The Sogdian Letters: Silk Road Spies and a Lost Language

In 1907, British archaeologist Aurel Stein discovered a cache of letters in a watchtower near Dunhuang, China—the Sogdian Ancient Letters. Written on silk and paper, these letters from the early 4th century CE reveal the private lives, trade networks, and political crises of Sogdian merchants who dominated the Silk Road. We decode one letter from a woman named Miwnay to her mother, describing famine, exile, and the collapse of her marriage. We trace the Sogdian network from Samarkand to Luoyang, and examine how these letters, nearly lost to history, were deciphered by scholars like F.W.K. Müller. This episode covers the Rouran Khaganate's rise, the Northern Wei dynasty, and the Sogdian language's legacy in Central Asian Buddhism. #SogdianAncientLetters #AurelStein #Miwnay #Dunhuang #SilkRoad #Sogdiana #Samarkand #RouranKhaganate #NorthernWei #F.W.K.Müller #CentralAsia #Buddhism #Linguistics #History #FexingoHistory #TradeRoutes #Archaeology #AncientLetters Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo