture, music, poetry, and painting (and the integral aesthetic that went along with these modes) but also established an enduring resonance of these things. This paper explores resonance as an example of how East and West have always found meeting points in the arts, even when other media and discourses proved not to be compatible.

Even if the figurative mosaics are usually the ones to catch the attention of the archeologists and the public,
we cannot deny the meaning of the geometrical and the floral motives for the study of the mosaics landscape
in the roman world. The combination of the different motives, the colors chosen for each motive and their
combination can help to identify the influences that determined the making of the pavements. East and West of
the Roman Empire are no exceptions to this phenomenon.

Sophia G. Vashalomidze (Halle/ Saale) beleuchtet in ihrem Artikel „Georgien, kulturelle Schwelle zwischen Asien und Europa am Beispiel der Barlaam-Legende“ die Verbreitung derselben und die diesbezügliche Vermittlerrolle Georgiens. Die christianisierte Form der Buddhalegende sei über georgische und griechische Übertragungen in den Westen bis nach Irland, Spanien und Island gelangt. Der indische Bodhisattva hielt über sogdisch/ persisch Bōdīsaf und arabisch Būdāsaf als Joasaph Einzug in die christliche Ökumene.

The Maritime Silk Route and the Place of Iranian City– Port of Persian Gulf
Mohamadreza Shahidipak
Academic Member Islamic Azad University Central Tehran Branch
reza2017mreza@gmail.com
Abstract
The maritime Silk route is international route of communication from Canton traditional capital of China to Mediterranean port. The research is part of paper presented by author in the maritime Silk route Conference Zayton 2008, on seven hundredth anniversary of Ibn Battuta, who first reported this route and
part of maritime Silk route book. Iran, with the Persian Sea, heart of maritime Silk route had been controlled in ancient, Islamic ,modern period maritime silk route ,and Iranian ports of Oman Sea ,Persian Gulf, as a Siraf, Jask ,Hormuz were action in international economic From the cities of the dirt Road Silk and the silk of Iran and its textiles until the late Safavid was one of the goods carried by Iran's fleet from the Chinese Sea, India and Oman to the western Mediterranean. Research presented maritime Silk Road and several cities-Iranian ports and its significance to the maritime Silk Road in the national interests of Iran, especially modern European conflicts. The presence of the silk of Iran in the number of silk products from the ancient to modern is reason for Interests of manufacturing and marketing of silk in the cities of Iran and the effect of silk trade in the independence and development of Iran, especially in the era of Shah Abbas the great, which revived the heart of the Silk Road in the Persian Gulf at the same time with the development and adjustment of silk production inside, based on the system of nation-state.


KeyWords: Maritime Silk route - Iran- Hormuz - Persian Gulf.


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همایش ملی ابریشم ایران- دانشگاه گیلان- 27 مهرماه 1396


راه دریایی ابریشم  و جایگاه آن در شهر بندر های ایرانی دریای پارس

  دکتر محمد رضا شهیدی پاک
reza2017mreza@gmail.com
چکیده








 


راه دریایی ابریشم  و  جایگاه شهر – بندر های  ایرانی  دریای پارس در آن
دکتر محمد رضا شهیدی پاک
دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی تهران مرکز

