Since May 13, 2020, over 60 museums and other cultural institutions across China participating in Silk Road Week have been each posting a poster featuring an exhibit from their collections on Weibo, a social media in China. All these museums and other cultural institutions present their posters in turn, one poster for a day. Here are some posters.

Woof Brocade with a Pegasus design, Tang Dynasty    

This brocade is now in the collection of China National Silk Museum based in Hangzhou. The brocade is a remnant of a larger fabric. Pegasus, an immortal winged horse in Greek mythology, is one of the two children of Poseidon and Medusa. According to Greek mythology, Pegasus was capable of creating water streams wherever he’d struck his hoof. Similar fabrics with a Pegasus design have been seen in Egypt and China. This woof brocade, discovered in China, is a perfect example of cultural exchange in the form of Persian art and Chinese silk.

Gilt Silver Plate, Eastern Roman Empire

This silver plate is in the collection of Gansu Museum. A province in the northwest of China, Gansu saw a stretch of 2,000 kilometers of the Silk Road zigzagging in its territory, that is, half of the 4,000-km China-section of the Silk Road is in Gansu. From the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) up to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), caravans passed through Gansu for about 1,800 years. These traders left various footprints in this part of China.

In the autumn 1988, a farmer unearthed a gilt silver plate with an inscription in a foreign language while he was digging at a construction site where he was going to build a house. The farmer lived in Jingyuan County, which was a key gateway to the Hexi Corridor on the Silk Road. The excavated plate caused a sensation among archaeologists and other scholars.

Experts at Gansu Museum traced the plate back to the era of Eastern Roman Empire, which partly paralleled the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties from the 3rd century to the 6th century. According to , the Eastern Roman Empire sent diplomats to visit Northern Wei  Dynasty (386-534) three times. This gilt silver plate might have been a gift left over by an envoy from Eastern Roman Empire on the ancient ferry on the Yellow River. Or it might have been part of a deal between a Chinese trader and a trader from the west.

White Jade Cup, Wei State of the Three Kingdoms

This cup is in the collection of Luoyang Museum. Luoyang housed the royal families of thirteen dynasties and played a central key role in the Grand Canal during the Sui (581-617) and the Tang (618-907) dynasties, the Grand Canal which UNESCO considers as the departure point of the Silk Road in the east.

The white jade was unearthed from a tomb that dates back to 247AD, a year of the Wei Kingdom of the Three Kingdoms (220-280). The cup was made of Hetian Jade, which came from Yutian, a state in present-day Xinjiang. The raw jade must have been shipped over 1,700 years ago to Luoyang, where it was made into a cup. This indicates that the Silk Road must have been operating well despite the fact that there was a war raging all the time. This is the only extant Hetian jade piece of that time.

Government Seal of the Pulei Prefecture, the Tang Dynasty

The seal was unearthed from the ruins of an ancient city in Xinjiang. The seal, made in the Tang, measures 5.7 centimeters long and 3.6 centimeters tall. The government seal is in the calligraphy style of the seal script. In 657AD, the Tang set up the garrison towns in the wide region north of the Tianshan Mountain and central Asia regions after cracking down a rebellion. In 659AD, the Tang set up prefecture governments in these areas. This seal is a witness to the rule of Tang in the Western Region.

Caisson Ceiling with a design of rabbits, lotus flowers and apsaras

This caisson ceiling is from Grotto Number 407 in Mogao Grottos in Dunhuang, Gansu Province. The caisson ceiling presents the best of its kind in the Sui Dynasty. The composition of the design on the caisson reflects the influences from the Central Asia. Eight ladies fly in the sky around lotus flowers, with long silk ribbons flowing. Around the caisson are some other patterns. The design of the caisson reflects the flourishing cultural exchanges made possible by the Silk Road.

Foreigner and Camel Figurines, Northern Wei Dynasty

The set of figurines is in the collection of Datong Museum. It was excavated from a tomb by a village east of Datong, which was the capital of Northern Wei about 1,600 years ago. It was a city of traders who bought and sold goods from the Silk Road. The two figurines symbolize the prosperity of the Silk Road back then.

A Tibetan Black Pottery Teakettle with porcelain shards embedded

The tea kettle presents a design of auspiciousness seen in Tibetan Buddhism. Moreover, there are patterns featuring the kitchen god, dragon, lion, highland barley, and lotus. This kettle was used by Tibetans living in Yunnan. There were four ancient tea-horse roads that respectively connected Yunnan and Tibet, Sichuan and Tibet, Qinghai and Tibet, and Yunnan and Guangxi. These four roads organized themselves into a wide network of trade routes that connected with the overland silk trade routes and maritime silk routes. Together, the Tea-Horse Roads and the Silk Road promoted the cultural and commercial prosperity in this part of Asia. Moreover, tea from China went international through the Tea-Horse Roads.

Gilt Copper Silkworm, Han Dynasty

This gilt copper silkworm is in the collection of Shaanxi History Museum based in Xi’an, which first served as the capital city of the Han Dynasty. As the departure point of the Silk Road, Chang’an became an international metropolis and the very center of the civilization in East Asia.

The copper silkworm was excavated from Shiquan County, Shaanxi Province. It was a complete insect and looks very real. According to local historical records, sericulture thrived in the county and the wealth accumulated from the industry made it possible for some people to afford such an expensive burial object. The Han Dynasty boasted a full-fledged sericulture. The biggest silk-reeling factories were operated by the government and had thousands of employees.

Gilt Silver Kettle, Northern Zhou

In the collection of Guyuan Museum of Ningxia, this kettle presents three sets of figures, one male and one female in each. Based on , one of Greek poet Homer’s two epics, the images highlight the three key moments in the epic: the Golden Apple of Discord, the Trojan War, and the Trojan Horse. The epic war is simplified to the three sets of images. It makes one wonder how the ancient Persian craftsmen accomplished such a feat. The gilt silver kettle was a wine vessel made in Bactria in Central Asia during the Sassanid Empire (224-651). The images were an imitation of the Greek art. The kettle itself was in the pure and authentic format for gold and silver vessels in the Sassanid Empire. However, the head on the kettle handle isn’t of Greece at all. It was a head of someone in Bactria. The kettle and its craftsmanship is quite unique in extant antiques from the Sassanid Empire. Moreover, the kettle itself is a testimony to the cultural exchanges between China and the rest of the world and to the prosperity of the Silk Road.