[HN Gopher] The ancient discovery that put a Silk Road city back...
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The ancient discovery that put a Silk Road city back on the map
Author : Thevet
Score : 34 points
Date : 2025-01-28 21:20 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| random3 wrote:
| My first thought was that someone discovered Ross Ulbricht was
| freed and expecting to put Silk Road back on the map :)
| profsummergig wrote:
| Five photos of mountains.
|
| A single photo of a museum housing the "ancient discovery"
| (crates full of fancy goods from all over the world).
|
| Not a single photo of a specific item from the "ancient
| discovery" (crates full of fancy goods from all over the world).
|
| Journalism. BBC.
|
| (Also, implying that goods from New York were being traded on the
| Silk Road is a huge stretch.)
| Luc wrote:
| For those who want some pictures:
| https://kargilmuseum.org/gallery-1
| polar wrote:
| > Journalism. BBC.
|
| _BBC Travel tells awe-inspiring, immersive travel stories to
| curious, passionate readers who want to learn about the world
| as much as they want to travel there._
| Robingoodfellow wrote:
| If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the article there is
| a gallery of items from the museum, along with detailed
| descriptions.
|
| I also don't find it all implausible that goods from New York
| made there way to this region in the 1920's. As the article
| mentions, although the connection point between Europe and East
| Asia was severed by the Ottomans, small sections of the trade
| network continued for centuries afterwards.
| empath75 wrote:
| Weird framing for this story, it's not an ancient find -- it was
| from the modern era, and not really part of the silk road, which
| A) probably never really existed in the way people imagine it and
| B) definitely didn't exist at the time that his great grandfather
| was trading. The overland route from China to "the west" was
| mostly a mongol empire phenomenon that ended with the collapse of
| the Mongol and Byzantine empires and the beginning of the
| colonial area and the opening of sea routes.
|
| It was just an ordinary stop on an ordinary trading route.
| alephnerd wrote:
| The writer sucked, but it wasn't an ordinary trading route.
|
| The border in that area was never truly delineated which lead
| to the Mughal-Qing Wars, the Great Game, and the India-
| Pakistan-China standoffs.
|
| Back when my great-grandad was young, the Brits, Russians, etc
| would recruit traders as spies and cartographers, becuase the
| High Himalaya route gave access to most of Inner Asia from
| South Asia.
|
| These same trade routes have now become highly monitored and
| contested highways and military supply routes that have lead to
| multiple India-China and India-Pakistan standoffs over the past
| several years.
|
| > It was just an ordinary stop on an ordinary trading route.
|
| For those of us from that region, we never get our story told.
| It's nice to see a western news outlet write about us outside
| of a braindead India-Pakistan-China story.
|
| > The overland route from China to "the west" was mostly a
| mongol empire phenomenon that ended with the collapse of the
| Mongol and Byzantine empires
|
| It wasn't the Silk Road, but until the 1962 Indo-China War,
| this was the only way Xinjiang and Tibet could be connected to
| mainland China as the fully weatherized highway connections
| weren't built until the 2000s.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The overland silk roads spanned long before and after the
| Mongols, from the bronze age through the modern era. It doesn't
| have to be identical to Marco Polo's experience to be a silk
| road.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Surprised I'd see this on here!
|
| The article doesn't do justice for the Bhat Museum in Kargil.
| It's really cool seeing the proto-globalization that was
| increasingly common for us residents in the High Himalayas in the
| 19th and 20th century.
|
| It also is difficult to describe how unique Inner/Central Asian
| culture is due to the syncretic nature of trade, as well as the
| isolation that arises due to valleys being cut off for several
| months of the year.
|
| This lead to some interesting cultural artifacts such as marrying
| off daughters outside of your valley (to prevent incest),
| identifying a person's valley based on their surname, relic
| populations speaking language isolates, and much older cultural
| traditons remaining alive while dying out in much more connected
| and populated neighbors
|
| My great-grandad also had stories like that of Munshi Bhat's of
| the various mountain trails and paths that connected Jammu,
| Manali, Leh, Kargil, Skardu, Kashgar, Karglik, Murghab, Changtang
| plains, etc.
|
| There was a series on MTV India called "Way Back Home" [0] that
| showed a lot of these small towns and the interconnections
| (albeit primarily concentrating on Upper Himachal and Leh).
|
| Also, the old NH1 highway via Zojila is getting deprecated for an
| all-weather highway via Zanskar. A similar thing happened in
| neighboring Himachal with the Atal Tunnel connected Kullu Valley
| with Spiti Valley.
|
| I have some recommendations of good museums and towns/villages to
| visit on the Indian side (Ladakh, Himachal, Jammu Division) if
| interested.
|
| [0] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sw-6C9zIEdU
| jajko wrote:
| Ah Ladakh, a magical place. If you want to experience Tibet and
| its culture as it was before chinese came and raped that land and
| its people in many ways, look no further. In fact many of them
| there are Tibetan refugees.
|
| Flying over Zanskar valley is magical experience for those with a
| bit of adventure spark. Almost did the 3 week long traverse from
| Manali/Keylong area to Zanskar valley over often frozen rivers,
| but that year (2010) winter was stronger than usually, and there
| were still 4-5m of snow even on lower passes in early summer,
| (there is also Taglang La pass, which is 5328m high and quite an
| experience to cross during mega long journey between Manali and
| Leh). This was before strategic tunnels were finished (although
| saw massive construction work north of Manali back then, used few
| trucks as hitchhikers) so strength of winter fully dictated when
| the road is opened.
|
| Good times, go there while it still has some original magic since
| mass tourism ruins it all without exception. Especially the
| people and mountains, salty yak butter tea... not so much.
| ghoulishly wrote:
| It's been a big year for Silk Roads
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(page generated 2025-01-29 23:01 UTC)