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Beast Masters
May/June 2021
Murals unearthed in a tomb in northwestern China’s Shaanxi Province portray two hardworking professionals struggling to control animals. Dating to the early Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618–907), the murals depict the men with features and clothes typical of the Sogdians, an Iranian people from Central Asia, many of whom lived in China. (See “A Silk Road Renaissance.”) In one mural, a Sogdian merchant confronts a camel laden with goods as it throws its head back. In another scene, a Sogdian groom attempts to tame a wild horse as two greyhounds, a breed still popular in the area today, look on. “These murals show vivid facial expressions and gestures of both people and animals,” says archaeologist Ming Li of the Shaanxi Academy of Archaeology in Xi’an.
Royal Pantry Discovered in Silk Road Fortress
NARA, JAPAN
The Asahi Shimbunreports that a food pantry measuring some 37 feet long and 10 feet wide has been found at Kafir Kala, an eighth-century fortress on the path of the ancient Silk Road in what is now Uzbekistan. Researchers from Tezukayama University and Uzbekistan s Institute of Archaeology said that the contents of the pantry, which was situated next to a throne room, suggest that an eighth-century Sogdian king ate foods from eastern and western food traditions. The foodstuffs include charred grains of foxtail millet, which is eaten in East Asia, and a carbonized substance thought to be honey, widely used in Greek dishes. Takao Uno of Tezukayama University said the millet may have been served as a porridge, or made into dumplings served with honey. People in Uzbekistan today eat foxtail millet porridge with garlic and beans, which were also recovered from the pantry, Uno explained. Thirteen large pots are thought to