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Trade and Treasure: The Silk Road and Beyond
Virginia Bower: Trade and Treasure: The Silk Road and Beyond
Chronology (Simplified)
Neolithic period ca.10,000/8,000-ca.2000 BCE
Xia period (? proto-historic) ca.2100-ca.1600 BCE
Shang dynasty ca.1600-ca.1100 BCE
Zhou dynasty ca.1100-256 BCE
Western Zhou ca.1100-770 BCE
Eastern Zhou 770-256 BCE
Spring and Autumn period 770-ca.470 BCE
Warring States period ca.470-221 BCE
Qin dynasty 221-206 BCE
Han dynasty 206-220 CE
Western Han 206 BCE-9 CE
Xin dynasty 9-24 CE
Eastern Han 25-220 CE
Period of Disunity or Disunion 220-581/589---numerous dynasties, sometimes called Period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, or the Six Dynasties Period. Most significant:
Northern Wei, 386-535
Eastern Wei 534-550
Western Wei 535-550
Northern Qi 550-577
Northern Zhou 557-581
Sui dynasty 581/589-618
Tang dynasty 618-907 (Zhou dynasty of Empress Wu, 690-705)
Liao dynasty 907-1125
Five Dynasties period 907-960
Song Dynasty 960-1279
Jin dynasty 1115-1234
Yuan dynasty 1260-1368
Ming dynasty 1368-1644
Qing dynasty 1644-1912
Republic 1912-1949
People’s Republic 1949-
For Further Research
Online Resource, with many links: www.silkroadproject.org
(The Silk Road Project)
Current Program from June, 2006-June 2007 in Chicago: www.silkroadchicago.org
(Silk Road Chicago)
Online search engines can take you to other sites if you type in “Silk Road”---Wikipedia has a good article, for example.
Suggested Reading…
Overviews/More General Works
Barber, Elizabeth Wayland. The Mummies of Ürümqi. W.W. Norton: New York: 1999.
Benn, Charles. Daily Life in Traditional China: The Tang Dynasty. Greenwood Press, Westport, Ct. 2002.
Che, Muqi. The Silk Road: Past and Present. Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1989.
Eckfeld, Tonia. Imperial tombs in Tang China, 618-907: The Politics of Paradise.
RoutledgeCurzon, London and New York, 2005.
Hopkirk, Peter. Foreign Devils on the Silk Road. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, paperback edition, 1984, hardcover, 1980.
Information office of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, compiler. Footprints of Foreign Explorers on the Silk Road. Beijing, 2005.
Jin, Bohong. In the Footsteps of Marco Polo. New World Press, Beijing, 1989.
Schafer, Edward H. The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T’ang Exotics. University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1963.
Mair, Victor H., editor. Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World. University of Hawii Press: Honolulu, 2006.
Mallory, J.P. and Victor H. Mair. The Tarim Mummies. Thames and Hudson:: London, 2000.
Tucker, Jonathan. The Silk Road: Art and History. Art Media Resources: Chicago, 2003.
Whitfield, Susan. Life Along The Silk Road. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1999.
Wood, Frances. The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia. University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2002.
Wriggins, Sally Hovey. The Silk Road Journey with Xuanzang, Revised and Updated, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 2004.
Exhibition catalogues
Juliano, Annette L. and Judith A. Lerner, with others. Monks and Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. with The Asia Society, New York, 2001.
Li, Jian, general editor. The Glory of the Silk Road: Art from Ancient China. The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, 2003.
Vollmer, John E, Keall, E.J. and E. Nagai-Berthrong. Silk Roads, China Ships. The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1983.
Watt, James C.Y. and others. China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 AD. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2004.
Yang, Xiaoneng, editor. The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries From the People’s Republic of China. National Gallery of Art, Washington and Yale University Press, London and New Haven, 1999.
Camels
Knauer, Elfriede Regina. The Camel’s Load in Life and Death. Akanthus, Zurich, 1998.
Foreigners
Abramson, Marc Samuel, “Deep Eyes and high noses: physiognomy and the depiction of barbarians in Tang China,” pp. 119-159 in Political frontiers, ethnic boundaries, and human geographies in Chinese history, Nicola Di Cosmo and Don J. Wyatt, editors. RoutledgeCurzon, London and New York, 2003.
Hildebrand, Joachim. Das Ausländerbild In Der Kunst Chinas Als Spiegel Kutureller Beziehungen [Images of Foreigners in the Art of China as a Mirror of Cultural Relations]. Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GMBH, Stuttgart, 1987.
Mahler, Jane Gaston. The Westerners Among The Figurines of the T’ang Dynasty of China. Instituto Italiano Per Il Medio Ed Estremo Oriente, 1959.
Poo, Mu-chou. Enemies of Civilization: Attitudes toward Foreigners in Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China. State University of New York Press, Albany, 2005.
Polo & Other Games and Sports
Asian Art, 4 no. 1 (Winter 1991) “Games”. Includes essays on chess by Ann C. Gunter, polo by Virginia Bower and wrestling by Doreen Simmons.
Levine, Emma. A Game of Polo with a Headless Goat: In Search of the Ancient Sports of Asia. Andre Deutsch, London, 2003 paperback edition, hardcover originally published in 2000.
Mackenzie, Colin and Finkel, Irving, editors. Asian Games: The Art of Contest. Asia Society, New York, 2004.
Orientations, 35 no. 6 (September 2004). Includes several essays connected to exhibition “Asian Games: The Art of Contest.”
Women
Cahill, Suzanne E., “‘Our Women are Acting Like Foreigners’ Wives’: Western Influences on Tang Dynasty Women’s Fashion,” in Steele, Valerie and John S. Major. China Chic: East Meets West. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1999.
Younger Readers
Major, John S. and Betty J. Belanus, with foreword by Yo-Yo Ma. Caravan to America: Living Arts of the Silk Road. Cricket Books, Chicago, 2002.
Major, John S., illustrated by Stephen Fieser. The Silk Road: 7,000 Miles of History. Harper Collins, New York, 1995.