SocietyCentral Asia
The Sogdians
The Silk Road's merchants, and the language everyone traded in
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A handful of letters found in a watchtower by the Great Wall, written around 313 and never delivered, are among our most vivid sources for everyday life on the Silk Road — including an angry letter from a woman abandoned at Dunhuang. Sogdian script became the ancestor of both the Uyghur and Mongolian alphabets.
For children
The Sogdians of Samarkand ran the Silk Road trade for six centuries. Their language served as a common tongue from China to Persia. They kept merchant colonies in Chinese cities and carried goods, religions and scripts alike.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org