The Stone Tower

Title: The Stone Tower – Ptolemy, the Silk Road and a 2000-year old Riddle
Author: Riaz Dean
Publisher: Penguin Viking, 2022 (First)
ISBN: 9780670093625
Pages: 225

Rome flourished in the first century BCE by establishing colonies and client-states all over the Mediterranean littoral which pushed up trade like never before. They consumed spices and silk from Asia and supplied gold in exchange for them as they did not possess the items which the Asians would accept in lieu of their produce. A network of trading routes and caravanserais developed in central Asia as a conduit for the flow of trade from China and India to Rome and Egypt. This network was later christened the Silk Road and proved to be a unifier of the east with the west. It was not only trade that was carried along the road. Religion, culture, language, script, sculpture and technology changed hands. This road was thus instrumental in coining the destiny of all modern Asian societies, particularly China. This book is an attempt to solve a 2000-year old question of ancient geography about a stone tower at the exact middle of the Silk Road. Riaz Dean is an independent scholar and author. This book is the result of a solo journey the author made retracing the old Silk Road.

The term ‘Silk Road’ was coined only in 1877 by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen. This was only an academic exercise as the actual route was copiously mentioned by ancient and early-medieval historians. A first century CE treatise called ‘Geographia’ by Claudius Ptolemy listed thousands of places along the Silk Road. It was he who first suggested the presence of a feature called ‘Stone Tower’ on the exact middle of the road. This was a special place high up in the mountains situated on the doorway to China’s western extremity called the ‘Roof of the World’. The book is split into three parts, the first of which explains the birth of the Silk Road, the second covers key events in history that determined the tower’s establishment at the halfway mark and the third pinpoints where the tower was actually located. The author narrates Chinese history of the second century BCE to explain how the trade route was established in the first place. Zhang Qian, a commander of the palace guards of Han empire led several missions to the west in an effort to find an ally against the hostile Xiongnu barbarians. Following Qian’s epic first mission, the Han began sending out more envoys to engage with newly found nations to the west. Other than goods to trade, they took expensive gifts for the nobles and their courts, an armed escort for protection, servants and ample supplies. For these long and arduous journeys, they needed caravans and the trade route came into being.

An overland route presents problems of its own, in the form of border protocols, brigandage and vagaries of extreme geography such as steep snow-clad hills and inhospitable deserts along the way. Naturally, the maritime spice route offered a better alternative for the movement of goods although the distances by sea were greater between the east and the west, particularly during times when the Silk Road became too dangerous. The rivalry between Rome and Parthia did not make the situation any better. The Romans controlled the maritime routes but the Parthians would not let them deal directly with the Chinese using overland routes. Rome then tried to bypass trade out of Parthia which levied heavy taxes for protection. This rivalry soon developed into full-fledged warfare that led to the doom of both the empires. Initially, silk was very costly, effectively worth its weight in gold. Even the very wealthy could not afford it, who sewed small patches of it on their clothing. Production of silk was a jealously guarded secret in China. On pain of death, no person was permitted to remove its eggs or cocoons; foreigners were not allowed near nurseries and guards searched merchants leaving China. However, paper was the most important item traded from the east, considering its impact on the transfer of knowledge through the printed word. Other forms of agriculture and technology, like cultivation of grapes, wine making and manufacture of coloured glassware travelled from west to east. Buddhism also spread along this route from India. This book describes Aurel Stein’s explorations in Xinjiang and central Asia which contributed greatly to archaeological and literary corpus of the ancient world. However, his appropriation of literary manuscripts by bribing Chinese monks was controversial.

The author’s quest for the Stone Tower fails to enthuse the reader on multiple counts. One reason is the uncertainty on the nature of the landmark. Ptolemy does not say whether the Stone Tower was a settlement, natural feature or a manmade structure. The inexactness in the suggested Ptolemaic coordinates signifies an area of 30,000 sq.km in which the Stone Tower could be found. Aurel Stein explored the regions in search of it in the first quarter of the twentieth century based on these coordinates and warned about the unreliable character of the information. Stein identified a settlement at Daraut-Kurghan in southern Kyrgyzstan as the location of the Stone Tower, because the Perso-Turkish name roughly translated to ‘a tower at the gorge’. Along with this, Dean also suggests three plausible locations – Tashkurgan in Xinjiang, Tashkent in Uzbekistan and Osh in Kyrgyzstan. Out of these four, the author selects a sacred mountain near Osh called Suleiman-Too as the Stone Tower. Unfortunately, the entire episode fails to excite the readers.

This book is an excellent source of Chinese and central Asian history and ethnic movements in the three centuries starting from 150 BCE. It describes the unsettling periods in which the Xiongnu tribes made repeated onslaughts on the Han empire which has some parallels to the ravages Roman empire encountered about half a millennium later. It also truthfully captures the domino effect created by fleeing nomadic tribes in displacing more units on their run to safety. The Xiongnu displaced the Yuezhi, who upturned the Sakas who in turn rode into India and disturbed the political balance. The book also neatly summarizes the commercial, literary and cultural interchanges across different societies along the Silk Road. The Taklamakan desert harbours many secrets of the ancient trade and its unnaturally arid climate preserves the artefacts with surprisingly little damage. A well-funded archaeological mission backed by technology is sure to unlock many treasures from the dry sands of Taklamakan. Apart from these, the actual quest to find the Stone Tower appears to be ‘much ado about nothing’. At least, Dean is not much successful in convincing the readers about the absolute necessity of the perilous adventures he undertook in central Asia looking for the tower. The book is effectively a sequel to the author’s earlier book, ‘Mapping the Great Game’ (reviewed earlier here). The book includes many photographs which would have been breath-taking had they been in colour instead of monochrome.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star