Sogdian Traders: A History
Étienne de la Vaissière (trans. James Ward)
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“It’s a great book. The Sogdians were the main traders along the Silk Road. ‘Sogdian’ is a word for the people who lived around the region of today’s Uzbekistan and the language they spoke. An abandoned mailbag, containing eight letters written in this language in the early 300s, describing the trade with China and the edge of the Iranian world, was discovered. From these letters we learn a lot about the contact between the Chinese capital and Sogdians … It’s a huge feat of research, the author draws from documents in Sodgian and Arabic. The author gives an overview of the Sogdians from their start, in the early 300s, through the peak period of trading and then to their decline.” Read more...
