560 



ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 8 



with the date of the Lo-yang beads. In fact it would be unreason- 

 able not to admit the high probability that the Chinese beads are 

 imitations, though not slavish imitations, of the European. Figure 

 5 shows a number of Chinese beads of the Lo-yang type which I have 

 been discussing, and also sketches of two of the presumed European 

 prototypes. 



I have, perhaps, devoted overmuch space to glass, but no doubt 

 many objects of beauty and rarity reached the Far East, either directly 

 by caravan or ship or indirectly, passing from hand to hand, being 

 copied and perhaps modified in form in the process of transmission. 

 The bull-headed rhyton is a case in point. I have discussed this 



Bologna 



Mediterranean 

 oriq'm 



China 



Figure 5.— Chinese beads of Han or pre-Han date, with prototypes of 'Mediterranean" origin. 



elsewhere, 30 so that all I need say here is that there is so close a 

 resemblance between classical, Seleucid or Parthian, and ancient 

 Chinese examples that there can be no doubt that the rhytons of the 

 Near and Far East have a common western origin. 



So far I have in the main dealt with events of the Han (206 B. C. — 

 A. D. 220) and the centuries immediately before and after that period. 

 The maximum importance of the silk route, as tapping Central Asia 

 and bringing together the Hellenic and Chinese worlds, was, however, 

 during the T'ang period (A. D. 618-907) to which in the main belong 

 the treasures of the Shoso-in. Nevertheless "Romans" and Chinese 

 never came into actual contact, owing to the skillful policy of the 

 Parthians, who were determined not to lose their enormous profits as 

 middlemen in the silk trade. Hudson quotes a passage from the 

 Han Annals which, as he says, shows considerable insight: 



80 In Essays presented to Dr. R. R. Marett on his seventieth birthday, Oxford, 1936. 



