Art and Archaeology of The Silk Road
Elsa FAVREAU
Copyright © 2006 by Elsa Favreau
“By preserving over all obstacles, and
distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination”
Christopher Columbus
Obstacles, distractions, destination ...Columbus’s words
could as well stand for the fascinating and bewitching routes that linked the
East to the West. Indeed, these routes, often consolidated together under the
enchanting name “Silk Road”, were sprinkled with “obstacles”, spoiled by
“distractions” and the home of several marvellous and exotic “destinations”.
This so-called “Seindenstraße” as the geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen
(1833-1905) originally named it in German, in 1877, misleadingly calls to mind
two images. The first one is the collection of routes (both terrestrial and
maritime) across Central Asia, which connected China and the Far East with the
Mediterranean and the Far West. The second one refers directly to silk
(“seiden”) one of the many items passing across the Silk Road’s network[1].
These 6400 kilometres of routes contained in fact three major ones leading
westward from Chang’an (the capital of China, actually in Xian), with assuredly
hundreds of smaller ways as well as by ways. The northern route ran from China
to the Black Sea, the central one to Persia and the Mediterranean Sea; and the
Southern to the regions, which now include Afghanistan, Iran and India.
More than simple ways
for connecting places, these routes were at the origin of an extraordinary
conduit for ideas, religions, artistic forms and styles, between the East and
the West. Even more, this trans-Asian Highway was to be the cradle of Buddhist
Art derived from Chinese, Indian, Greek, Persian and Tibetan arts. The interest
for these routes, these networks, hence these lands of mysteries, fantasies,
dangers (The Taklamakan desert is said to be the most hostile desert in the
World – see image), and fairy tales, never stop growing throughout the
centuries.
Yet, from Alexander the
Great to researchers of the beginning of the 20th century like Sir
Aurel Stein (1862-1943) or Albert von LeCoq (1860-1930), the conception of the
Silk Road kept evolving. Alexander the Great probably stands for one of the
first Westerners to have fascinated his contemporaries with his epic accounts
about the Silk Road. Much later, at the beginning of the 20th century,
the enigmatic Silk Road would puzzle once again the two explorers cited above
spining their willingness to lift the veil hiding buried treasures along these
routes.
While
describing the role played by explorers such as Sir Aurel Stein or Albert von
LeCoq and the importance revealed by their excavations, we will also focus on
the “modern” comprehension of the Silk Road brought to light by them. Although our paper is part of an art history
and archaeological overview, we will not understand the term “modern” as
referring to art history’s movements or its ages. More broadly, we will
consider the term “modern” in its general sense, that is to say according to
the following definition: “of or relating to recent times or the present”[2].
In other words, we will here try to throw light on the second birth that was
given to the Silk Road by 19th and 20th century
explorers. This paper will not hence try to demonstrate the existence of a
so-called “ancient” comprehension of the Silk Road, antithetical to the “modern”
one. On the contrary, we will try to explain how both conceptions, “ancient”
and “modern”, were intrinsically linked one to another and more precisely how
the first one enabled the emergence of the second one. In other words, we will
explain how the two comprehensions have evolved from a first birth to a
rebirth, or how by relying on their ancestors’ vision, these explorers created
a new vision.
Never
forgetting the fact that the Silk Road was not a simple trade route but a
connection of fundamental cultural highways, we will show how the awareness of
external identities and cultures juxtapositions led to a new conception of Art
influences within Central Asia.
From fairy tales to priceless travel
diaries
At a time
when the name “Seindenstraße” was yet to be coined for these magic routes,
goods were already traded between the oasis towns surrounding the mysterious
Central Asian deserts (Gobi and Takalamakan) and China. These deserts, basins,
goods of luxury and unreachable lands recorded in Eastern texts, fascinated the
West. Indeed if the liking for discoveries as well as intellectual curiosity is
to be pointed out concerning 20th century explorers motivation;
their questionings and willingness have also been strongly stimulated while
reading the texts of the earliest Silk Road’s adventurers.