راه دریایی ابریشم یکی از مهمترین راه های ابریشم است که جایگاه اصلی نسبت به انتقال ابریشم در سطح بین المللی داشته است این راه که حدود ده هزار کیلومتر از جنوب شرقی چین از شهر بندری کانتون پایتخت سنتی چین تا شهر بلنسیه شهر بزرگ بندری اسپانیا و بزرگترین بندر بازرگانی در مدیترانه شرقی امتداد داشت در مسیر خود از  شهر- بندر های پرجمعیتی  با فرهنگ چینی ، مالایی ، هندی ، عربی ، ایرانی ، بیزانسی ، رومی ، ترکی ، بربر ،  ایبری  عبور می کرد . پژوهش حاضر بخشی از سخنرانی و مقاله  و کتاب اینجانب در مرکز تحقیقات راه دریایی ابریشم در شهر- بندر الزیتون در جنوب شرقی چین است که در نوامبر 2008 میلادی به مناسبت هفتصد مین سال تولد ابن بطوطه برگزار شد . همین مسیر  را ه دریایی ابریشم    ازشهر – بندر ، طنجه شهرزادگاه ابن بطوطه ، تا زیتون از جمله سفرهای ابن بطوطه جهانگرد مغربی است .در این همایش قدیمی ترین نسخه راه دریایی ابریشم ارایه شد و از نسخه ترجمه  چینی  سفرنامه ابن بطوطه رونمایی شد .  در مقاله مولف در همایش ، تعامل بین فرهنگ های مسیر راه دریایی ابریشم بررسی شده است .  ایران از  دوره باستان  تا دوره اسلامی ، همواره  در قطعه بزرگی از را ه درایی ابریشم ، بوسیله دریای عمان و خلیج فارس و بنادر آن از جمله شهر – بندر  سیراف  و جاسک و هرمزحضور پر رنگ داشت و ابریشم ایران تا اواخر دوره صفویه از جمله کالاهایی بود که بوسیله ناوگان ایران از دریای چین و هند و عمان تا مدیترانه غربی حمل می شد . دریانوردی ایرانیان بویژه در عصر ساسانی نقش اساسی در تجارت بین الملل بویژه ابریشم از چین تا مدیترانه  داشت  . اهمیت بازرگانی ناوگان ساسانی که در دوره اسلامی توسعه یافت به حدی است که محققی مصری پژوهش  دکتری خود را به آن اختصاص داده است . در شهر زیتون محل برگزاری کنفرانس بین المللی راه دریایی ابریشم ، بقایایی از قبرستان دریانوردان ایرانی با اسامی شهرهای ایران از جمله قبر ناخدا جاجرمی وجود داشت ، که گزارش آن در کتاب راه دریایی ابریشم از مولف آمده است . مسلمانان در دوره اسلامی  قرن ها از چین تا اسپانیا از این را رفت و آمد می کردند ، زیرا این راه تجاری ابریشم، راه زیارتی هم شد و سفر حج نیز در همین مسیر راه دریایی ابریشم قرا رگرفت و از جمله ابن جبیر اسپانیایی از اهالی شهر بندری بلنسیه که در انتهای مسیر راه دریایی ابریشم است ، در قرن ششم هجری با عبور  ازشهر های اندلس  از بندر طریف  حرکت کرد و در مسیر مشترک با راه دریایی ابریشم به مکه و مدینه و شهر های ایران وعراق و بنادر مسیر دریایی ابریشم سفر کرد . پژوهش حاضر ضمن معرفی راه دریایی ابریشم و چند شهر– بندر ایرانی آن مسیر و اهمیت آن نسبت به جاده های خاکی ابریشم به جایگاه ایران در این راه دریایی به خاطر  اهمیت بازرگانی شهر بندر های ایرانی در ادوار مختلف تاریخ جهان  ، اشاره کرده است.حضورثابت  ابریشم ایران در شمار کالاهای را ه دریایی ابریشم از دوره باستان تا اسلامی دلیل آشکار بر رونق مشاغل تولیدونگهداری وبسته بندی ابریشم از جمله نوغان داری در شهرهای ایران وجایگاه تجارت ابریشم دراستقلال و پویایی ورونق اقتصادی وحیات سیاست بازرگانی وشبکه گسترده اصناف کار آفرین در امر ابریشم واثرآن در آباد سازی  ایران بویژه در عصر شاه عباس کبیر است  که قلب راه درایی ابریشم در خلیج فارس را همزمان با توسعه و تنظیم تولید ابریشم در داخل بر اساس سیستم دولت – ملت ، احیا کرد  .                                                                                                                                             
  کلیدواژه:                                                                                                                       

ابریشم ، ایران ، جاجرمی ، چین ، ابن بطوطه ، ابن جبیر، شهر –بندر، سیراف ، بلنسیه ، زیتون ،حج ،جاسک ،هرمز ، عباس

Keys to the Kingdom: A History of the Pipe Organ in China is a music-historical study – a detailed account of the title’s organological subject running over four centuries. Beginning at the start of the China Roman Catholic mission around 1600, passing through the contentious Rites Controversy of the Eighteenth century, the explosive era of the Opium Wars and the high-water mark of mission activity  in the later Nineteenth century, to the destruction of all of China’s pipe organs by 1950, and the strange renaissance of pipe organ culture in the past twenty years, Prof. David Francis Urrows weaves musical narrative together with political history in an extended exercise in histoire croisée; an ‘entangled history’ in which the pipe organ is caught as both a musical instrument, a cultural and religious symbol,  and a technological marvel. Above all, this book is a meta-study made up of micro-historical records in Chinese, European, and North American archives and libraries, and represents over twenty-five years of research and field work pursued by The Pipe Organ in China Project.

Would my readers kindly note that there is no electronic copy of the book available, nor is there likely to be, so please do not request one. The cover image is for reference only. Thank you.

This article outlines approaches for interpreting the Islamic city of Sultan Kala (Merv), c. 8th-13th centuries AD, based upon aerial photographic and satellite imagery. Hierarchies of assumptions (identification of individual wall lines; which frame spaces, rooms and courtyards; which are grouped as parts of specific buildings; which are part of urban blocks) and ontologies (information about these assumptions and the variable confidence of interpretation, from the position of lines to spatial function) provide a dynamic structure for the presentation of data, interpretation and theory.

The article establishes procedures and protocols within two sample areas (selected to represent the diverse features of the urban and suburban landscapes) to:

    Explore the theory and methodology of documenting interpretation (and uncertainty) in the transcription of aerial photographic and satellite imagery
    Develop ontological approaches to structuring interpretations and assumptions, within a hermeneutic model.
    Provide a textual and graphic narrative of the development of the areas.
    Establish an online forum (weblog) to contribute to the long-term project.
    Explore the use of other forms of electronic archive material, in particular, how imagery and audio files can be used to develop the discussion of landscapes and buildings.