Taking on the daunting task of trying to summarize a phenomenon that expanded three centuries and stretched across a large portion of the world is quite a lot for a hapless blogger such as myself. Etienne de la Vaissiere's wonderful article entitled "Sogdian Trade", found on the Encyclopedia Iranica online edition website, does a far better job of summarizing and explaining the nuances of Sogdian trade history than I ever could. However, I have decided to take Vassiere's excellent article and turn it into a timeline, further streamlining this material for ease of access to the neophyte Sogdian enthusiasts out there. I might also sprinkle in other information here and there as I deem necessary or interesting.
Origins:
6th century BCE - Achaemenids mention the Sogdians paying tribute in the form of Lapis Lazuli. The only Lapis mine is located in Badakhshan in Sogdiana (1).
100 BCE - First concrete mention of Sogdian merchants in the Shiji (Shih Chi "Han Histories")(2).
29 BCE and 11 BCE - "Ambassadors from Kangju, a nomad state centered on the middle reaches of the Syr [Darya] [that included in its borders] Sogdiana, presented themselves at the Chinese court pronouncing the word "commerce"(3).
1st-3rd centuries CE - "Buddhist sources show that Sogdian merchants, who were not on the main roads situated farther to the south (Ptolemy, tr. Ronca, pp. 31-36, misplaces Samarkand) emigrated as far as India, benefiting from this prosperity [of the Kushan Empire] (biography of the monk Kang seng hui [Seng-Houei], born in the early 3rd century, tr. Chavannes, 1909, pp. 199-200; Grenet, 1996)"(4).
3rd Century - Sogdian commercial network expands into China (5).
313 - Sogdian Ancient Letters - a cache of documents dated to 313 and written in the Gansu region of China. These documents relate the commercial activities of the Sogdian communities active in Northern China at the time (6).
439 - Sogdians become the main foreign trading force in Gansu (7).
4th-5th centuries CE - Sogdian traders supplant Bactrian traders as the dominant caravan runners in the Indus Valley passes. This is based on the 600 Sogdian inscriptions found in this area vs the ten Bactrian inscriptions present that date to this time period (8).
5th century - Sogdians travel from Gansu and Turfan to do small-scale trade with steppe nomadic peoples. Sogdians later begin acting as intermediaries between steppe powers and the Chinese. From these Sogdian and Turkic connections, the Turks received their administrative language and system via the Sogdians (9).
5th-7th centuries CE - "The Sogdians were the principal long-distance [overland] caravan merchants in Central Asia". A constant flow of Sogdian merchants, craftsmen, and their families settled in Northern China (10).
Mid-6th century CE - Sogdian trade communities, organized and lead by powerful sabao, or caravan chiefs, become a recognized legal entity integrated into the Mandarin system. Sogdians are very familiar to the Chinese and are consistently noted for their prominent facial features, including their distinct beards, eyes, and noses (11).
550 (6th century) - "In Alexandria in 550, the Nestorian Cosmas Indicopleustes pointed out that it was by caravan routes, rather than by sea, that Persia received most of its silk (Cosmas Indicopleustes, II, pp. 45-46)"(12). With Sogdians acting as the primary caravan runners, this trade would likely have taken place under their guidance.
568-575 Menander Protector's history "reports an actual case...of how the Sogdians used their diplomatic influence with the Turks to open up new markets. After failing with the Sasanians, the Sogdian merchants persuaded the kaqan [Khagan, leader of a nomadic confederation, would later shorten to 'Khan'] to get in touch with Byzantium in order to export the thousands of silk rolls which China paid as tribute to the Turks (Menander, tr. Blockley, pp. 115-15)(13).
630s - "...with the campaigns against the Western Turks, the Tang administration poured funds into the Western Regions to support its military efforts. To finance their campaigns, the Tang state collected bolts of cloth in central China and then shipped them to Wuwei and Qinzhou (modern Qin'an), also in Gansu Province, and from there to places farther west, closer to the frontier" (14).
7th Century - "When a trading entrepot under Khazar protection in the Crimea, it bore the name Sogdaia. During this period almost half of the Sasanian and Central Asian silver dishes found near the Urals had gone through Sogdian or Khwarezmian hands, and in the 8th century, three-quarters had done so."(de la Vaissiere, 2000. pp. 368-369)(15)
640-755 - The T'ang government begins sending 10% of its annual receipts to the frontier regions to pay its garrisons. Imports of western manufactured luxury goods increase at this time. The Sogdians profit from this military presence and the injection of goods and currency into the frontier economy (16).
