Some material traces of Sogdians on the way to Tang China

Speech by Pavel Lurje, researcher and curator at the State Hermitage Museum (Saint Petersburg) and 2024-2025 research-fellow at the Paris IAS (FIAS program), as part of the  International study day "Current research in art and archaeology" on Tang China, organised by the Musée Guimet in Paris.

Presentation

The Journée d'Etude is associated with the large exhibition on Tang China at the Guimet National Museum of Asian Arts (Musée National des Arts Asiatiques - Guimet).

One of the features of the early Tang period (7th - 8th century CE), which is credited as one of the most spectacular epochs of Chinese history, is the cosmopolitan nature of the state, where Han Chinese contacted and exchanged extensively with their close and distant neighbors.

Pavel Lurje's speech will add several unnoticed archaeological indications of the presence of Sogdians, a merchant people from present-day Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, in Western Chine in or around Tang period.