The Silk Road was an ancient trade route; goods produced in China (including paper, jade and, obviously, silk) travelled West, whilst glass and silverware, spices and wool (to name a few) travelled East. There was not one fixed road, but a network of routes, and all passed through Kyrgyzstan; in fact today one of the main streets in the city is called 'the Silk Road' - and we live just off it.
The presence of this route meant that a millennium ago this part of the world was bustling - and very wealthy. Large cities dotted the route, and last weekend we joined a trip to visit a number of these. Today they are just archaeological sites in the middle of rather beautiful countryside and quite some imagination is required to picture them as they might have been. We stood on the small hillock pictured (right) and were told that it was part of the largest human-moved mound of earth anywhere in the world, ever, and was the base of a city where hundreds of thousands of people lived.
We discovered that various religions co-existed at this time on the Silk Road; alongside Islam, there is evidence of a thriving Nestorian Church, of Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism. We saw mounds that were once Buddhist temples; and came across an ancient Zoroastrian necropolis, where bones were piled after the (somewhat grizzly-sounding) burial rites were performed - the photo shows a 1,000 year old (or so) skull that has recently been exposed.
It was a fascinating day, and it is extraordinary to consider that Kyrgyzstan was once at the physical heart of the global economy.
We discovered that various religions co-existed at this time on the Silk Road; alongside Islam, there is evidence of a thriving Nestorian Church, of Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism. We saw mounds that were once Buddhist temples; and came across an ancient Zoroastrian necropolis, where bones were piled after the (somewhat grizzly-sounding) burial rites were performed - the photo shows a 1,000 year old (or so) skull that has recently been exposed.
