British Museum – Silk Roads

Advance booking only 

Exhibition Dates: 26 September 2024 – 23 February 2025
The 2FOR1 offer is valid 10 October 2024 – 9 February 2025.

Camel caravans crossing desert dunes, merchants trading silks and spices at bazaars – these are the images that come to mind when we think of the Silk Roads. But the reality goes far beyond this. 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 major exhibition unravels how the journeys of people, objects and ideas that formed the Silk Roads shaped cultures and histories.

The Silk Roads were in use for millennia, but this visually stunning show focuses on a defining period in their history, from about AD 500 to 1000. This time witnessed significant leaps in connectivity and the rise of universal religions that linked communities across continents. From Tang Chinese ceramics destined for ports in the Middle East to Indian garnets found in Suffolk, over 300 objects reveal the astonishing reach of these networks.

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.