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A Silk Road Renaissance
- yeetman21 6y agoHoney pot by FBI
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y agoThat's a cool article. I knew about these folks, but really only as boring names in a history book. This adds a lot more color to their story.
- edge17 6y agoThere's some pictures here - https://sogdians.si.edu/sidebars/the-castle-on-mount-mugh-and-its-documents-exemplified-by-letter-v-18/ https://sogdians.si.edu/sidebars/the-castle-on-mount-mugh-an... It's interesting to think that these documents were written long before paper even arrived in Europe.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y agoThat's some nasty shade, he threw, there...
- dstick 6y agoWho else thought that the Dread Pirate had risen from the ashes?
- segfaultbuserr 6y agoI was, but I noticed the source is "archaeology.org" 10 seconds later.
- djeiasbsbo 6y agoI did.. and I was even more confused when the top comment mentionend "previously unknown sites in Tajikistan".
- edge17 6y agoIt took me a minute to realize this article has multiple pages
- onlinejk 6y agoTalk about HODLer click-bait...
- ur-whale 6y agoThis is not the Silk Road your looking for <waves hand>
- dmch-1 6y agoIncidentally we still have "Silk Road" today. In its modern usage it refers particularly to some oil and gas pipelines running from the east to the west. In the latest news on the Silk Road, Azerbaijan, after its victorious war over Armenia, secured a direct land transport corridor through Armenian territory to its enclave of Nakhchivan and further to Turkey. https://menafn.com/1101103191/Another-important-issue-is-that-link-being-established-between-Nakhchivan-and-rest-of-Azerbaijan-President-Aliyev&source=246 https://menafn.com/1101103191/Another-important-issue-is-tha...
- rurban 6y agoMuch better: Aliexpress has zero shipping costs to Europe. Compare that to shipping costs for Amazon from China. Chinese prices are usually 10x lower than European prices. E.g to make a good ebike you spend €250 on Aliexpress (€50 without battery), whilst in Europe you spend €2500 for a bad ebike. Both Europe and China have spent tons into improved shipping infrastructure, eg. the new specialized Leipzig airport, Shenzhen, Shanghai. That's the new Silk Road, not some ship or train lines, which need weeks. Shipping is also important of course. But land corridors are slow, insecure and limited.
- roughly 6y agoThere's a fantastic Long Now seminar by Michael Frachetti that talks about discovering previously unknown sites in Tajikistan, as well as the trade dynamics in the region: https://longnow.org/seminars/02018/feb/26/open-source-civilization-unexpected-origins-silk-road/ https://longnow.org/seminars/02018/feb/26/open-source-civili...
- Donckele 6y agoI read Peter Frankopan’s history book “The Silk Roads” this summer and it was a great read. Totally recommend it.
- davee5 6y agoWas it actually? Because I'm hard up for a good Silk Road read. I slogged through Raoul McLaughlin's "The Roman Empire & the Silk Routes" because it's online reviews were glowing for silk road history told with decent story telling. I still found it startlingly dry, it felt like a demonstration of how much research he did rather than a real narrative arc. Tangentially I read half of it aloud to my little kids for bedtime, they loved the crazy names of faraway fantastical sounding places - it's about all that really redeemed it experientially. YMMV, apparently.
- phlakaton 6y agoI'm reading it too! A little dry so far, and I am reading very slowly for Reasons other than the book, but what's cool about the book is his intent to poke a finger in the eye of Western world history wherever he can manage. Lots of unfamiliar, cool history here. Prof. Frankopan definitely gives a shout-out to the Sogdians, though he doesn't spend much time on it.