The Silk Road, 13th century
Wayward
From Goryeo to Cairo: documentary films, short videos and a novel trilogy.
Now showingNails, Pegs or Cord? How Silk Road Ships Were Built
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Latest films
The Mongol Invasions of Japan, 1274 and 1281: The Two Ports Behind Them
Three Fingers on the Wrist: How Medicine Crossed the Silk Road
The Interpreters: Who Translated for the Mongol Empire?
A Night in a Sufi Lodge: Travelers, Dervishes and the Road
A Two-Millimeter Hole That Measured the Sky: Mongol-Age Observatories
Horses for India: The Warhorse Trade of the Sea Road
c. 1270
The roads, by land and sea
Tap a city to find its film. Gold lines are the caravan roads; blue are the sea lanes.
All cities on the map
- Khanbaliq (Beijing, China): Two Monks from Khanbaliq
- Karakorum (Kharkhorin, Mongolia): Möngke Khan’s 1254 Debate
- Kaesong (Goryeo) (Kaesong, North Korea): 80,000 Woodblocks: How Goryeo Survived the Mongols
- Hakata (Fukuoka, Japan): Japan’s Stone Wall Against the Mongols
- Hangzhou (Hangzhou, China)
- Zaytun (Quanzhou, China): Quanzhou (Zaytun): The Port of Many Faiths
- Canton (Guangzhou, China): Canton (Guangzhou) in 1270
- Chang’an (Xi’an, China): One City, Five Names: Chang’an to Xi’an
- Dunhuang (Dunhuang, China)
- Kashgar (Kashgar, China)
- Almaliq (near Huocheng, China)
- Samarkand (Samarkand, Uzbekistan): Samarkand After Genghis Khan
- Bukhara (Bukhara, Uzbekistan): Bukhara: The Minaret That Survived
- Merv (near Mary, Turkmenistan)
- Ray (Tehran, Iran): The Silk Road City Buried Under Tehran
- Tabriz (Tabriz, Iran): Venetians in a Mongol Bazaar: Tabriz
- Ani (near Kars, Turkey): Ani: The Ghost City of 1001 Churches
- Baghdad (Baghdad, Iraq): Baghdad After 1258
- Damascus (Damascus, Syria): Damascus 1260
- Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey): Constantinople 1261
- Kaffa (Feodosia, Crimea)
- Sarai (lower Volga, Russia)
- Venice (Venice, Italy)
- Cairo (Cairo, Egypt): Cairo in 1270
- Alexandria (Alexandria, Egypt): The Lighthouse of Alexandria in 1270
- Aden (Aden, Yemen): A Port Inside a Volcano: Aden
- Kish (Kish Island, Iran): Kish in 1270
- Hormuz (near Minab, Iran): The Real Hormuz of 1270
- Khambhat (Khambhat, India): Khambhat, the Port of 1270
- Kollam (Kollam, India): Kollam: The Pepper Port
- Palembang (Palembang, Indonesia)
Under a minute
Shorts
Mongol Khans Wanted Silk Woven With Gold: Nasij Cloth
In 1621 the Dutch Conquered Banda, the Home of Nutmeg
The Pope’s Letter Nobody at the Mongol Camp Could Translate
No Money, One Knock: A Night at a Sufi Lodge, 1275
A Two-Millimeter Hole That Measured the Sky: Dengfeng
Marco Polo: A Horse for 500 Saggi of Gold, Most Dead in a Year
The Patriarch Who Hardly Knew Syriac but Knew the Mongols
Who Paid for Japan’s Victory Over the Mongols?
A Boy, a Cart of Books and a Night Flight From Harran
Dragon’s Spittle: The Gray Lump No One Could Explain
The novels
The Wayward trilogy
A novel trilogy set on the 13th-century Silk Road, from Goryeo to Cairo.
The newsletter
Dispatches from the road
One letter for each new film: the story behind it, the sources, and a map.
- Next topicThe Mongol Invasions of Japan, 1274 and 1281: The Two Ports Behind Them
- Next topicThree Fingers on the Wrist: How Medicine Crossed the Silk Road
- Next topicThe Interpreters: Who Translated for the Mongol Empire?
First dispatch coming soon.