“Silk Roads, Steppe Roads” takes the reader on a journey to three sites in northwestern China and Mongolia to investigate medieval Chinese tombs containing evidence of Eastern Eurasian cultural contacts and exchanges.
The construction, artifacts, and texts on paper and stone found at these tombs of the Sui (581–618) and early Tang (618–907) dynasties reveal glimpses of people, rituals, and objects that were in motion on the Silk and Steppe roads until being laid to rest over a millennium ago.
Jonathan Karam Skaff shows how the major transit hubs of the Silk and Steppe roads were particularly active sites of cultural contestation, experimentation and mutual influence that had an impact on the historical development of China and Inner Asia.
Challenging the idealized image of the Silk Road, he also examines travel permits and sales contracts that document the trade of enslaved people over the route.
