Curators’ Tour of Silk Roads exhibition at the British Museum

Rather than a single trade route between ‘East’ and ‘West’ the Silk Roads were an overlapping network that connected Asia, Africa and Europe. Today, with the help of curators Sue Brunning, Luk Yu-ping, Elisabeth O’Connell and Zumrad Ilyasova, you will journey along the networks of the Silk Roads, following in the footsteps of the people and objects that used them between 500-1000 CE. 00:00 Cooper alloy Buddha found in Helgö, Sweden. 01:06 Introduction to Silk Roads exhibition 03:44 East Asia and the Silk Roads 03:58 Chang’an, Tang China 04:36 Ceramic Bactrian camel from the tomb of Liu Tingxun 05:30 Silk Roads Ship Wreck, Indonesia 06:20 The Library Cave, Mogao Caves, Dunhuang 08:00 Genzia in Cairo, Egypt 08:35 Samarkand and Sogdian merchants 11:45 Silk Roads in the Islamic period 12:34 Earliest known chess pieces in the world 13:12 Islamic and Viking trade 14:35 Red Sea trade and the Silk Roads 14:55 The Kingdom of Aksum 17:00 Fatimid empire in Eg