8th Century - Sogdians are the primary horse breeders and dealers in the Ordos region. "Their hold was such that the northern Ordos was called the 'Six Sogdian prefectures,' both in Chinese and in Turkish. The T'ang also employed Sogdians as merchants to accompany them on their military campaigns"(17).
"Immediately after the 640 conquest, the T'ang forces in Turfan probably numbered several thousand. Although we speak of T'ang armies, may of the soldiers were not Chinese but local. The losses of territory in the northwest, including Kucha, to the Tibetans from 670-692 resulted in ever-increasing military expenditures in the eighth century. Du You (735-812), the author of the first comprehensive institutional encyclopedia, put the costs of defending the frontier at two million strings of coins in 713, ten million strings in 741, and fourteen to fifteen million strings in 755. Tang officials combined strings of coin, piculs of grain, and bolts of cloth to create an aggregate accounting unit whose value eludes anyone who has tried to make sense of the internally contradictory figures that survive." (18).
755 - The An Lushan Rebellion - A pivotal point for Sogdians in China. Beckwith postulates that members of the Sogdian merchant network used their influence and access to goods and resources to supply An Lushan in his bid to overthrow the T'ang (19). Vaissiere states that the rebellion "profoundly changed the imperial economy and put an end to the symbiosis under which Sogdian trade had existed for a century"(20). Valerie Hansen explains the climate of the rebellion and post-rebellion period further:
Hansen goes on to note that other prominent Sogdian expat communities were not targeted in quite this way in other parts of China. And, in spite of this attack, many Sogdians chose to remain in China rather than take their chances returning to their now-Islamified homeland (22).
Mid-8th to late 9th century - Vaissiere laments that there is little information on this period of time, but that the Sogdian setbacks experienced in China, and the restive period following the Tang victory, must have caused a break in their prominent trade (23).
Beginning of the 9th century - Sogdians find new patrons under the protection of the powerful Uighur Khaghanate, "which until 840 extended all over northern Central Asian and obtained from the weakened Tang enormous deliveries of silk in exchange for horses" (24).
750-840 - Sogdian data from this period about eastern Asia which is used later by Muslim Geographers of the 10th century as sources of reliable descriptions of region (25).
Early 10th Century - Some Sogdian merchants are still mentioned as traveling to China, but after the 10th century, they disappear from the records (26).
Sources:
1) de la Vaissiere, Etienne, “Sogdian Trade,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2004, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sogdian-trade (accessed 19 October 2015).
2) Ibid.
3) Ibid.
4) Ibid.
5) Ibid.
6) Ibid.
7) Ibid.
8) Ibid.
9) Ibid.
10) Ibid.
11) Ibid.
12) Ibid.
13) Ibid.
14) Hansen, Valerie. The Silk Road: A New History. Illustrated edition. New York: Oxford, 2012, pg. 107
15) de la Vaissiere, Etienne, “Sogdian Trade,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2004, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sogdian-trade (accessed 19 October 2015).
16) Ibid.
17) Ibid.
18) Hansen, Valerie. The Silk Road: A New History. Illustrated edition. New York: Oxford, 2012, pg. 107.
19) Christopher I. Beckwith. Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009, pg. 146.
20) de la Vaissiere, Etienne, “Sogdian Trade,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2004, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sogdian-trade (accessed 19 October 2015).
21) Hansen, Valerie. The Silk Road: A New History. Illustrated edition. New York: Oxford, 2012, pg.157-158
22) Ibid, pg 158.
23) de la Vaissiere, Etienne, “Sogdian Trade,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2004, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sogdian-trade (accessed 19 October 2015).
24) Ibid.
25) Ibid.
26) Ibid.
Origins:
6th century BCE - Achaemenids mention the Sogdians paying tribute in the form of Lapis Lazuli. The only Lapis mine is located in Badakhshan in Sogdiana (1).
100 BCE - First concrete mention of Sogdian merchants in the Shiji (Shih Chi "Han Histories")(2).
29 BCE and 11 BCE - "Ambassadors from Kangju, a nomad state centered on the middle reaches of the Syr [Darya] [that included in its borders] Sogdiana, presented themselves at the Chinese court pronouncing the word "commerce"(3).
