An eleventh-century Chinese coin in Britain and the evidence for East Asian contacts in the medieval period — new post by me :) http://www.caitlingreen.org/2018/03/an-eleventh-century-chinese-coin.html …pic.twitter.com/CYelKLjx9c
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A detail from Andrea di Bonaiuto's fresco 'The Way of Salvation/The Church Militant and the Church Triumphant', c. 1365–8, with the figures at the centre identified by Jacques Paviot as an English knight of the Garter talking to a Mongol: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Way-of-salvation-church-militant-triumphant-andrea-di-bonaiuto-1365.jpg …pic.twitter.com/RrpXUG8BmV
A 15th-century image of James of Ireland and Odoric of Pordenone in Sumatra in the 1320s, from BnF Français 2810, f.104r; they subsequently travelled to China, where they stayed for 3 years before returning back to Europe: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52000858n/f213.item …pic.twitter.com/oWbuDbwghs
'The Eastern Parts of the World Described', by Odoric of Pordenone, 1330: https://archive.org/stream/cathaywaythither02yule#page/96/mode/2up …pic.twitter.com/sG4X7PRLGm
Matthew Paris's 13th-century account of the capture of an Englishman who acted as envoy for the Mongols during their European invasion c.1241 is also interesting—he had lost everything gambling at Acre, Israel, and then travelled east & joined the Mongols: http://www.caitlingreen.org/2018/03/an-eleventh-century-chinese-coin.html …pic.twitter.com/F4PZu2BVKD
The tombstone of Katerina Ilioni, daughter of the Genoese merchant Domenico Ilioni, dated 1342 and found at Yangzhou, China: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YangzhouKatarinaVilioniTomb1342.jpg …pic.twitter.com/STBXISNnvT
For interest, a distribution map of Chinese late 10th- to 15th-century qingbai ware in Arabia and East Africa; fragments of Chinese qingbai ware have been found in a 14th-century context at Winchester: http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/1836 pic.twitter.com/Y49TdoMXsK
Worth noting that around 2,000 Northern Song coins are recorded from sites west of Sri Lanka too; I've mapped them here based primarily on Cribb & Potts 1996, with additions.pic.twitter.com/3q77htBlta
Some recent finds of 11th-century Chinese coins reported from Ethiopia & Zanzibar: https://www.academia.edu/5999530/Identification_of_a_Chinese_coin_found_in_Kuumbi_Cave_Zanzibar_by_prof._Felix_Chami … & https://www.academia.edu/2566792/Northern_Song_coin_finds_in_Harla_Ethiopia_point_to_newly_found_silk_routes_from_China_to_the_Horn_of_Africa … &https://www.academia.edu/8407965/A_second_Chinese_North_Song_coin_from_Kuumbi_Cave_Tanzania_is_identified …
A bright red silk cover from the medieval skull reliquary of King Eric IX of Sweden, believed to be made from Chinese silk: http://www.glossa.fi/mirator/pdf/i-2015/themedievalskullrelic.pdf …pic.twitter.com/6tXtpnlYro
The Gaignères-Fonthill vase, an early 14th-century Chinese porcelain vase that seems to have arrived in Europe during the medieval period: https://jekely.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/note-on-fonthill-vase.html …pic.twitter.com/FiP0J4Gskx
For more on finds of Chinese pottery in medieval European contexts, including late 14th-century Winchester, see David Whitehouse, 'Chinese porcelain in medieval Europe', Medieval Archaeology, 16 (1972): http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/arch-769-1/dissemination/pdf/vol16/16_063_078.pdf …pic.twitter.com/kgCBLn1fUG
This is fascinating! A 10th-century Chinese coin found in Bulgaria: https://twitter.com/lubo_ac23/status/1013425029030273024 … :)
The name Rabban Bar Sauma doesn’t sound too Han Chinese. A Persian name perhaps?
Syriac (Aramaic) : literary language of East and West Syriac Christians of whom especially the first spread along the silk routes to China. Name means 'son of the fast' suggesting he was born during the lenen period. 'Rabban' is the title for a monk ('our master')
Aramaic was the language spoken by Jesus of Nazareth himself, I believe.
Very likely indeed, though the form of the Syriac Christians is somewhat different from the so-called Palestinian Aramaic that Jesus might have spoken.
Thanks! I once had a student (in Canada) who spoke the modern version of Aramaic at home. I was at first a bit surprised that it’s still spoken, but then she told me that it is still spoken by a lot of people :-)
Yes, it sure is. I did my PhD on the modern Aramaic of Urumiah (Iran)
Interesting! Do you have any source for the Jewish use of Sauma? (Rabban, of course, is very common, also in Jewish circles)
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