Before the
19th century rebirth of the Silk Road, records of both Eastern and
Western characters increased the fascination about these routes. Amongst them,
four emerge: Alexander the great, Faxian, Xuanzang and Marco Polo. They were
the ones to give the first conception of the Silk Road phenomenon.
Although
there was little data in the West compared to the quantity of Chinese records[3]
found during the discoveries, historians argue that the first one to have
recorded an overall route to the Issedones[4]
was Herodotus[5] in
the 5th century BC. The effect of the historical invasion of Asia by
Alexander the Great in 334-323 BC and its move across Persia, from Samarkand
(present-day Uzbekistan) through Sogdiana was quite considerable. It is at that
time that the East started to awake to the West. Moreover, when entering the
Iranian empire, Alexander the Great imposed Greek culture. Hence, at that time,
the area was already becoming a crossroads of Asia, where Persian, Indian and
Greek ideas met.
In China, Zhangqian
appears to be the first one to have travelled across China on a secret mission.
In the 2nd century BC, sent by emperor Wudi of the Han dynasty, Zhangqian, “ the father of the Silk Road”[6],
followed in Alexander the Great’s footsteps but this time, from the East. His
mission was the quest of an alliance against the disruptive XiongNu[7].
Although a failure, he brought back precious information concerning unknown
kingdoms such as Ferghana, Samarkand and even Persia. Concerning fairy tales
and fascinating stories, he is also the first one to have mentioned the
existence of these extremely powerful warhorses also called “heavenly horses”
(see image). These heavenly horses
were instrumental in transforming the Han cavalry and were very effective in
weakening the Xiongnu. It has been said that Alexander’s horse, Bucephalus,
bore similar resemblance to these horses. Emperor Wudi believed that these
horses (“Tianma” in Chinese) could bring him to heaven. These horses have been immortalised
in the art of the period.
However, the
most detailed and precise evocations of the Silk Road have come down through
the sources left by several pilgrims who travelled from China to India between
the 3rd and the 10th century. Indeed at that time, pilgrimage was quite a
common practise among monks. The purpose of their travels was to study Buddhism
at its source. As a matter of fact, most of them headed for India.
During the 4th
century AD for example, the Buddhist pilgrim Faxian was one of the first
Easterners to have contributed to the comprehension of the Silk Road.
Astonished by the lack of knowledge of Chinese monks, he decided to travel to
India where Buddhism had originated. In his Record of the Buddhistic
Kingdoms, he tells the reasons for his setting out to seek the truth from
Buddhist sources and to pray at the Holy places.
Yet the most
famous pilgrim is by no means the monk Xuanzang (603-664). As his biographer S.
Wriggins argues it, Xuanzang probably stands for one of the earliest symbol of
cultural exchange between the two great civilizations in Asia-India and China.[8]
In 629, he left the capital Chang’an for India via the North Oasis road,
through Turfan, crossing the Pamyrs and going down to Samarkand and Bactria
(present-day Afghanistan). When he came back, he wrote his Record of the
Western Regions at the Time of the Tang Dynasty for the Tang Emperor. These
records, precious to the scholars of the twentieth century, contained various
information about products and customs in several places in Asia.[9]
Indeed, alternately called by Sir Aurel Stein his “patron saint”[10]
or his “Buddhist Pausanius”[11],
Xuanzang “ like the magic lamp of Sinbad the sailor, reveal(ed) a treasure”[12]
to the explorers. Although the facts and information provided by this “Prince
of Pilgrims”[13]
could not be ascertained at the beginning of the twentieth century, the
explorers were strongly convinced by their truthfulness.
Xuanzang’s (see image)
legacy not only contributed to feed the Silk Road “myth” by alluding to the presence
of demons for instance, but also at the same time stands for an incomparable
travel diary[14].
Indeed, its commentary already included precisions about Buddhism (Buddhist
beliefs and practices or descriptions of sculptures). His records have thus helped
explorers to identify their discoveries, and enabled art historians to
reconstruct the history of several of the best known and most holy images of
Buddhism.
