Silk Roads, Steppe Roads

History Unearthed from the Tombs of Medieval China

Jonathan Karam Skaff

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9780691261652
  9780691176987
• eBook ISBN:
  9780691291925
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Central Asian History
• Index: History

An innovative study of medieval Chinese tombs that provides new insights into the history of Eurasian cultural contact and exchange

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.

Innovatively drawing on both textual and archaeological sources, Silk Roads, Steppe Roads shows how Eurasian peoples, despite believing their societies to be unique, spun overlapping and entangled webs of culture.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Maps
• List of Illustrations
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. A Slave Road? Slaves and Slavers at Turfan
• 2. Sogdians or Borderlanders? Part I: Lives Revealed in Epitaphs
• 3. Sogdians or Borderlanders? Part II: Death Rituals Revealed in Tombs
• 4. A Tang Dynasty Ally in Ritual and War: The Tomb of Pugu Yitu (635–678) in Mongolia
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• References
• Index with Chinese Character Glossary