Given time enough, both desert sand and the waters beneath may shift—creating new potentials and carving novel pathways, those both visible and as yet unseen.

Judith A. Lerner, in Chapter 6 of Monks & Merchants…, identifies “trade” as the main “impetus for cross-cultural exchange” along the ancient Silk Road, dating from the 4^th to 7^th centuries CE. Lerner further identifies the Sogdian merchant class as lead actors in this exchange, with the Sogdian language serving as a sort of lingua franca along Silk Road stretches. So prevalent was Sogdian merchant influence that, Lerner notes, the Khotanese word sūlī (Sogdian) was used as a general term for all merchants. Contemporary (mainly Chinese) accounts paint a more detailed picture of the Sogdians as a people very much focused on trade—encouraging literacy as early as age 5, and providing training in commerce very shortly thereafter. This served to establish a highly educated, highly specialized merchant class, capable of trading both goods and human skill—in the case of translation or dance. The described practice of sympathetic magic involving sugar and paste (applied to mouth and hands respectively) belies a culture wealthy enough to afford sugar and very much intent on attracting the finer things in life for their children.

Sogdian merchant caravans facilitated the slow passage of goods and ideas. Meanwhile, echoes of Sogdian material culture—in the form of various artifacts recovered by scholars—serve as proofs that Sogdian culture, despite its dominance along certain trade routes, was not immune to influence over time. In Chapter 8 of Monks & Merchants…, Luo Feng examines changing funerary practices amongst Sogdians in Northwest China. Telling is the move, described by Feng, towards extreme variation in and divergence from traditional burial customs, either Zoroastrian or Chinese. Such changes saw a rise in earthen burials (contrary to earlier proscriptions against inhumation for fear of pollution), the use of stone funerary couches (in place of clay or stone ossuaries in mausoleums), and the addition of burial objects or mingqi. A particularly interesting mingqi variation to Sogdian burial practices seen in some sites is the placement of foreign coins in the mouth or hand of the deceased, as in the Greek tradition of “obols for Charon”—payment to the ferryman who would take shades of the departed across the River Styx.  Feng also argues further foreign influence, as seen in the sinization of Sogdian place names and their acceptance within Chinese administrative culture. Similarly, Boris I. Marshak in Chapter 7 of Monks & Merchants…, describes the adoption of foreign elements within the iconography or depiction of Sogdian deities such as Nama (pictured with four arms). Similar influences may be seen amongst Sogdian coins and other artifacts.

An observant eye may see that, given time, language and culture cannot remain fixed, static, or anachronistic. While the Sogdian merchant class did dominate Silk Road trading routes for a time, they would themselves be altered by the ongoing cross-cultural exchange—influencing and in turn being influenced by those ‘others’ that they would encounter.