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The Demise of Silk on the Silk Road: Textiles as Money at Dunhuang from the Late Eighth Century to the Thirteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2013

ERIC TROMBERT
ERIC TROMBERT*
Affiliation:
Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l'Asie orientale., Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris
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Extract

The extensive documentary evidence collected and analysed in the previous studies in this issue suggest a preliminary conclusion that can be summarised as follows: from the collapse of the Han dynasty to the glorious days of the Tang dynasty, the peoples living in the Western Regions along the Silk Road used multiple co-existing forms of money – grain, cloth and coins – with one of these three items becoming predominant according to changes in political and/or economic circumstances. However, this multicurrency system did not outlive the political, economic and fiscal upheavals that shook the Tang empire from the mid-eighth century onwards. As far as the materials from Turfan and Dunhuang are concerned, the latest evidence for this monetary system is provided by a manuscript found at Dunhuang (P 3348 V°), already quoted in Arakawa Masaharu's article, which permits us to see how such a complex monetary system worked in real life once the silk shipped by the Tang government arrived in the Western Regions. In particular, a subsidiary account (P 3348 V°2 B) inscribed in this accounting report reveals how a local official called Li Jingyu 李景玉, who was vice-commissioner in the army stationed in that region, received his salary for the first semester of the year 745 ce.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 23 , Issue 2: Textiles as Money on the Silk Road , April 2013 , pp. 327 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2013 

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References

1 “Accounting report of the Doulu Army of the Hexi region concerning the use of the funds allocated by the government for the harmonious purchases during the years 744–745” (Hexi Doulu jun hedi kuaiji die 河西豆廬軍和糴會計牒); manuscript transcribed in On, Ikeda, Chūgoku kodai sekichō kenkyū: gaikan rokubun [Studies in ancient Chinese household registers: Introduction and Transcriptions] (Tōkyō, 1979), pp. 463–464 Google Scholar.

2 See Trombert, E., “Between Harvesting and Cooking. Grain Processing in Dunhuang: A Qualitative and Quantitative Survey”, in Holm, D. (ed.), Regionalism and Globalism in Chinese Culinary Culture (Taipei, 2009), p. 150 Google Scholar.

3 Some examples are given in Table 4.

4 Management report of the monk Yuanda 願達 of the Jingtu monastery, P 2049 V°2, col. 164 sq., 407 sq.

5 See the sales of textile products listed in Feng, Zhao 趙豐, Dunhuang sichou yu sichou zhi lu 敦煌絲綢舆絲綢之路 [Dunhuang silk and the Silk Road] (Beijing, 2009), pp. 198–201 Google Scholar.

6 Translated by Gernet, J., Buddhism in Chinese Society. An Economic History from the Fifth to the Tenth Centuries (New York, 1995), p. 88 Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., p. 89.

8 On the mechanics of auction sales and the role of their earnings on the monastic economy, see Chunwen, Hao 郝春文, Tang houqi Wudai Songchu Dunhuang sengni de shehui shenghuo 唐後期五代宋初敦煌僧尼的社會生活 [The social life of monks and nuns at Dunhuang during the late Tang, Five Dynasties and early Song periods] (Beijing, 1998), pp. 270–298 Google Scholar.

9 For comparison, the figures given for the mid-eighth century for the entire Shazhou Prefecture, i.e. Dunhuang, were 4,265 households (Xin Tangshu 新唐書 [New Tang history], 40.1045), or 6,466 households (Yuanhe junxian tuzhi 元和郡縣圖誌 [Maps and gazetteer of the provinces and counties in the Yuanhe reign period], 40.1025). After that time, there was no noticeable growth of the local population.

10 See Wang, H., Money on the Silk Road. The Evidence from Eastern Central Asia to c. AD 800 (London, 2004), pp. 75–86 Google Scholar.

11 See Tatsuro, Yamamoto and Ikeda On, Tunhuang and Turfan Documents Concerning Social and Economic History, III, Contracts (Tokyo, 1986–1987; Supplement, 2001)Google Scholar.

