EVENTS

Zoom registration required

(anton.matejicka@univie.ac.at)

In recent years there has been renewed interest in the network of Eurasian trade routes, widely called the Silk Road. Connecting East Asia and North Africa via land and sea routes and spanning some 6,000 kilometres, it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political and religious interactions between the East and West. Although the significance of this century-old connector of commercial and cultural exchanges has been addressed since its scholarly acceptance in the early twentieth century, much needs to be said about the mobility dynamics of materiality and textuality, while overviewing recent discoveries and methodological trends.

Coinciding with the 700th anniversary of the death of Marco Polo, this research forum invites three distinguished art historians with particular expertise in non-European arts who will examine the modes and modalities of portable objects, other than silk textiles, from fresh perspectives. With the focus on metalwork, especially silver, three papers will collectively investigate different phases of material connectivities from the Asia Pacific to Mediterranean regions, from the time of Alexander the Great to the Mongol invasion of Eurasia. Taken together, this and subsequent academic fora are designed to foster a greater understanding of what used to be called ‘Persian art’—cultural artefacts that became predominantly associated with medieval and early-modern Iran and West Central Asia. 

This forum is held in conjunction with the workshop, "Entangled Charters of Eurasia", at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (16-18 October 2024). 

https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/imafo/events/event-details/entangled-charters-of-eurasia