The Sogdian Ancient Letters
Private letters written about 313 to 314 CE by Sogdian merchants living and trading in China.
Full title Sogdian Ancient Letters
Sogdian letter writers
The Ancient Letters are a set of letters in the Sogdian language found in a ruined watchtower near Dunhuang in Gansu. They were written by Sogdian traders and their families whose network stretched from China to Samarkand. The card dates them to 313 to 314 CE and describes them as voices on commerce, cities and disruption. One letter is well known for its report of the sack of the Chinese capital Luoyang. The card lists Nicholas Sims-Williams's web translations. The atlas does not hold the text of this edition: no copy was harvested into the corpus, so nothing from it was read for this guide.
- How they knew
- Part eyewitness
- Who “Tartar” means here
- Not recorded, and the word is not expected here. The letters date from the early fourth century CE, long before the name Tartar spread.
- Why read it
- They let a reader hear ordinary merchants describe trade, debt, distance and war on the Silk Road, written by people who lived it.
- Watch out
- Only selected letters are listed. The card cautions that dating and survival history matter, and that the letters are not the equivalent of an empire-wide chronicle.
What it says
No quotes from this one yet. Its text is out of reach for now, or the scan could not be read.
The fine print
How we know
official or contemporary record An official document or a record made at the time.
Contemporary correspondence
Research notes
- Selected letters; dating and survival history matter. Not equivalent to an empire-wide chronicle.
Why it matters
Local and diasporic voices on commerce, cities and disruption.
Places named
Gansu; Sogdian trade network