The Book on the Silk Roads 1.0

Books are carriers of knowledge and culture. Along with other objects of exchange, they travelled the Silk Roads — not only the specific trade routes that linked Rome to China from antiquity through the Middle Ages, but also the many pathways that connected people across national boundaries and faith traditions, crossing the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean, and even the Atlantic. The many routes of the Silk Road offered a platform for exchanging ideas, materials and techniques throughout the centuries and across geographies. This exhibition offers visitors new ways to see the book, as a gateway into our shared histories. It shows how books move through space and time, specifically along the Silk Roads but also more generally — across the Mediterranean, down into the Horn of Africa, into South and East Asia, upward through Europe, and across the Atlantic.