Week 3. Sept 21-23 EMPIRE
MOBILE TERRITORIALISM: c.300BCE-600CE: Central Asia Connections for Rome, Persia, India, and China.
Theme: Empires form territory along routes anchored in centers inside spaces of mobility that connect ancient empires through the traveling adaptations of imperial steppe nomads.
Reading:
Required: Armin Selbitschka, “The Early Silk Road(s)” (OREAH).
Richard Davis, Global India circa 100CE, pp. 1-62.
Lorenzo Crescioli,. “The Scythians and the Eastern Limits of the Greek Influence: The Pazyryk Culture and Its Foreign Artistic Influences,” in With Alexander in India and Central Asia: Moving East and Back to West, edited by Claudia Antonetti and Paolo Biagi, Oxbow Books, Philadelphia, 2017, pp. 122–151.
Viewing: Animated Map of Western Imperial Space in West Asia
Recommended:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Europe’s Asia Trade in Antiquity.
Nicola Di Cosmo, Ancient China and its Enemies : The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History, Chapter Five, on imperial Han and Hsiung-nu, pp.161-206.
Raoul McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East: Trade Routes to the Ancient Lands of Arabia, India and China, pp. 83-111 (and whatever else you like).
David Sevillano-López and F. Javier González, “Mining and minerals trade on the Silk Road to the ancient literary sources: 2 BC to 10 AD centuries,” inJ. E. Ortiz, O. Puche, I. Rábano and L. F. Mazadiego (eds.) History of Research in Mineral Resources. Madrid:
Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, 2011, pp.43-60 (PDF online) (ResearchGate)
David Ludden, “The Process of Empire,” In Tributary Empires in Global History, Edited by Peter Bang and C.A.Bayly, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 133-150
Reference: Nomadic Peoples of Central Asia, Silk Road Cities GoogleMap, University of WASHINGTON SILK ROAD SITE. Sogdians of the Silk Road. Ancient China Map Site.. Svat Soucek, A History of Inner Asia, Cambridge, 2012.
- MONDAY: Zoom Discussion. 9AM Abu Dhabi. In my meeting room.
- WEDNESDAY: online asynchronous work for the rest of this week.
Class Lecture IN THREE VIDEOS: “Imperial Territory to circa 600CE: Steppe Nomad Entanglements for Greece, Rome, Persia, India, and China.”
Video6 (lecture with slides): “The Center of the World.” (Slides only)
Video7 (lecture with slides): “Indo-Persia.” (Slides only)
Video8 (lecture with slides): “Lessons of Mulan.” (Slides only)
Class Project (Optional): Get together to make a GoogleEarth Project showing ancient trade connections.
ASSIGNMENT:
Assignment 2. One-page paper#2: How were ancient empires interconnected?
Links to weeks in full syllabus: Week 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14