It has been
argued that art and civilization of the Silk Road started to decline with the
fall of the Tang dynasty[15]. Not coincidentally, the Silk Road flourished during the highly artistic
and prosperous Tang Dynasty. By the end of
the dynasty, monasteries, temples, flourishing paintings, frescoes were then
neglected and had to wait the end of the 19th century to reappear.
However, explorers continued to be fascinated, especially one.
The Romance
of the Silk Road can also be traced back to the accounts of Marco Polo
(1254-1324), who while describing the route from Baghdad to China alludes to
the “spirits” and the mysterious people he encountered on his way.[16]
Marco Polo had crossed Asia along the Steppe Route and remained twenty years in
the services of Kublai Khan. Although still extremely debated, archaeologists
and art historians of the Silk Road agree to say that Marco Polo’s Description
of the World was an invaluable source for travellers[17].
Besides, he probably remains the most famous Westerner to have travelled on the
Silk Road.
The records
of the four men introduced above contributed to a first comprehension of the
Silk Road. Before the birth of Christ until the 14th century AD,
these texts alluded to magical and culturally rich regions. 19th century researchers used
these sources to demonstrate a new comprehension of these routes. Driven by their
predecessors’ precious advice and their endeavour to conquest the West, a
British and a German explorer were to give a second birth to the Silk Road.
Hunting treasures: from fairy
tales to confirmation
Within the
“International Association for the exploration of Central Asia”[18],
several figures amongst which Sir Aurel Stein (see image) and Albert von Le Coq[19]
started their “international race” towards the discoveries in Central Asia.
Following the paths of their ancestors, aware of the several legends related to
the Silk Road and intrigued by the idea that Greek culture could have been
transported as far as into the heart of Asia, explorers were willing to make
new discoveries. Convinced by the truthfulness of the legend that said that
more than three hundred thousands cities were buried under the Taklamakan,
European explorers could start their treasure hunt. We can today say that their
finds were going to change the world’s conception of Central Asian Art, a
cradle for the co-existence of several civilizations.
The
explorers of the 19th and 20th century made several
discoveries. The purpose of this essay is by no means to enumerate these
discoveries. However, we will try and give prominent examples on their
discoveries. These examples shed new light on the comprehension of the Silk
Road. The second part of the essay will thus explore the different influences
that the “modern” comprehension understands as acting on the Silk Road. By
excavating documents from juxtaposed culures, the explorers gave a second birth
to the Silk Road.
The leading explorer of
the Southern Silk Road and the Taklamakan desert, also called “moving sands”,
is without doubt the Swedish Sven Hedin (1865-1952). His curiosity picked by
local legends in the Takalamakan desert, he discovered ruined cities on the
south side of the desert. His biggest find was the city of Loulan (march 1901)
where he discovered several Chinese manuscripts, some of them dating back to
the third century.
Following
Sven Hedin’s paths, the British Aurel stein undertook several expeditions
amongst which three major ones : the first one in 1900 (in Western China and
Taklamakan desert), the second one – the most famous in 1907 (Loulan and
Dunhuang) and the third one in 1915 (Dunhuang and Turfan). The German von LeCoq
took over the running of the second German expedition to East Turkestan in
1902. Unlike Sven Hedin, whose treasures led in travelling unsurveyed and
dangerous expanses, Stein’s goal was to discover forgotten civilizations which
exemplified the cultural diversity of the Silk Road[20]. Indeed Stein and Lecoq
verified the presence of Buddhist, Greek, Indian, Islamic, Persian and Tibetan
cultures as well as forgotten religions. Moreover, the new consciousness of the
existing links between these disregarded civilizations contributed to the
modern vision of the Silk Road. How diverse were these cultures?