1st-3rd centuries CE - "Buddhist sources show that Sogdian merchants, who were not on the main roads situated farther to the south (Ptolemy, tr. Ronca, pp. 31-36, misplaces Samarkand) emigrated as far as India, benefiting from this prosperity [of the Kushan Empire] (biography of the monk Kang seng hui [Seng-Houei], born in the early 3rd century, tr. Chavannes, 1909, pp. 199-200; Grenet, 1996)"(4).
3rd Century - Sogdian commercial network expands into China (5).
313 - Sogdian Ancient Letters - a cache of documents dated to 313 and written in the Gansu region of China. These documents relate the commercial activities of the Sogdian communities active in Northern China at the time (6).
439 - Sogdians become the main foreign trading force in Gansu (7).
4th-5th centuries CE - Sogdian traders supplant Bactrian traders as the dominant caravan runners in the Indus Valley passes. This is based on the 600 Sogdian inscriptions found in this area vs the ten Bactrian inscriptions present that date to this time period (8).
5th century - Sogdians travel from Gansu and Turfan to do small-scale trade with steppe nomadic peoples. Sogdians later begin acting as intermediaries between steppe powers and the Chinese. From these Sogdian and Turkic connections, the Turks received their administrative language and system via the Sogdians (9).
5th-7th centuries CE - "The Sogdians were the principal long-distance [overland] caravan merchants in Central Asia". A constant flow of Sogdian merchants, craftsmen, and their families settled in Northern China (10).
Mid-6th century CE - Sogdian trade communities, organized and lead by powerful sabao, or caravan chiefs, become a recognized legal entity integrated into the Mandarin system. Sogdians are very familiar to the Chinese and are consistently noted for their prominent facial features, including their distinct beards, eyes, and noses (11).
550 (6th century) - "In Alexandria in 550, the Nestorian Cosmas Indicopleustes pointed out that it was by caravan routes, rather than by sea, that Persia received most of its silk (Cosmas Indicopleustes, II, pp. 45-46)"(12). With Sogdians acting as the primary caravan runners, this trade would likely have taken place under their guidance.
568-575 Menander Protector's history "reports an actual case...of how the Sogdians used their diplomatic influence with the Turks to open up new markets. After failing with the Sasanians, the Sogdian merchants persuaded the kaqan [Khagan, leader of a nomadic confederation, would later shorten to 'Khan'] to get in touch with Byzantium in order to export the thousands of silk rolls which China paid as tribute to the Turks (Menander, tr. Blockley, pp. 115-15)(13).
630s - "...with the campaigns against the Western Turks, the Tang administration poured funds into the Western Regions to support its military efforts. To finance their campaigns, the Tang state collected bolts of cloth in central China and then shipped them to Wuwei and Qinzhou (modern Qin'an), also in Gansu Province, and from there to places farther west, closer to the frontier" (14).
7th Century - "When a trading entrepot under Khazar protection in the Crimea, it bore the name Sogdaia. During this period almost half of the Sasanian and Central Asian silver dishes found near the Urals had gone through Sogdian or Khwarezmian hands, and in the 8th century, three-quarters had done so."(de la Vaissiere, 2000. pp. 368-369)(15)
640-755 - The T'ang government begins sending 10% of its annual receipts to the frontier regions to pay its garrisons. Imports of western manufactured luxury goods increase at this time. The Sogdians profit from this military presence and the injection of goods and currency into the frontier economy (16).
8th Century - Sogdians are the primary horse breeders and dealers in the Ordos region. "Their hold was such that the northern Ordos was called the 'Six Sogdian prefectures,' both in Chinese and in Turkish. The T'ang also employed Sogdians as merchants to accompany them on their military campaigns"(17).
"Immediately after the 640 conquest, the T'ang forces in Turfan probably numbered several thousand. Although we speak of T'ang armies, may of the soldiers were not Chinese but local. The losses of territory in the northwest, including Kucha, to the Tibetans from 670-692 resulted in ever-increasing military expenditures in the eighth century. Du You (735-812), the author of the first comprehensive institutional encyclopedia, put the costs of defending the frontier at two million strings of coins in 713, ten million strings in 741, and fourteen to fifteen million strings in 755. Tang officials combined strings of coin, piculs of grain, and bolts of cloth to create an aggregate accounting unit whose value eludes anyone who has tried to make sense of the internally contradictory figures that survive." (18).
