Sogdian Traders: A History

The Sogdian Traders were crucial to the passage of trade across Central Asia in the early Middle Ages. Originally from the regions around Samarkand, Bukhara and Tashkent, their presence as traders across the expanse of Central Asia is attested by texts, inscriptions and archaeology from China to Turkey. This survey brings together all the data on their trading activities, from their small-scale origins in the first century BC up until the tenth century, and will be of interest to all specialists of Ancient and Medieval Asia (including specialists in Sinology, Islamic Studies, Iranology, Turkology and Indology), as well as historians of the economy of Central Asia in the Middle Ages.