Unravelling the Silk Road:
Wool, Cotton, Silk.
Thursday 27th February 2025
Presented by Chris Aslan

Synopsis

Multiple Silk Roads created an overlapping network that linked communities, objects & ideas, cultures & religions from Japan & Eastern Asia to Scandinavia & Britain. These routes are vividly documented and colourfully illustrated by current exhibitions in the British Library (A Silk Road Oasis - Life in Ancient Dunhuang) and the British Museum (Silk Roads); both close on 23rd February 2025 but are well worth visiting.

​

Chris Aslan has first-hand experience of this fascinating part of the world. Therefore, he is able to enlighten us about the role textiles and in particular Wool, Silk and Cotton have played in shaping the course of Central Asian history, politics and its peoples’ way of life.

Each of the three lectures will concentrate one of these key materials & its route.

 

The Wool Road. A vast corridor of grassland that stretched from Central Europe almost to the Pacific Ocean; winters were harsh, fuel & shelter sparse, so the nomads who traversed it made houses from … wool. Then there were tartan-clad proto-Celts who ended up in China over 2,500 years ago, how?

 

The Silk Road. We discover how silk fuelled trade in goods, food, art, inventions, commodities, religions, fashion and so ushered in the first era of globalisation. Extremely beautiful silk fabrics signified wealth and rank in a sedentary society sparking a culture war. The session ends with an overview of the silk carpet workshop that Chris founded in Khiva, Uzbekistan.

 

The Cotton Road. The lecture reveals the darker side of this expensive commodity: colonial exploitation leading to the overthrow of British Rule in India and an environmental catastrophe more devastating to human health than Chernobyl. Intriguing!

 

Profile

Chris Aslan was born in Turkey, here he spent his childhood as well as in war-torn Beirut. After school he spent two years at sea before going to university.

​

He has since established a successful UNESCO workshop in Khiva, Uzbekistan reviving 15th century carpet designs & embroideries, before being expelled as part of an anti-Western purge. He has spent several years in the Pamirs mountains of Tajikstan training yak herders to comb their animals for cashmere-like down. This was followed by a spell in the world’s largest natural walnut forest setting up a wood-carving workshop. He has also written several books including ‘A Carpet Ride to Khiva’.

 

Chris is now based in North Cyprus where he writes, lectures in the UK and leads tours to Central Asia.​