The Silk Road's Secret: Sogdian Merchants

While empires like Rome, Persia, and the Tang Dynasty vied for control of the Silk Road, a lesser-known group of merchants actually moved the goods. These were the Sogdians, from Samarkand in modern-day Uzbekistan, who built a vast commercial network across Asia between the fourth and ninth centuries. Lucas and Luna explore how these Central Asian traders acted as the essential middlemen, translating languages, managing credit, and connecting the East to the West long before European ships rounded Africa. We look at their unique business practices, their role in spreading Buddhism and Manichaeism, and the famous cache of letters found in a watchtower on China’s northern border that reveals their daily struggles and triumphs. #Sogdiana #Samarkand #SilkRoadHistory #SogdianLetters #CentralAsiaHistory #TangDynasty #ByzantineEmpire #PersianEmpire #AncientTradeRoutes #MerchantPrinces #UzbekistanHistory #Kashgar #Dunhuang #Manichaeism #BuddhistTransmission #SogdianLanguage #FexingoHistory #History Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo