Lutes on the Silk Road: Transculturation of Eurasian Chordophones

FAIN: FA-58307-15

James Andrew Millward
Georgetown University (Washington, DC 20057-0001)

This book is a history of the lute as musical technology and cultural icon that spread from origins in Central Asia throughout the Eurasian continent starting ca. 1st century BCE. Based on archaeological, organological, musicological, historical, visual, and literary sources and secondary literature, I document the travels and transformations of the pear-shaped "short-necked" lute from origins in ancient Central Eurasia to East, South, and Southwest Asia and Europe. Moreover, I take the lute as a case study of transculturation (complex cultural interaction, synthesis and innovation) to address a broader question: What was the nature of "silk road" exchange? Treating lutes as densely meaningful objects with "social life" and "cultural biography," enmeshed in spatially and chronologically extensive networks, my book brings rigor and nuance to our understanding of "silk road," which I suggest should be seen as a reticular and reflexive process of cultural encounter and interaction.