CulturesThe peoples of Eurasia encompass many language families and practice many of the world’s religions. Their practices, foods, material cultures and built environments reflect the diversity of the climatic and topographic conditions that they live in. Political events tend to highlight the conflicts among cultures, classes, and religions that exist, even in a very small area. Yet practices and artifacts also move and become shared across great distances. The Mongolian stirrup changed the face of medieval warfare as much as the airplane did for the twentieth century. The concept of monotheism moved east and west from its earliest home in West Asia. This site showcases musical cultures as an example of the dialectic between local and global experience that typified the Silk Road. Particular instruments and sounds were often very local, but bowed, drummed and other instruments, and particular sounds and genres, crossed great distances, centuries before they were aided by the modern technologies that we take for granted. Instruments - Interactive Java TimeMap Religion - Interactive Java TimeMap Musical Instruments of
the Silk Road Images from the Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Related Art Sasanian Seals Collection
and Sasanian Empire Project |
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