Blossoming of Buddhism
The Silk Road has
connected completely different ideas from the East to the West and thus
different art techniques. The best-known art of the Silk Road is undoubtedly
the Buddhist Art. If talking about Buddhist art, we must not forget to specify
some facts about Buddhist religion itself. Indeed, Buddhism cannot be
differentiated from the evolution of the Silk Road. As Susan Whitfield explains,
it is only during the 19th century that Western scholars started to
be aware of the Indian roots of Buddhism[21],
and the first introduction to Indian Buddhism goes back to the mid nineteenth
century.[22]
Buddhist
religion had been carried, like silk, along the fascinating routes. As Peter
Hopkirk asserts it, this religion “was to revolutionise art and thought not
only in China but throughout the entire Far East.” Buddhism began its evolution as a religious doctrine in the sixth
century BC, and was adopted as India's official religion in the third century
BC. According to the legend, the Han Emperor Mingti, who
had heard of Buddhism, dreamt of a golden figure floating in a halo of light
that was interpreted to be the Buddha himself. Consequently, an envoy was sent
to India to learn about the new religion, returning with sacred Buddhist texts
and paintings as well as Indian priests to explain the teachings of the Buddha
to the Emperor. Although several forms of Buddhism exist, Buddha’s teachings
were that life is full of suffering and that one can only be liberated from it
by mental and moral self-purification.
The
new Buddhist art that emerged from Chinese Turkestan, now known as “Serindian”
(the name was given by Sir Aurel Stein), absorbed different styles and forms
along the way, including those popular in the Kingdom of Gandhara (in what is
now the Peshawar valley of northwest Pakistan), where indigenous Indian art
forms had already been mixed with those of the Greeks and Persians in the early
sixth century BC.
Other forms of art flourished along the
roads, enabling the explorers to play their role of verifiers of fairy tales.
However, it
has been said that the Gandharan sculptures are the most fabulous examples of
the East-West interaction along the Buddhist routes.[23]
What explorers brought to light was assuredly the conception of a new type of
art called “Gandhara Art”.
From Hellenistic influences to Gandhara Art
From what we
demonstrated above, we indeed now know that Buddhists crossed the passes from
India to Afghanistan in the late 1rst millennium BCE. History says that they
encountered Alexander the Great’s soldiers. Buddhist Art then started to
incorporate Greek characteristics in sculptures amongst others. This
Graeco-Buddhist style was the art called Gandhara Art (see image). The greatest
explorer of our time[24]
was convinced that the invasion of Asia by Alexander the Great had to have left
treasures along the routes. When discovering Niya in 1901, Stein then realised
evidence of Hellenistic influences on the Silk Road. Indeed, he found clay
seals showing the figure of Pallas Athene, depictions of Greek deities and even
a sitting Eros. Some portraits even had heads of men with features of
barbarians, wholly in a classical style. This discovery probably stands for the
most astonishing since the depiction of the Buddha was in human form.
Traditionally the Buddah was symbolized by a footprint, a wheel, a tree, a
stupa or Sanskrit characters. Stein was astonished. As Luce Boulnois puts it:
“One
can imagine the astonishment which 19th century Westerners must have
experienced (...) when they suddenly came across classically Greek faces,
rounded forms with full curves and straight noses continuing the lime of the
forehead.”[25]
However astonishing, Greek influences on traditional
Buddhist painting were obvious: instead of a loincloth the Buddha wore flowing
robes, had a straight chiselled nose and brow, full lips and wavy hair.
Stein made
similar discoveries in Endere or Miran. Buddhist stucco relieves, a colossal
head of Buddha as well as splendid wall paintings in the Graeco- Buddhist
Gandhara style, found in Miran, had him conclude that the city had experienced
a golden age during the first post Christian centuries. Although Miran had
already been explored by the Russian geoprapher Nikolai Prejevalski in 1876[26],
Stein was the one to have reconstructed the history of the site. Stein’s role
contributed to prove that the Graeco-Roman influence from the Eastern
Mediterranean region had advanced as far as Miran where the “zenith of
Graeco-buddhist Art” was reached[27].
His German
peer Albert von LeCoq, was in the same way convinced that Chinese Turkestan was
the meeting point between art of Classical Greece and Buddhist Art in Asia.
