On the Occasion of the British Museum’s Silk Roads Exhibition
Distant countries fascinated me from childhood, especially those in Asia. That interest eventually led me to Sinology. My first academic work concerned the Silk Road, with a particular focus on Gansu province and the oasis town of Dunhuang (敦煌).
The British Museum’s Silk Roads exhibition, which opened in September 2024, brought those early interests back to me. It is an occasion to reflect on how a childhood fascination became a field of study—and, eventually, a set of experiences I still remember vividly.
Introduction to the Silk Road
The books of Karl May helped set that interest in motion [1]. His imagined journeys and friendships across cultures mattered to me as a child. The later arguments about his books do not erase that personal memory, though I would not read the stories as reliable accounts of the places they describe.
In May’s stories set in the Middle East, the Christian traveller Kara Ben Nemsi and his Muslim companion Hadschi Halef Omar face their adventures together. What stayed with me was the possibility of friendship and mutual respect across religious and cultural differences.
In spring 2024, I fulfilled another childhood wish by visiting Petra in Jordan. Our guide’s account of its trading connections reminded me that such places belonged to wider networks of exchange. The routes were more complicated than the single line I had imagined as a child.
The map below sketches selected overland routes. It is an introduction to a network, rather than a complete picture of one road.
Dunhuang: A Crossroads on the Silk Roads
During my five years in Beijing, I had the chance to join a study trip to Dunhuang and the Mogao Caves [2]. Access was restricted at the time, and we needed special permission. My art history professor, Jin Weinuo, had visiting colleagues from abroad, including the American art historian James Cahill [3] and a Japanese professor. Several Chinese postgraduate students and three foreign students, including me, were allowed to accompany them.
A Special Experience in Dunhuang
One incident has stayed with me. Soon after our arrival, my New Zealand friend Gerald and I sat in the sand of a dry riverbed near our modest accommodation. There were caves with Buddhist paintings along the rock face. I suggested looking around on our own the next day. “Why not right away?” Gerald replied. As we walked, I noticed a trimmed tree trunk leaning against the rock, close to a low cave entrance higher up.
We carried the trunk a short distance and used it to climb to the entrance. Inside were Tantric images that we had not seen with the group. I remember the cave being referred to as Mi Gu, the “Forbidden Cave,” and being told that its explicit imagery was the reason for restricted access. I cannot identify its cave number from memory, but the encounter itself remains clear.
Dunhuang: A Central Hub on the Silk Roads During the Tang Dynasty and Beyond
Dunhuang was an important oasis and crossroads, rather than the starting point of a single Silk Road. Near it, routes around the Tarim Basin divided and rejoined. The murals and manuscripts associated with the region bear witness to exchanges among China, Central Asia and India over many centuries [2].
The town mattered to traders, pilgrims and other travellers. The movement of goods was also a movement of images, beliefs and techniques. That is what makes the caves so important to me as an art historian and painter.
A different connection surfaced while I was reading the manuscript of my friend Wolfgang Kubin’s German translations of Li Bai. I vaguely remembered a poem about a wine-serving woman from the western regions. Kubin’s Die Erde mein Kissen, der Himmel meine Decke, published by BACOPA in 2024, brought it back to me. The publisher had again invited me to illustrate a book; this time, I contributed the cover.
The poem’s wine, music and dancing offered another way into the world of exchange I was thinking about. The term hu ji (胡姬) is often associated with women from the western regions; it does not by itself identify the woman as Persian. Nor should a drinking poem be treated as an account of how wine first reached China. What interests me is the encounter it brings to life.
The Li Bai Poem
I would like to end the personal part of this account with Li Bai’s poem. The following is a modest English rendering, checked against the Chinese text [4].
Wine Before Me
Second of Two Poems (二首之二)
The qin sounds from Longmen’s green paulownia;
fine wine in a jade pot is clear as the sky.
I urge the strings and brush the bridges, drinking with you;
red begins to look green as our faces flush.
The Hu girl’s face is like a flower;
behind the wine counter, she smiles into the spring breeze.
She smiles into the spring breeze
and dances in her silk robes.
If you will not get drunk today, where will you return?
琴奏龙门之绿桐，玉壶美酒清若空。
催弦拂柱与君饮，看朱成碧颜始红。
胡姬貌如花，当垆笑春风。
笑春风，舞罗衣，君今不醉将安归？
The Silk Roads Exhibition
The Silk Roads exhibition at the British Museum ran from 26 September 2024 to 23 February 2025. It explored overlapping networks across Asia, Africa and Europe, focusing on the period from about AD 500 to 1000 [5].
Beyond Silk and Spices
The plural in the exhibition title matters. Objects and ideas travelled along intersecting land and sea routes; the story extends well beyond caravans carrying silk and spices.
A Journey Through Time
More than 300 objects brought parts of those networks into view. Among the loans were early chess pieces from Samarkand, in present-day Uzbekistan, and a large wall painting from Afrasiab [5].
Objects and Their Journeys
The objects offer a more concrete point of entry than the familiar image of an endless caravan: a ceramic camel, a piece of glass, a small carved chess figure. Each raises questions about who made it, who carried it and who used it.
Connections Close to Home
For me, these connections lead back to the study trip, the manuscript on my desk and the books I read as a child. The distances are still large. A particular image or a conversation can make them feel briefly smaller.
Footnotes
[1] These are memories of my childhood reading. My affection for the stories concerns the friendships I found in them, not a claim that their depictions are historically accurate.
[2] UNESCO: Mogao Caves. The listing describes 492 preserved cave sanctuaries and Buddhist art spanning roughly a thousand years, from the fourth to the fourteenth century. The cave encountered with Gerald is recorded here as a personal memory; I cannot verify its number.
[3] I benefited from James Cahill’s teaching while he was visiting Beijing. His website and archive preserve material on his work in Chinese art history.
[4] Li Bai, Qian you yi zun jiu xing (前有一樽酒行), second poem, beginning 琴奏龍門之綠桐. Chinese text. The English rendering above is offered as a reading aid. Wolfgang Kubin’s German translations and our work on the book provided the occasion for returning to it.
[5] British Museum exhibition announcement and exhibition press information, including dates, period covered and loans.
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