Before Serindia: The Achaemenid Empire Along and Astride the Silk Roads

Both in popular perception and specialized literature, the Achaemenid Empire, for over two centuries the most important player from the Aegean to the Indus, is rarely evoked in correlation with the complex of socio-cultural dynamics which shaped the spaces of what has become known as the Silk Road(s). Building on the case study of the Pazyryk carpet on the one hand (King 2021, 353-361, Linduff and Rubinson 2021, 88-97), and of the spread of an artistic motive such as the quatrefoil on the other (Kim 2021), this paper explores the rich and complex nature of the commercial networks that flourished across Central Asia under the aegis of Achaemenid Great Kings. Both archaeological and literary evidence shall be discussed (especially the Aramaic Documents from Ancient Bactria: Naveh and Shaked 2012, and now King 2021, 315-320). If taken together and read against the grain, such material is significant for the following reasons. First, it suggests the existence - and the scale - of commercial activities directly fostered or indirectly promoted by the imperial administration in Central Asia, an area of crucial importance within the Achaemenid domains, but for which our evidence is rather scanty and difficult to assess. Second, it shows how the Achaemenid “Imperial Paradigm” (Henkelman 2017) affected the social and economic landscape of Central Asia even after the demise of the Empire itself, thus considerably shaping the world of the Silk Road(s) a century before the Ancient Sogdian Letters (de la Vaissière 2005, 43-70) or Zhāng Quiān’s famous report.