When arriving in Kharakoja, he was astonished to find a nearly life-size statue
of Buddha in Gandhara style. This discovery motivated LeCoq’s endeavour to find
new treasures and thus to play a leading role in archaeological discoveries of
the 20th century. “The paintings were the finest that we found
anywhere in Turkestan, consisting of scenes from Buddha legend, almost purely
Hellenistic in character”[28] said LeCoq when seeing
the drawings at the Kizil sites, half way between the oases of Kashgar and
Turfan.
Gandhara art stands for the most prominent discovery in terms of juxtaposition
of techniques but is not the only one.
Indian Buddhist Art
During his
first and second expeditions (1900-1901 and 1906-1908), Stein discovered the
town of Niya in the south-eastern
Xinjiang region,. There, he found over 100 Kharoshti[29]
wooden tablets written in 105 CE. The discoveries at Niya were so numerous that
some scholars even baptised the city of “The Pompeii of the Silk Road”. The
finds confirmed what Stein had read in Xuanzang’s records concerning the
statement that this region had been conquered by Indians around 200 BCE. The
assumption was confirmed during his second expedition - while going to Dunhuang
- in Loulan where Stein picked up more wooden documents inscribed in Kharoshti
script.[30]
Other Indian traces were found by von LeCoq in the temple of Bezeklik. He
discovered paintings of Buddhist monks larger than life-size that were
distinctively Indian.[31]
In the cella, he even found frescoes of “grotesque-looking” Indian gods[32].
Stein,
although British, was born in Hungary. His Hungarian roots also played a role
in its discoveries, at least in its major one. Stein had heard from a man named
Loczy of a Buddhist cave that inhabited paintings and sculptures with Indian
Buddhist art influences. This desire to see such material made him go to
Dunhuang during its second expedition in 1907. Dunhuang is by no means Stein’s
most significant discovery. Dunhuang was the point where the Northern route and
the Southern route converged. This “Great Art Gallery in the desert”[33],
is probably the best synthesis between
Buddhism and other influences such as Indian or Tibetan cultures. Dunhuang not
only continues to constitute a field of study today but provided immense scope
for scholars to look at the Indian and Tibetan influence on Chinese art.
Tibetan Influence
Tibetan Buddhist texts also played an important role for
the comprehension of the Silk Road. The ruined temple in Endere, visited by
Stein, revealed Tibetan graffiti, confirming the invasion of the eight century
which drove the Chinese from the era. In Miran, old tibetan woodslips were
excavated. By excavating these objects, Stein enlightened to the history
of the Tibetan Empire and the Silk Road.
Historians indeed recall that the Tibetan Empire occupied and ruled the
Southern Route of the Silk Road and most of the Hexi corridor (where the Gobi
meets the Taklamakan) . Hence, the
artefacts discovered by Stein confirm the undeniable presence of Tibetan
Art within China and Central Asia.
Persian Influence
The other
influence came from Persia (present-day Iran). Persia was connected
to China through the commercial exchanges and trading routes. As for the
influences cited above, the relationship between Chinese and Persian arts
expanded. Having read Sven Hedin’s Through
Asia, Aurel Stein found in Dandan Oilik frescoes of Persian
influences. Identical discoveries were
made by von LeCoq in Kharakoja where the manuscripts found all had similar
persian influences.
Depiction of foreigners
Being the cradle for multi-existing
civilizations, The Silk Road also implied foreign influences in everyday life.
Indeed, this trans-Asian highway not only carried goods and art techniques but
men. From an art historical and archaeological standpoint, the evidence stands
in the abundant depiction of foreigners hence western characters. The
excavations and explorations undertook by Stein and von LeCoq also played a
matchless role for our awareness of such a phenomenon. The guardian warriors,
Lokapalas (see image), produced under the Tang Dynasty, stand for a strong
evidence of foreign effect on Silk Road arts.
These representations could be made of
earthenware and directly refer to people, others were strongly influenced by
other artistic movements. In Miran, Stein uncovered murals. On one of them, he
found a dado of winged angels. Stein’s conclusions, when looking at the
cherubins, was that the artist must have been Roman[34].
