Preface -- How to use this book -- Introduction: what was the world of the ancient Silk Road? -- Alphabetical entries -- Amazons -- Animal style -- Banqueting -- City planning -- Coinage -- Domestication of the horse -- Funerary practices -- Indus Valley civilization -- Linguistic and genetic studies -- Monasticism -- Nomad kingdoms and empires -- Persepolis' Apadana -- Persistence of Classicism -- Shamanism, ancient Central Asian -- Silk -- Texts and archaeology -- Texts and translations -- Travelers, Early -- Wool working and carpet making -- Zoroastrianism -- Artifacts.
This book explores the interconnectivity of the Eurasian continent from 4000 BCE to 1000 CE. It focuses on the role played by Central Asia through which passed the major trade routes, the Silk Road. It covers life along the Silk Road as it can be understood by considering objects, which provide the vehicles for explorations of different aspects of life for settled peoples, steppe nomads, and peoples at either end of the Silk Road who drove certain kinds of economic exchanges.