The notion of the 'Silk Road' that the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen invented in the 19th century has lost attraction to scholars in light of large amounts of new evidence and new approaches. The handbook suggests new conceptual and methodological tools for researching ancient...

Though written at different times, and in response to different occasions, the essays in this book aim to offer a convincing and coherent approach to the interpretation of the topic referred to in the title. The initial impetus for this long course of historical research came in 1976, with a...