Category: Travel

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V is for Vikings

The Oseberg ship, a symbol of a different kind of trader. Wikipedia.

When you visualize “medieval traders of Persian textiles,” Vikings may not be the first thing that comes to mind.

Yet the Scandinavians were masterful travelers who, despite their reputation for looting, were also supreme world traders. They had access to their own products from the Silk Road and navigated their own pathways into the heart of the world exchange that took place on the central Asian steppes. As much as some would like to debunk the idea, you can’t argue when the evidence is dug up a Norwegian back yard.

Where the Bodies Were Buried

The Viking ship above, called a karve, was discovered near a farm in Southeastern Norway at the beginning of the 20th century. (Discovered near a farm … hmm … perhaps that means a plow hit an immovable object one fine Osebergian spring morn?) A Swedish archaeologist took charge of unearthing the site in 1904-05. While precious metal items were missing, they did find two female skeletons and a big stash of goods still remained.

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T is for Tone

Lute, oud what’s in a name?

The oud, the chant, the guzheng, and the morin khuur. There aren’t many stories of medieval bards out on the Silk Road, but there must have been. Even the conquerors appreciated art and music. The cities of Baghdad, Samarkand, Constantinople, and Hangzhou were considered the happening places to be back in the day. Marco Polo weaves music in and out of his stories of Cathay and of Alaoudin.

When any one of them opened his eyes, saw this delightful spot, and heard the delicious music and songs, he really believed himself in the state of blessedness.

Marco Polo, “On the Old Man of the Mountain”
Wikipedia shows range of medieval lute players.

Here’s a quick spin through some medieval instruments, with their links (sorry in advance if you run into a Youtube ad, but wait for the music!)

The Oud

The lute came out of Persia, an instrument with a neck, strings, and a rounded bowl for good sound. The Arabs called their version the oud. Apparently, it belongs to a class of instruments called chordophones, whose sound comes from vibrating strings. The singer Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (c. 965–1040) was known for his expertise.

Here is Naochika Sogabe, showing you what an oud sounded like:

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S is for Samarkand

No one still lives in Babylon. Luxor is an open-air museum, ancient ruins for tourists. Alexandria was burned down, Tenochtitlan is underground, and Çatalhöyük can hardly be spelled, let alone found.

Registan square in Samarkand, built @800 BCE. Wikipedia photo.

It’s not the oldest continuously inhabited city, yet 2800 years seems a pretty good pedigree. And if you’re going to write about the center of the Silk Road, only ONE city in the center, Samarkand would be it.

Samarkand survives.

“Samarkand” painted by Zommer, late 19th c. Wikimedia.

Oasis in the Desert

Remember the Oxus, remember the Hindu Kush and the Kushans a few alphabetic posts back? The Kush is a mountain range in northern India, and the Kushans and Sogdians spread across the land to its northwest. The Oxus, today the Amu Darya, flows from the those mountains to the northwest, to the Caspian and the once Aral Sea.

Above the Oxus, nestled in a long and unusual stripe of green across those mix of foothills, dirt, desert, and mountains, is the ancient city of Samarkand, the second-largest city in Uzbekistan. If you were to take a map of Asia and North Africa, squint and put your finger on the middle, you might exactly touch Samarkand.

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