Towards the middle of the 20th century, scholarly research revealed
that the fabled Silk Roads, far from being mere trade routes, were
cultural highways that played a pivotal role in linking east and
west, intermittently bringing together nomads and city dwellers,
pastoral peoples and farmers, merchants and monks, and soldiers and
pilgrims. The notion of movement is therefore central to an
understanding of the relations between peoples; it is also the
factor of which specialists have, for various reasons, not taken
sufficient account. It is in this context that the Silk Roads
Project, initiated by UNESCO, assumes its significance. It has
proved very fruitful and led to a large variety of projects of
which this volume presents a selection. Although the papers
collected here are wide-ranging, they reveal the emergence of the
concept of a common heritage and plural identity. The studies
carried out under the Project have shown that identity, seen from a
long-term perspective, cannot be viewed as a ghetto or an
enclosure, but as the result of a whole process of synthesis and
encounter between peoples and cultures. (from the Introduction)
Vadim Elisseeff was Chairman of the UNESCO International
Consultative Committee of the Silk Roads during the ten years of
its existence. He is a specialist in the archaeology and history of
the Far East and has held a number of important posts in national
and international academic or cultural institutions such as that of
General Inspector of the Museums of France and Director of Research
in Archaeology of the Far East at the Ecole pratique des hautes
etudes en sciences sociales, Paris, and was a member of the French
Commission for Archaeological Excavations from 1955 to 1968."
General
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