The Sogdians: Influencers on the Silk Roads

The Sogdians were the middlemen of the transcontinental trade known as the Silk Roads, amassing great wealth, which financed a flowering of civilization in their homeland–the area around Samarkand in present-day Uzbekistan. But they were also purveyors of culture to their imperial neighbors, transporting craftsmen, artists, Buddhist monks and others across Central Asia. The Sogdians introduced new artistic and religious ideas and contributed to military and diplomatic affairs as far west as Europe and as far east as Japan during the 5th to 8th centuries CE. Despite their remarkable influence, the Sogdians remain an understudied and underrepresented culture in the history of Eurasian studies.

The Sogdians: Influencers on the Silk Roads is the first exhibition, digital or otherwise, devoted to the Sogdians. The product of more than seven years of work organized by the Freer|Sackler Asian Art Galleries of the Smithsonian Institue, the exhibition combines the latest academic research with a variety of digital media—from interactive maps to 3D photogrammetry, drone footage of archaeological sites to video interviews with leading scholars. It is a case study of how experimental pedagogy, global history and the digital humanities can bring scholarship on the ancient world to new audiences.