The ancient discovery that put a Silk Road city back on the map

Surprised I'd see this on here!

The article doesn't do justice for the Bhat Museum in Kargil. It's really cool seeing the proto-globalization that was increasingly common for us residents in the High Himalayas in the 19th and 20th century.

It also is difficult to describe how unique Inner/Central Asian culture is due to the syncretic nature of trade, as well as the isolation that arises due to valleys being cut off for several months of the year.

This lead to some interesting cultural artifacts such as marrying off daughters outside of your valley (to prevent incest), identifying a person's valley based on their surname, relic populations speaking language isolates, and much older cultural traditons remaining alive while dying out in much more connected and populated neighbors

My great-grandad also had stories like that of Munshi Bhat's of the various mountain trails and paths that connected Jammu, Manali, Leh, Kargil, Skardu, Kashgar, Karglik, Murghab, Changtang plains, etc.

There was a series on MTV India called "Way Back Home" [0] that showed a lot of these small towns and the interconnections (albeit primarily concentrating on Upper Himachal and Leh).

Also, the old NH1 highway via Zojila is getting deprecated for an all-weather highway via Zanskar. A similar thing happened in neighboring Himachal with the Atal Tunnel connected Kullu Valley with Spiti Valley.

I have some recommendations of good museums and towns/villages to visit on the Indian side (Ladakh, Himachal, Jammu Division) if interested.

[0] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sw-6C9zIEdU

Five photos of mountains.

A single photo of a museum housing the "ancient discovery" (crates full of fancy goods from all over the world).

Not a single photo of a specific item from the "ancient discovery" (crates full of fancy goods from all over the world).

Journalism. BBC.

(Also, implying that goods from New York were being traded on the Silk Road is a huge stretch.)

Ah Ladakh, a magical place. If you want to experience Tibet and its culture as it was before chinese came and raped that land and its people in many ways, look no further. In fact many of them there are Tibetan refugees.

Flying over Zanskar valley is magical experience for those with a bit of adventure spark. Almost did the 3 week long traverse from Manali/Keylong area to Zanskar valley over often frozen rivers, but that year (2010) winter was stronger than usually, and there were still 4-5m of snow even on lower passes in early summer, (there is also Taglang La pass, which is 5328m high and quite an experience to cross during mega long journey between Manali and Leh). This was before strategic tunnels were finished (although saw massive construction work north of Manali back then, used few trucks as hitchhikers) so strength of winter fully dictated when the road is opened.

Good times, go there while it still has some original magic since mass tourism ruins it all without exception. Especially the people and mountains, salty yak butter tea... not so much.

Weird framing for this story, it's not an ancient find -- it was from the modern era, and not really part of the silk road, which A) probably never really existed in the way people imagine it and B) definitely didn't exist at the time that his great grandfather was trading. The overland route from China to "the west" was mostly a mongol empire phenomenon that ended with the collapse of the Mongol and Byzantine empires and the beginning of the colonial area and the opening of sea routes.

It was just an ordinary stop on an ordinary trading route.

My first thought was that someone discovered Ross Ulbricht was freed and expecting to put Silk Road back on the map :)

It’s been a big year for Silk Roads