Man with curly hair, possibly a Central Asian, painted by an artist in Changsha, an inland city in South China, on a bowl found in the wreck of a 9th-c Arabian ship near Indonesia (Belitung), on its way to West Asia loaded with more than 60,000 Chinese ceramics & other valuables.

Some of the Greco-Roman painted glass found in the palace remains of Begram, Afghanistan! (1st -2nd c.)🤓 #art #CulturalHeritage

My article on the wall paintings of rock monasteries along the Silk Road was published in a newspaper (Kyoto Shimbun) 😊 PDF is available on the Hakubi Center website, linked below.

New Publication "Non-Han Literature along the Silk Road" covering documents written in Tocharian, Sogdian, Khotanese, and Old Uyghur springer.com/gp/book/978981… #springer

A curious bronze item (1) uncovered in a tomb dating to 2-3 c AD, in the cemetery of Xiongnu people relocated from Mongolia to Qinghai after they defected to the Han dynasty. It's first identified as the cover of an incense burner (2), now considered by some to be a crown like(3)

Socio-Environmental Dynamics along the Historical Silk Road #openaccess #bookoftheday #silkroads link.springer.com/content/pdf/10…

Yay! My third article in 2020 was just published. It deals with the identification of an over a century unidentified mural fragment of Kizil Cave kept in Berlin. Many thanks dear Lilla Russell-Smith for your post! ✨

A 13,500-year-old Chinese carved bird—the earliest 3-D art object uncovered in East Asia—is one of ARCHAEOLOGY’s Top 10 Discoveries of 2020. Stay tuned to archaeology.org as we reveal more extraordinary finds from this year—and of the past decade. archaeology.org/issues/406-210…

New publication! #敦煌艺术大辞典 Dictionary of Dunhuang Art, a hefty 715-page tome covering all aspects of #DunhuangArt & #MaterialCulture #DunhuangAcademy #MogaoGrottoes #莫高窟 #敦煌研究院 #樊锦诗 #赵声良

This is a period when the region was ruled successively by Xiongnu, Di & Qiang (Tibetan in origin), and Xianbei (Turkic people). The mixture of Han & non-Han populations made it a vast melting pot of different cultures & customs, contributing to the flowering of Buddhism in China

New series of Silk Road lectures at UCL - weekly lectures on Mondays or Fridays - starts 11 Jan 2021 with Tim Winter on “The curious geographies of the Silk Roads” (hope this will go on a web-page soon!) UCL @uclcaal

Masterpiece of mural art just disclosed by archaeologists: A Sogdian groom is struggling to tame a wild horse, one hand holding the reins, the other brandishing a whip. 2 dogs stand by, one startled, the other heedless. It's from the tomb of a 7th-c Sogdian equestrian supervisor.

Please join us next week for an event with Dr. Chapurukha Kusimba on the historical trade relationship between China and East Africa. Register here ➡️ georgetown.zoom.us/meeting/regist…

🇹🇯🇺🇿🇹🇲 The "Zarafshan-Karakum Corridor" has recently been included by the UNESCO in its tentative list for World Heritage. The 866 km route crosses Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan and boasts 31 sites, from fortresses to caravanserais, mausoleums to settlements... 👇 1/12

Happy Ox Year🐮🎉 #LunarNewYear2021

Spring 2021 Calendar of Events Registration links at events.berkeley.edu/index.php/cale… #silkroad #gandhara #buddhiststudies #丝绸之路 #佛教研究

Newly discovered dated early Tang tombs in Shaanxi, one may be a tomb of a Sogdian. mp.weixin.qq.com/s/oIvFhn2CABup…

Rome, China, and the barbarians: ethnographic traditions and the transformation of empires #BookReview bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2021/2021.04.1…

Wonderful summaries of this year's lectures on the latest Silk Road discoveries with links to important references. Thanks to UCL's Central Asian Archaeological Landscapes. uclcaal.org/2021/01/29/sil…

It’s a golden age for Chinese archaeology — and the West is ignoring it washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/0…