Silk Roads is the first major exhibition of the British Museum with a team of three curators from different departments and specialisms and draws objects from nearly all collection departments in the museum. The multi-curator, cross department approach was aimed at developing interconnected narratives. The museum also worked with scientists to analyse artefacts, helping to gain a more precise understanding of materials, making techniques and their spread. And in a mammoth undertaking there are also major loans from 29 national and international lenders making this an impressive show.

The “Silk Road” was first used to describe the singular overland trade route bringing silk from China to the Mediterranean. This exhibition will challenge visitors understanding of this term by broadening its scope thus naming it “Silk Roads “(plural) and showing broadly overlapping networks spreading out in multiple directions and journeys by river and sea and the movement of an abundance of goods, not only of silk, silver and spices but of people, objects and ideas, beliefs and technologies.

The exhibition focuses on a 500-year period of the Silk Routes history between 500-1000AD and is structured to cover 5 geographic zones moving east to west and linked by six case studies.

The show begins with an encased spot lit small statue of a bronze Buddha probably made in the Swat Valley, an early Buddhist centre in what is now Pakistan, sometime around 500 AD but unearthed some 5,000 kilometres away, on the tiny Swedish island of Helgö and hereby begins to dramatically broaden the boundaries of the Silk Roads as one imagines the epic journey of this artefact and how connected the world had already become.

The journey begins at the eastern ends of the Silk Roads between Korea, China and Japan where the spread of Buddhism was a significant development. Buddhism arrived from India transmitted by monks and merchants sharing the same trade routes.

The exhibition encompasses oceanic routes as well as those over land. Oceanic routes enabled the movement of large cargo along the warm waters of Southeast Asia. A medieval trading vessel wreck was discovered in 1998 on the seabed near Belitung Island, Indonesia, found untouched on the seabed for over a thousand years. It is thought to have been heading from southern China to the Arabian Peninsula or the Persian Gulf and was laden with a huge cargo of over 60,000 items of mostly Chinese ceramics. 

On display are treasures discovered in 1900 near the town of Dunhuang, where a sealed chamber was discovered at the Mogao rock-cut temple complex containing some 70,000 manuscripts, paintings, textiles and other objects and hence named “Library Cave”. An exceptional massive embroidery was found depicting Buddha emerging from a rocky mountain in red robes, accompanied by bodhisattvas and disciples. It is sewn with silk threads on silk ground backed with hemp with visible embroidered text suggesting it was commissioned by a senior monk at the Mogao Caves. It is a truly beautiful piece, yet we are also confronted with manuscripts which indicated there was an established market for the trade of enslaved people in the region and that diplomatic envoys also transported people as gifts. On display is a contract recording the sale of a 28-year-old woman sold in exchange for five bolts of silk witnessed by a monk and a nun (991AD).

In the UK for the first time is the oldest group of chess pieces ever found made of ivory and originating from India but excavated in Samarkand, and a six-metre-long wall painting from the “Hall of Ambassadors” in Afrasiab, Uzbekistanwhich tells the story of the Sogdians from Central Asia who were a group of people probably less familiar to general audiences but were key traders along the Silk Road. I naively found it hard to believe the wall painting was real due to its size and condition and imagining it to be near on impossible to display upright and intact. The full mural features scenes about India and Tang China, reflects the Sogdians understanding of themselves as integral players across regional and far-reaching networks.

Another highlight piece, on loan after 4 years of negotiations from Berlin is a stunning example of a Byzantium crossover riding costume made of cashmere and sheep’s wool with silk trim (now lost) AD400-700 (radiocarbon - dated) is 1500 years old yet beautifully intact.

In Afghanistan Islam encountered Buddhism. A major Buddhist site in the Bamiyan Valley remained even after the arrival of Islam by AD800-900. The site was dominated by two colossal rock-cut dominated Buddha sculptures that had overlooked the valley for 1,500 years. In contrast to the tolerance shown by early Muslim caliphates in 2001 the Taliban destroyed the enormous ancient Buddhas but on display is a rescued sculpture found in a nearby cave.

The Viking section’s display of silver, holds a dramatic tale which was discovered through scientific analysis. Analysis showed the metal to probably be melted down Islamic dirhams, having flowed into the Scandinavian region up the river systems of what is now Ukraine, Russia, eastern Europe into the Baltic Sea to eastern Scandinavia. It is thought the dirhams were being exchanged for human beings as there was a big demand for labour in Islamic lands during this time.

“Made in Syria, buried in Essex” is the catchy title of a display cabinet towards the end of the exhibition showing items from excavations in Prittlewell, Essex, of lavish burials from around the early AD600s which yielded unusual objects with distant connections.

The exhibition closes out with items excavated from Sutton Hoo with the finest known examples of garnet cloisonne metal work. This intricate technique originates from the Black Sea caucuses or Middle East region and was gradually adopted across Europe. Scientific analysis for this exhibition has traced the gems on these pieces to distant sources Such as Czech and Sri Lanka. These lustrous stones reached England in stages via land, sea and river roots

The Silk Roads exhibition is a triumph, reminding us that history is not a series of isolated events but a vast, interconnected web. The exhibition succeeds, above all, in bringing to life the kaleidoscopic nature of these ancient pathways, where empires collided, ideas coalesced, religion spread, and treasures mingled at endless points of connection. This is an unmissable opportunity to see treasures from Asia, Africa and Europe together in one room and in conversation with each other.

 Date: 26 September 2024 - 23 February 2025. Time: 10 am - 5pm (Fridays 8.30pm). Location: The British Museum Great Russell St, London WC1B 3DG. Price: Adults from £22. Members and under-16s free. Book now.

 Words by Natascha Milsom