The term ‘Silk Road’ conjures a range of romantic images. Camel caravans crossing desert dunes. Merchants trading silk and spices. Far-flung commerce between ‘East’ and ‘West’. The reality was far richer.

Rather than a single trade route from East to West, the Silk Roads were made up of overlapping networks linking communities across Asia, Africa and Europe, from East Asia to Britain, and from Scandinavia to Madagascar. This talk, based on the major British Museum exhibition and accompanying book Silk Roads, unravels how the journeys of people, objects and ideas that formed the Silk Roads shaped cultures and histories. 

You'll meet figures whose stories are entwined with the Silk Roads, including Willibald, an ingenious balsam smuggler from England, and a legendary Chinese princess who shared the secrets of silk farming with her new kingdom. Crossing deserts, mountains, rivers and seas, the Silk Roads tell a story of connection between cultures and continents, centuries before the formation of the globalised world we know today. 

Books will be available to purchase at the event, and there will be opportunity to have your copy signed by the author.

Tickets are £5 per person.