12 See the official list of prices in the market of Xizhou (modern-day Turfan), translated in Trombert, E. and de La Vaissière, E., “Le prix des denrées sur le marché de Turfan en 743”, in Drège, J.-P. (ed.) Études de Dunhuang et Turfan (Geneva, 2007), pp. 18–19 Google Scholar; see also Zhao Feng, Dunhuang sichou yu sichou zhi lu, p. 242.

13 See the legal texts quoted in Zhao Feng, Dunhuang sichou yu sichou zhi lu, pp. 238–239.

14 S 1403, P 2652, Beitu, Yin 41 fn.129, and fn. 130; only one, P 3448, dated probably 931, stipulates that the price for hiring (6 bolts of shengjuan silk and 1 bolt of louji silk) should be paid before departure.

15 Detailed data of loan contracts are given in Trombert, 1995, Appendices 1 and 2, pp. 194–197.

16 Zhao Feng, Dunhuang sichou yu sichou zhi lu, pp. 254–256. It should be noticed that the silk fabrics which were borrowed were almost exclusively juan (6 contracts), shengjuan (11 contracts), or shengjuan woven with dyed threads (huangsi shengjuan 黃絲生絹 or baisi shengjuan 白絲生絹) (9 contracts). Degummed silk (bolian 帛練 or shujuan 熟絹) appears only in 3 loans; see Trombert, 1995, Appendix 12, pp. 218–220. This practice at Dunhuang, which was the same for sales as well, was in contrast with that which prevailed in Turfan in the seventh and eighth centuries where degummed silk was in common use; compare with the data given in Tables 8–1 and 8–2 in Zhao Feng, Dunhuang sichou yu sichou zhi lu, pp. 240–242, and in Wang, Money on the Silk Road, Tables 31–34, pp. 76–86

17 From a total of 34 contracts where the reason of the loan is indicated. In 17 contracts the reason indicated is “lack of textiles for family use” (jia nei qianshao pibo 家內欠少匹帛). See Trombert, E., Le crédit à Dunhuang – Vie matérielle et société en Chine médiévale, Bibliothèque de l'Institut des Hautes Études chinoises, XXIX (Paris, 1995)Google Scholar, Appendix 11, pp. 215–217.

18 Ibid., Appendix 13.

19 See the contracts of employment edited in Yamamoto and Ikeda, 1986–1987 and 2001.

20 See P 3826 V° dated 987, and P 5008 dated 988.

21 See examples in Wang, Money on the Silk Road, Table 34, p. 86, and in Yamamoto and Ikeda, Tunhuang and Turfan documents concerning Social and Economic History, III, Contracts.

22 The character xie 緤 for cotton appears in an early document, which is an account of the Gaochang kingdom dated from the second half of the fifth century (75TKM90:20); see the Appendix to the article by Rong Xinjiang and Valerie Hansen in this issue. Readers should note that the character xie 緤 can also be read as die, as in the article by Hansen and Rong. Die follows the meaning (cotton), and xie is the reading given in modern dictionaries.

23 For example, P 2942 dating to the mid-eighth century); and P 2049 V° dating to the tenth century.

24 For the references to the dynastic histories, see Trombert, E, “Une trajectoire d'Ouest en Est sur la route de la soie. La diffusion du coton dans l'Asie Centrale sinisée. (6e–10e siècles)”, in La Persia e l'Asia Centrale da Alessandro al X Secolo (Rome, 1996), p. 212 Google Scholar and n. 24.

25 Trombert, “Une trajectoire d'Ouest en Est”, pp. 213–219. In the Turfan documents, cotton (the plant, and the fabric as well) is written randomly using the characters quoted above, die 曡, die 氎, and xie 緤 ; for example, xie hua 緤花, for cotton wadding, mu xie 某畝緤, for a surface of land cultivated in cotton, etc.