Mix of religions
In addition to goods, men and art techniques
that travelled along the routes, religions were linked to the profusion of
influences. Our comprehension of the Silk Road today enables a better
understanding of the mutual impact between Buddhist art and other cultures.
Thanks to the German explorer Albert von Lecoq, it also makes clearer the several
religions practised along this “terra incognita”.
Although Buddhist Religion remains the
predominant one on the Silk Road, other “foreign-born” religions and
influences were to reach China[35].
Albert von LeCoq’s excavations in Kharakhoja ( Khoko is the ancient name)
confirmed Marco Polo’s records and stands as evidence. Indeed, today, scholars
are assuredly convinced that the six-foot-high fresco he found there depicts
Manes, who in the third century founded the Manichean faith[36].
The manuscripts, frescoes, hanging cloth paintings and textiles
taken by von Le Coq from Karakhoja provide scholars with a rare source for
learning about the Manichean religion, this now-extinct ascetic faith and its
mystic artist-founder. This fresco
is believed to be the first depiction of Manes ever found and without
it we would have no traces of the Manichean religion, art or culture. Indeed,
until von LeCoq discovery, this creed was believed to have neither literature
nor art[37].
The other religion was Nestorian Christianity. The
Nestorian Church, also called the “Church of the Orient”[38],
denied that Christ could be simultaneously human and divine. Many of them fled
eastwards to the Sassanian empire (present day Iran). From there, beliefs were
carried along the routes and the first Nestorian church was consecrated at
Chang’an in 432. Following Marco Polo’s paths who had found traces of the
religion in Kashgar and Khotan as late as the 13th century, von LeCoq
discovered Nestorian manuscripts in the Turfan and Dunhuang regions.
Stein and LeCoq not only discovered prominent
archaeological artefacts but the existence of hidden beliefs. At that time, Art
could not be differentiated from Religion. Indeed both were connected
inherently.
Although
considered as “foreign devils[39]”
by the Chinese government and others, Stein and Lecoq have extremely
contributed to the modern comprehension of the Silk Road. We can furthermore
assert that scholars and art historians owe their modern comprehension of the
Silk Road to the two explorers. Thanks to them, The Silk Road came back to
life. Without them, the historical conception of the Road would still be
referring to Alexander the Great or Marco Polo records. In this essay, we first
described those which gave birth to the myth of the Silk Road, to further
observe the role of the explorers in the rebirth of the Road. Finally, we
highlighted the contribution of the latest in the unveiling of buried
civilizations. There is no doubt that Stein and von LeCoq were the keystone to
archaeological researches and theories. As Emile Senart has put it, while
welcoming the French explorer Paul Pelliot on his return:
“Thanks to archaeology,
we have seen come out of oblivion and return to life many hidden corners of our
earth which seemed shrouded in some sort of half light”.[40]
Indeed, in terms of
archaeological standpoint, these discoveries have led to new conceptions of the
Silk Road. Today, some of the objects are still studied and the several arts
specified above ( Buddhist Art, Greek Art, Art of Gandhara, Indian Art, Tibetan
Art, Persian Art) are whole considered as major entities and studied
independently in Art departments all over the world. The modern comprehension
of the Silk Road can also be enlightened with the words of Vadim Elisseeff:
“An artistic or an intellectual
influence is not confined to a single effect. Its cause has repercussions not
only by passing from the seed to the fruit but also through countercurrents,
from the effect to the cause. All this is acheived through movements in all directions
which can be repeated infinitely, like those of images in a kaleidoscope.”[41]
Indeed,
the several cultures encountered on the Silk Road, as the images of a
kaleidoscope, were superposed. Although unclear, the images can still be
identified. The veiled civilizations of the Silk Road have begun to appear to
light thanks to the explorations. Yet, as the kaleidoscope’s images,
civilisations outlines appear with clarity while more subtle aspects remain
blurred.
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