755 - The An Lushan Rebellion - A pivotal point for Sogdians in China. Beckwith postulates that members of the Sogdian merchant network used their influence and access to goods and resources to supply An Lushan in his bid to overthrow the T'ang (19). Vaissiere states that the rebellion "profoundly changed the imperial economy and put an end to the symbiosis under which Sogdian trade had existed for a century"(20). Valerie Hansen explains the climate of the rebellion and post-rebellion period further:
The first great rebellion that shattered the steady peace of the first century and a half of Tang rule occurred in 755, when An Lushan (or An Rokhshan) led a military uprising against the Tang emperor Xuanzong. After conquering Luoyang, An Lushan and the rebels took Chang'an in 755, forcing the emperor to flee the capital with his beautiful consort Yang Guifei. En route to Sichuan, the imperial guard threatened mutiny unless the emperor killed Yang Guifei, and the emperor gave the order to strangle her. He then relinquished the throne in favor of his son....Even though An Lushan was assassinated in 757 and his second-in-command was also assassinated in 761, the rebels maintained a strong presence until the Tang emperor asked the help of the Uighur kaghan, whose troops defeated the rebel army in 763. The Uighurs were allowed to sack the Tang capital as a reward for their services, and they devastated the city.
When the Tang forces finally regain control of the empire, they took measures against the Sogdians, whom they blamed for the rebellion...Once account of the rebellion recounts that the general Gao Juren, himself ethnically Korean, who wrested control of Beijing from the rebels "ordered that those who killed hu [Iranians, most likely Sogdians] would be richly rewarded. As a result, the jiehu [a sub-set of the hu that An Lushan belonged to, possibly those living in north China] were completely exterminated. Small children were tossed in the air and caught on lances. Those who had big noses like the Sogdians and those who were killed by mistake for this reason were extremely numerous.
The targeting of Sogdians marked a new and ugly chapter in the history of the Silk Road...no earlier ruler had ever targeted a minority group within the larger Chinese population in this way (21).
Hansen goes on to note that other prominent Sogdian expat communities were not targeted in quite this way in other parts of China. And, in spite of this attack, many Sogdians chose to remain in China rather than take their chances returning to their now-Islamified homeland (22).
Mid-8th to late 9th century - Vaissiere laments that there is little information on this period of time, but that the Sogdian setbacks experienced in China, and the restive period following the Tang victory, must have caused a break in their prominent trade (23).
Beginning of the 9th century - Sogdians find new patrons under the protection of the powerful Uighur Khaghanate, "which until 840 extended all over northern Central Asian and obtained from the weakened Tang enormous deliveries of silk in exchange for horses" (24).
750-840 - Sogdian data from this period about eastern Asia which is used later by Muslim Geographers of the 10th century as sources of reliable descriptions of region (25).
Early 10th Century - Some Sogdian merchants are still mentioned as traveling to China, but after the 10th century, they disappear from the records (26).
Sources:
1) de la Vaissiere, Etienne, “Sogdian Trade,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2004, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sogdian-trade (accessed 19 October 2015).
2) Ibid.
3) Ibid.
4) Ibid.
5) Ibid.
6) Ibid.
7) Ibid.
8) Ibid.
9) Ibid.
10) Ibid.
11) Ibid.
12) Ibid.
13) Ibid.
14) Hansen, Valerie. The Silk Road: A New History. Illustrated edition. New York: Oxford, 2012, pg. 107
15) de la Vaissiere, Etienne, “Sogdian Trade,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2004, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sogdian-trade (accessed 19 October 2015).
16) Ibid.
17) Ibid.
18) Hansen, Valerie. The Silk Road: A New History. Illustrated edition. New York: Oxford, 2012, pg. 107.
19) Christopher I. Beckwith. Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009, pg. 146.
20) de la Vaissiere, Etienne, “Sogdian Trade,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2004, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sogdian-trade (accessed 19 October 2015).
21) Hansen, Valerie. The Silk Road: A New History. Illustrated edition. New York: Oxford, 2012, pg.157-158
22) Ibid, pg 158.
23) de la Vaissiere, Etienne, “Sogdian Trade,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2004, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sogdian-trade (accessed 19 October 2015).
24) Ibid.
25) Ibid.
26) Ibid.
No comments:
Post a Comment