26 On taxes see Trombert, “Une trajectoire d'Ouest en Est”, pp. 215–217; on the commercial transactions examined through the contracts of sale, see Wang, Money on the Silk Road, p. 76 and following.

27 The argument in favour of the existence of cotton culture and weaving at Dunhuang (developed in Zheng Binglin 鄭炳林, “Wan Tang Wudai Dunhuang diqu zhongzhi mianhua yanjiu” 晚唐五代敦煌地區種植棉花研究 [A study of cotton cultivation in the Dunhuang region during the late Tang and Five Dynasties], Zhongguoshi yanjiu 3 (1999), pp. 83–95 and “Wan Tang Wudai Dunhuang zhongzhi mianhua bianxi – Jian da Liu Jinbao xiansheng” 晚唐五代敦煌種植棉花辨析— 兼答劉進寶先生 [Further analysis of cotton cultivation in the Dunhuang region during the late Tang and Five Dynasties – with a rejoinder to Mr Liu Jinbao], Lishi yanjiu, 5 (2005), pp. 174–178) is refuted convincingly in Jinbao, Liu 劉進寶, Tang Song zhi ji Guiyi jun jingji shi yanjiu 唐宋之際歸義軍經濟史研究 [Studies in the economic history of the Returning-to-Righteousness Army during the Tang–Song transition] (Beijing, 2007), pp. 240–243 Google Scholar.

28 See Trombert, “Une trajectoire d'Ouest en Est”, pp. 223–224.

29 See documents Dx 1303+6708, S 4504 V°5, P 3051, P 3453, 3627.

30 P 3985, P 3456 pièce 4, P 3579 V°; see also the list of gifts to the Uyghur qagan (P 2992 V° 3. See Table 6). Cf. ibid., p. 226.

31 Jinbao, Liu, Tang Song zhi ji Guiyi jun jingji shi yanjiu (Beijing, 2007), pp. 248–256 Google Scholar.

32 For example, the popular encyclopaedia copied at Dunhuang in the tenth century, Suwu yaoming lin 俗務要名林 (S 617): “Die 氎: mao bu.”

33 For example, in 944 the Jingtu monastery owned at least one flock of 121 sheep and goats (P 3234 V°).

34 Many other accounts confirm this length for hemp rolls. See for example the income of hemp at the Jingtu monastery for 925 (P 2049 V°1): total length 140 feet (col. 33) corresponding to three and a half bolts (col. 241–242).

35 Liu Jinbao is in agreement with this point, cf. op. cit., p. 253.

36 The information quoted hereafter comes from Hamilton, J., Manuscrits ouïgours du IXe-Xe siècle de Touen-houang (Paris, 1986)Google Scholar and Sims-Williams, N. and Hamilton, J., Documents turco-sogdiens du IXe-Xe siècle de Touen-houang, Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicum, Part II, vol. III (London, 1990)Google Scholar.

37 The following information comes from Takao, Moriyasu: “From silk, cotton and copper coin to silver. Transition of the currency used by the Uighurs during the period from the 8th to the 14th centuries”, in Durkin-Meisterernst, D., Raschmann, S.-C. et al. (eds), Turfan Revisited: the First Century of Research into the Arts and Cultures of the Silk Road (Berlin, 2004), pp. 228–239 Google Scholar and from other references quoted in this article.

38 The expenses for buying horses are estimated at a minimum amount of 285,000 bolts per year, as in 839; the expense could reach almost 1,000,000 bolts in times of war, when a high demand coincided with insufficient supply, as in the year 842. See Beckwith, C., “The Impact of the Horse and Silk Trade on the Economies of T'ang China and the Uighur Empire”, Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient Vol. 34, part 2, (1991), pp. 187–194 Google Scholar.

39 This is a reference to the exhibition “When Silk Was Gold. Central Asian and Chinese Textiles in the Cleveland and Metropolitan Museums of Art”, displayed at both museums between 1997 and 1998.