Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
Contributors

Introduction

Section One: Acculturation and Hybridization
1. The “Birth” of the Silk Road Between Ecological Frontiers and Military Innovation
Nicola Di Cosmo

2. Sogdians in Shanxi (386 CE-618 CE): Literary and Archeological Evidence
Xiaoyan Qi

3. From Exotic Toys to Objects of Scientific Inquiry: A Special Way of Transmitting European Optical Knowledge in the Qing Dynasty
Yunli Shi

4. The Karakorum Highway: Gateway of Empires, Religions, and Commerce
Saba Samee

Section Two: Understanding Spice Through Interdisciplinarity

5. A TRP Along the Silk Roads: How and Why We Detect and Use Spices
Wayne Silver and Cecil J. Saunders

6. Silk Road Pharmacy: Debating Theriac and Defining the Natural World
Monique O’Connell

7. Spice and Taste in the Culinary World of the Early Modern Mediterranean
Eric Dursteler

Section Three: Tradition as Continuity and Change

8. Devotional Prints and Practice: Woodcuts from the Library Cave at Dunhuang
Bernadine Barnes

9. Dome of Heaven: From the Lantern Ceiling to the Chinese Wooden Dome
Di Luo

10. “Malacca” – From Fabled Port to Muddy Lagoon: A Cautionary Tale of Ecological Disaster
Margaret Sarkissian

11. Twenty-first Century Trading Routes in Mongolia: Changing Pastoral Soundscapes and Lifeways
Jennifer Post

12. Erasing the Local, Celebrating the Local: Tracing the Contradictions of the Silk Road in Pakistan
Chad Haines

Section Four: Cultural Transactions

13. Arsacid Economic Activity on the Silk Road
Touraj Daryaee

14. Pearls and Power: Chōla's Tribute Mission to the Northern Song Court within the Maritime Silk Road Trade Network
James A. Anderson

15. “Flying Cash”: Credit Instruments on the Silk Roads
Dan Du

Section Five: Long-Distance Commodity Trade

16. The Case for Shipwrecked Indians in Germany
Jeffrey D. Lerner

17. Samuel Shaw’s ‘Maritime Silk Road’ from American Independence towards Monopoly, 1784–1794
John A. Ruddiman

About the Author

Jeffrey D. Lerner is a Professor of Ancient History at Wake Forest University. His main research interest concerns Central Asia in antiquity with special emphasis on the Hellenistic Period. Yaohua Shi is an Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Wake Forest University. His research interests include pre-modern Chinese vernacular fiction and East-West cultural relations.

Reviews

The papers range geographically across the overland and maritime Silk Routes, and chronologically from antiquity to contemporary issues around China’s One Belt One Road Initiative. As such, it is an amazing volume.
*Current World Archaeology*

Lerner and Shi argue that “the time is ripe to begin formulating a new definition of the contour of Silk Roads Studies and laying a new foundation for further work in this field” (p. 1); this interdisciplinary volume with its broad-ranging content is certainly a very good start.
*Antiquity*