Sogdians on the Silk Road
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For the past week, I have been preparing a major post on Middle Iranian and associated peoples who transited and traded across Eurasia during the Middle Ages, so it was fortuitous that I received the following photograph from Hiroshi Kumamoto:
Xinhua News Agency//Getty Images
Archaeologists Found Someone They Never Expected in an Ancient Chinese Tomb: a Blonde Man
The discovery reveals an unexpected connection to the ancient Silk Road.
By Tim Newcomb Popular Mechanics (May 10, 2025)
Place:
Jinyuan District, Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province
It shows a Sogdian camelteer and horse groom, typical types of expertise of the Sogdians, who were merchants par excellence on the medieval Eurasian trade routes. The man's blond hair doesn't surprise me in the slightest, because I have seen it in Central Asian mummies and their descendants in Eastern Central Asia (ECA, aka Xinjiang), Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan,Tajikistan, etc., not to mention countless historical visual materials from the medieval period.
For a small foretaste of what's in store for the Sogdians in medieval Korea that will be part of the forthcoming post on Sogdians and associated peoples on the Silk Road, see "The Eastern end of the Silk Road in Silla", also here.
Selected readings
- "Turco-Sogdian horses and languages" (10/28/24)
- "Tocharo-Sinica and Sogdo-Sinica" (7/3/24)
- "Tocharo-Sinica" (5/13/24)
- "Catalogue of Sogdian Writings in Central Asia" (1/5/23)
- "Sogdians and Xiongnu / Huns" (2/21/22)
- "The sound of ancient Iranian languages" (10/26/23)
- Victor H. Mair, ed., The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia (Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man Inc. in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania Museum Publications, 1998). 2 vols.
- J. P. Mallory and Victor H.Mair,The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West(London: Thames & Hudson, 2000).
- Elizabeth Wayland Barber, The Mummies of Ürümchi (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999)
Chris Coulouris said,
May 22, 2025 @ 3:04 pm
Some years ago I saw a picture depicting Sogdians in Qingzhou Shandong province. I just did a Google search and found the picture I saw years ago. The picture I clicked on led me to a very interesting Smithsonian page about Sogdians. I would like to share it https://sogdians.si.edu/the-sogdians-abroad/
Victor Mair said,
May 22, 2025 @ 5:53 pm
@Chris Coulouris
Thanks for mentioning the remarkable Qingzhou (Shandong) Buddhist statues. I saw them at a temporary exhibition in Shandong about 20-25 years ago, then at the National Art Museum in Beijing, and also at an exhibition elsewhere. In each case, I was absolutely stunned by a little figure that was painted on the robe of one of the buddhas. It was only a couple of inches tall, but was exquisitely detailed and in perfect condition. It depicted a blond-haired foreigner with clothing and boots that looked clearly western and as though they could have come from much later than the 5th-6th centuries to which the statues are attributed.
I can't find this little figure online now, so I would be deeply grateful if you, Chris, or someone else could locate it for me.
One of the co-authors of the superb Smithsonian article you cite is Judith Lerner, whose photo is included in it. See also her "Aspects of Assimilation: the Funerary Practices and Furnishings of Central Asians in China", Sino-Platonic Papers, 168 (December, 2005), 51, v, 9 plates.
The Smithsonian article is part of the ongoing digital exhibition, "The Sogdians: Influencers on the Silk Roads".
The poem at the beginning of the article was translated by yours truly:
=====
Iranian whirling girl, Iranian whirling girl…
At the sound of the string and drums, she raises her arms,
Like swirling snowflakes tossed about, she turns in her twirling dance.
Whirling to the left, turning to the right, she never feels exhausted,
A thousand rounds, ten thousand circuits—it never seems to end…
Compared to her, the wheels of a racing chariot revolve slowly and a whirlwind is sluggish.
Iranian whirling girl,
You came from Sogdiana…
=====
Victor H. Mair, ed., trans. The Shorter Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2001), 149–50.
The Sogdian Whirl (huxuan wu 胡旋舞), as the dance was known,
For the date of the wall painting that appears at the beginning of this post, the following is from the cited article:
=====
Experts believe the tomb was owned by a man who died in 736 AD at age 63, during the middle of the Tang dynasty, which ran from 618 to 907 AD. He was buried in the tomb along with his wife.
=====
Chris Coulouris said,
May 24, 2025 @ 12:27 pm
I have been looking for a picture of that figurine you wrote about in your post Professor Mair but so far no luck. The Qingzhou Museum website didn't have any pictures either. During my search I came across a book about the Qingzhou Buddhas on Amazon. It is Return of the Buddha: the Qingzhou Discoveries Tony Corbett(contributor) maybe there is a photo in this book of the figure you saw.
The poem you translated is a wonderful depiction of the Iranian dancers. Bai Juyi is one of my favorite Chinese poets. Best wishes.
Lucas Christopoulos said,
May 25, 2025 @ 7:33 pm
For the Sogdian figures on: https://sogdians.si.edu/the-sogdians-abroad/
On Fig. 22, the figure of Panjikent, Tajikistan, seems more like a deity rather than a banqueter. As represented together with Hippokampos, it could be the god Oxus.
On Fig. 27, the two attendants seem to be holding the “bag of winds” on top of the wind god. He is seated on a throne of cow protomes. It will later become Fūjin (風神) in Japan after passing through the Kizil caves as well. The cow protomes come earlier from the representation of Helios supported by horse protomes in Central Asia, as the figure seated on a throne with horse protomes in a painting from Dokhtar-i-Noshirwan and on the horse chariot-borne solar deity of the West wall of Mogao Cave 285.