‘Made in Syria, buried in Essex’: Silk Roads busts its blocks

Photo: Ceramic figure of a camel ©The Trustees of the British Museum

Daniel Nelson

Don’t call it the Silk Road: it’s Silk Roads.

Because, says the new British Museum blockbuster — and this exhibition really does bust its blocks — it never was just a matter of a single track on which traders and camels trekked between China and the rest of the world: instead, “road” stands for an extensive, complex network of interactions between countries, empires, communities, ethnicities, cultures, religions and individuals.

Amazingly, ‘Rest of the world’ includes far-flung Britain. “It’s tremendously exciting to expand the Silk Roads story into parts of the world that are not traditionally associated with its popular image, including here in Britain”, says one of the co-curators, Sue Brunning. She gives the example of a whalebone box made in north-east England “but carved with stories, histories and languages drawn from the wider world. It’s an astonishing piece that really encapsulates the transcontinental breadth of connectivity between AD500 and 1000,” the period covered by the show.

In a section of the exhibition delightfully labelled “Made in Syria, buried in Essex”, the curators point out that despite the distance, the seas surrounding Britain and Ireland connected to the many networks of the Silk Roads.

New research speculates that a flagon and unusual objects found in an English burial ground from the early AD 600s were brought home by mercenaries recruited from across the Alps to join a Byzantine war against the Sasanian empire. (Sasanian? Yes, you’ll become aware of societies you never previously knew.)

Another example is that of King Offa (AD 757 until 796, said to have ordered construction of the dyke built to keep out the Welsh), who minted a gold coin modelled on an Islamic dinar. The original probably came down one of the Silk Roads — along with Buddhism, Manichaeism, smuggled balsam, Judaism, ivory, spices, jewellery, silk, slaves, olive oil, clothes, sculptures, dried grapes, gems, pipa, Christianity, bowls, languages, frankincense and pretty well anything else that existed at this time.

Another distant stop on the road - sorry, roads - is what is now known as Eritrea. It was a hub for overseas trade, to which Aksum in the Ethiopian highlands was key.

“This Silk Roads story comprises many journeys that span the distance from the Pacific to the Atlantic,” says another co-curator, Elisabeth R. O’Connell. “From empires to individuals, we’ve aimed to show the range of networks that facilitated movement, both voluntary and involuntary. It is a huge privilege for us to bring the stories of diplomats and pilgrims, scholars and students, refufgees and captives, traders and traded to our visitors.”

The 300 objects in the show are like tributaries running into the main river system, revealing a vast civilisational ocean of objects and ideas. The treasures are stunning in their workmanship and variety, though there’s still place for silk — including an exchange chart showing the number of silk bolts needed for a horse trade.

It’s all brilliantly displayed in a single room, adding to the idea of supranationality and of cross-fertilisation. This exceptional exhibition is about the creativity and cultural openness of the peoples of Asia, North Africa and Europe, not about national glory.

• Silk Roads is at the British Museum, £22-£25, Great Russell Street, WC1B 3DG until 23 February. Info: https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/silk-roads