Technicolor Dreamcoats: Central Asian Ikat Robes: Geography is Destiny

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, the republics of the Central Asian Commonwealth of Independent States, are nestled in a lowland area of desert and oases between the Ural Mountains in the west and the Altai Mountains in the east. Their strategic geographic position between the great civilizations of China, India and Iran has resulted in the creation of distinct multi-ethnic cultures. All five countries share a common position directly in the migratory path of people and goods between China and the Western world, a location that made Central Asia a key player in early multinational contacts and attracted ethnically diverse populations to its prosperous oasis cities.

Much of Central Asia's wealth was the result of trade. As early as 3000-2000 BC, luxury items such as lapis lazuli, gold, silver, tin, turquoise, ivory, drugs, dyes and other lightweight goods passed through the region on what was first called the "Lapis Road" en route to the kingdoms of Sumeria, Egypt and Mohenjodaro (1). For millennia, until railroads were built in the third quarter of the 19th century, caravans consisting of several thousand camels crossed the barren desert laden with goods ranging from rhubarb to slaves (2). There were no set routes between the oasis kingdoms. The caravan leader had to be well informed on local affairs to be able to choose the least dangerous path and avoid ever-present bandits and constant political feuds. Central Asia's contribution to the trade goods included horses, precious stones such as nephrite jade and, by the 19th century, robes of brilliant colors that were used as public currency.

Lucrative trade drew middlemen, profiteers and artisans from far-away lands to settle in Central Asia. It also attracted conquerors. The 13th century Mongol invasion and the subsequent reign of Timur Lenk (Tamerlane) in the 14th and early 15th century were typical episodes in the history of Samarkand and Bukhara, cities that would regenerate to greatness after many destructive and isolating episodes. By the time European colonial powers turned their eyes towards the strategically placed Central Asian kingdoms in the 19th century in what was to be known as "The Great Game", both the covetous eye of czarist Russia and the watchful and wary eye of the British Empire could see only a shadow of the glorious trade that they baptized the "Silk Road"and which they thought to be merely a legend (3).

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(1) Kate Fitz Gibbon and Andrew Hale, Ikat: Splendid Silks of Central Asia: the Guido Goldman Collection (Lawrence King Publishing in association with Alan Marcuson Publishing, 1999), 21.
(2) Ibid., 24, 38.
(3) Johannes Kalter, Margareta Pavaloi, eds. Uzbekistan: Heirs to the Silk Road (Thames and Hudson, 1997), 27.