We are very happy to have Khodadad Rezakhani back in Lille after the wonderful experience of the forum on Sasanina studies “Ērān Tūrān Hrōm”, which took place in July 2024. Rezakhani will be staying in Lille as an invited speaker for three weeks. You can find a brief general presentation below, alongside the main points of the six sessions.
General Description
This short module is convened in order to discuss the history and historiography of the Eurasian world, particularly in its Central and West Asian space, in the first millennium CE. Starting with a study of the concept of the Silk Road and its modern European origins, the module will proceed to in depth discussion of the sources of our knowledge about commerce and human exchange in Eurasia. In the space of six sessions, the module will look primarily at the Roman and Iranian (and later, early Islamic) empires, namely the world regions of the Mediterranean, West Asia, and Central Asia. Discussions of East Asia (mainly China) and south Asia (India and the Western Indian Ocean) will also add to the breadth of the module.
Through concentration on primary sources, including newly discovered and translated documents, the module will present a new picture of the travel and trade in Eurasia. Shifting the focus eastward from the Mediterranean and bringing the dynamics of the Eurasian steppe into focus, the module addresses issues of commercial activity, human exchange, cultural transfer, and political change. Besides “Classical” sources in Latin, Greek, Arabic, Aramaic, or Armenian, the course will make use of Persian, Middle Persian, Sogdian, Bactrian, Khotanese, and occasionally Tibetan and Chinese sources, as well as numismatic and art historical evidence. Part of the aim of the module is to familiarise the students with these less explored sources and help create a sourcebook for the study of Eurasia in the first millennium. Throughout the module, a focus will be kept on the relationship between the steppe nomads and the better studied settled empires. In this sense, the module also hopes to foster the idea that nomadic polities and societies were source of cultural production, religious structure, economic innovation, and political institutions that affected Eurasian history as their settled counterparts and partners.
The Sessions
- Creating the Silk Road(s)
The first session will lead into the issue of the terminology of the Silk Road, or Roads, by exploring the development of European perspectives on the East through its colonial history, starting from the Age of Discovery up to the 19th and early 20th century Orientalists who travelled to Central Asia. The various definitions of this geographic setting will be presented, and, finally, the issue of terminology will come to contemporary scholarship.
2. Rome’s East: Roman historians
on the East
Starting from Hellenistic and early Roman writers, such as Nearchus and Ptolemy, the second session presents the Roman view of the East, in particular from historical and geographical treatises, and uses these works as a chance to see the materials actually coming from the East: Ptolemy and the Kushans (2nd c.), Ammianus and the Huns (4th c.), Joshua the Stylite, Procopius and the Hephthalites (5th-6th c.), Menander Protector and the Sogdians and Turks (6th c.), and, finally, Theophylact Simocatta and the “Turks” (6th-7th c.).
3. East of Iran and East Iran
Moving from Rome’s perception of the East, the third session leads us to the East of Eranshahr and to the Iranian perspective. From the Arsacid period – from a strictly Parthian to an Indo-Parthian and Armenian point of view – we move towards Ardashir’s conquest of Eranshahr, and how the East – and therefore also the Kushans and the Huns – plays into the construction of the Sasanian world, with a perspective from Middle Persian sources such as the Bundahishn, and in particular from the epigraphic and numismatic evidence. On this last element, comments on the effect of the Muslim conquest towards currency unification will be made.
4. Finding the East
Following the Sasanian and Roman conceptions of the East and the first glimpses to its reality, the fourth session tries to pinpoint this “East” through the documentary and numismatic evidence left by the peoples who lived within it: people who wrote in Bactrian and Sogdian. Through letters, documents, and coins, the economy and the history of these peoples will emerge, from the Kushans to the wide Sogdian merchant network. Furthermore, the understanding of the past of this region by its future inhabitants will be analysed: the development of the idea of the region of Khurasan in the Islamic period, through Arabic-writing scholars such as Ibn Khurradadbih.
5. The Indian Ocean Trade
The fifth session shifts from the land trade routes trodden by the Sogdians and Bactrians to the often overlooked setting of the seafaring trade in the Indian Ocean. Again, we will return to the Roman presence and the issue of evidence to this. Afterwards, our gaze will be directed towards some of the most important actors in the western side of this trade, the kingdoms of Axum and Himyar, before shifting to the wider setting. Material findings will also be discussed, such as Chinese shipwrecks and the presence of Sasanian sherds. Finally, perspectives of Islamic sources of the early medieval period will be discussed.
6. China and the “West”
The final session will reverse the point of view, and propose the Chinese perspective towards its own “West”. From the “father” of Chinese historiography, Sima Qian, and the narration of the rise of the first Chinese empire under the Qin dynasty, we will see how China developed its imagination of its frontier, its peoples, and the development of the “Silk Road”; for example, the “Western Barbarians” in the Hu Han Shu, and the various names of Western countries and regions – Anxi, Da Qin, Fulin, etc. Again, crossing into the early medieval period, we will see an encounter between the Chinese and Islamic worlds through the Tang Protectorate of the West and the Battle of Talas.
