Record · Medieval world · Central Asia
Who actually carried goods along the Silk Road?
Sogdian merchants from Samarkand and Bukhara, who kept colonies across China from the AD 300s to the 700s and faded after the Arab conquest.
· AD 600Medieval world Central Asia
Central Asia in the medieval world (500 – 1500). A thousand years of kingdoms, caliphates, steppe empires and trading cities between the fall of Rome and the voyages that joined the hemispheres.
Record · Medieval world · Central Asia
Did one battle in 751 carry papermaking to the West?
Tang and Abbasid armies fought at Talas in July 751, but Sogdian letters on paper from about 313 show Central Asia had paper centuries earlier.
· AD 751
Record · Medieval world · Central Asia
Not as big as Saint Denis: William of Rubruck measures Karakorum, 1254
A Franciscan friar entered the Mongol capital on May 7, 1254, sized it against a village near Paris, and described a silver fountain and Mongke's creed.
· 1254