May SCEN Lecture Review - UK-Chinese Times
SCEN Lecture 2018
Royal Society of Edinburgh, 19 May 2018
Dr Roger Collins
Scottish Historian Talks about the Silk Road
Invited by the Scotland-China Education Network (SCEN), Scottish historian and writer, Dr Roger Collins, recently gave a lecture at the Royal Society of Edinburgh on the Silk Road.
Dr Collins employed a great many detailed images, data, and facts to describe the history, legends, and reality of the Silk Road, opening with President Xi Jinping's speeches at the University of Kazakhstan and in Indonesia in September and October 2013 respectively. Dr Collins mentioned that due to the trading relationship between the countries and areas along the Silk Road and ancient China, products combining different cultural characteristics were produced, e.g. the silks of the Sasanian Empire using silk from China, but patterns from Iran, or the archaeological excavation of the emperor's tombs from Northern Wei dynasty revealing golden coins produced in the regions west of China, or glass bowls from the Roman Empire discovered in tombs from the Han dynasty in Guangzhou.
Dr Collins also mentioned the slave trade and various travellers along the Silk road, such as the famous Sir Aurel Stein and Xuanzang.
Dr Collins graduated from Oxford University and used to be a researcher with the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities at The University of Edinburgh and Honorary Fellow in the Department of History. He has published a number of studies on ancient and medieval Europe.
The Scotland-China Education Network has promoted communication and collaboration between Scotland and China in the areas of education and culture for many years. Every year SCEN hosts a lectures series inviting top speakers from all areas of Sino-British relations to share their research results with the general public.
By journalist Liu Ye
Source: UK-Chinese Times
