The Sogdian Ancient Letters are abandoned west of Dunhuang

Assembled from 35 blocks · 1 evidence · 38 related

1. Story
2. A postal bag of Sogdian commercial correspondence is left in a ruined watchtower on the Han frontier wall and never delivered. One letter reports the sack of Luoyang, which anchors the conventional dating to around 313. They are the earliest substantial documentary evidence of how the routes actually worked, and they are written on paper.
3. Knowledge
4. Dunhuang
5. Sogdian merchant networks
6. Paper
7. The Sogdian Ancient Letters are abandoned west of Dunhuang
8. Connections
9. Sogdian merchant networks
10. Dunhuang
11. Paper
12. Samarkand
13. Silk
14. Buddhism
15. Paper
16. The Sogdian Ancient Letters are abandoned west of Dunhuang
17. Arab conquest of Transoxiana
18. The Dunhuang manuscripts are dispersed
19. Northern Tarim route
20. Southern Tarim route
21. Mogao Caves
22. Mogao Caves
23. First cave cut at Mogao (traditional date)
24. The Sogdian Ancient Letters are abandoned west of Dunhuang
25. Mogao Cave 17 is sealed
26. Wang Yuanlu opens Mogao Cave 17
27. Silk Road religious corridor
28. Buddhism attested in Han China
29. Traditional founding of the first cave at Mogao
30. Sogdian merchant networks
31. Papermaking
32. The Sogdian Ancient Letters are abandoned west of Dunhuang
33. The Dunhuang Diamond Sutra is printed
34. Evidence
35. Five substantially surviving letters of Sogdian merchants, undelivered, showing how the eastern routes actually operated: resident family colonies in a chain of cities from Sogdiana to the Hexi Corridor, goods moved between them in relays, business conducted by correspondence and credit rather than by single long journeys. Letter 2 reports the sack of Luoyang, which anchors the conventional dating to around 313 CE. The letters are written on paper, establishing that the material had reached the far western Chinese frontier by that date.