Silk Roads
The International Centre for Silk Roads Archaeology & Heritage is a partnership between the UCL Institute of Archaeology and North-West University, Xi'an, China.
Aims
The International Centre for Silk Roads Archaeology & Heritage is a partnership between the UCL Institute of Archaeology and North-West University, Xi’an, China. It acts as a transformative centre for Silk Roads studies, drawing together the many disparate strands of current research, building international collaborations, and undertaking ground-breaking new research on the phenomenon that transformed the world.
The international impact of the Silk Roads extended far beyond trade; whether local or trans-regional, whether low value bulk goods or prestige items. The significance of the Silk Roads lay in the movement of ideas - technologies, artistic styles, belief systems, philosophies, languages, customs and moral values. The centre will undertake comparative research to explore these changes, bringing the ebb and flow of empires and societies, the complexities of environmental adaption and response, the transmission of ideas, the impact of social change and the shaping of the modern world, to the widest possible audience.
This centre, which is led at UCL by Tim Williams (Emeritus Professor in Silk Roads Archaeology), hopes to help this growing wealth of scholarship to promote wider dialogue, debate and development.
It has also founded an online peer-reviewed Journal of Silk Roads Archaeology and Heritage.
Contact
Please contact Emeritus Professor Tim Williams if you would like to be involved in the activities of the Silk Roads Centre.
