10-22-2016, 05:32 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-23-2016, 03:10 PM by Michael Kerr.)
The grave finds at Vagnari in Italy were mentioned in a thread a few years back.
http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/thread-16390.html
The Aorsi and Alans traded and negotiated deals with Sogdian merchants who brought goods including slaves, from India and China to the shores of the Aral Sea which the nomads controlled at various times.
Rome also traded with the Kushans via the Indian Ocean after the Kushans defeated various Saka and Indo-Parthian kingdoms around the Indus and being Yuezhi there was probably a high Asiatic admixture as discussed in the thread Origin of the Alans. There are a few Roman sources mentioning Kushan ambassadors like Aurelius Victor during the reign of Antonius Pius and Dio Chrysostom during the reign of Trajan who wrote about the appearance of foreign peoples in the city wearing ‘the turbans and trousers’ of Persians and Bactrians. Not absolute proof but it is possible that Asians were present at Rome but highly unlikely in Britain unless a slave.
http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/thread-16390.html
The body found at Vagnari was probably a slave as it had another body buried on top of it and had DNA that belonged to Haplogroup D which the author said has origins in East Asia but not necessarily China.
This was an article on Vagnari find from 2010.
In regards to East Asian slaves reaching Rome, I suppose it is possible. One source of slavery was the former Greek city of Tanais on the Sea of Azov, which was known as a trading post used firstly by Scythians and then later on Sarmatians and Alans before it was devastated by the Goths in around 330AD. Strabo described Tanais below although I think some of the Eastern nomadic groups were more sophisticated than Strabo believed & brought more than skins & slaves. Dyes, foodstuffs, leathergoods & weapons would have been popular barter items. It is possible that some of those slaves reached Rome and maybe Britain especially if they had certain skillsets like iron-working in the case of the Italian body as Vagnari was supposedly an iron-working region or maybe horse handling, there could be numerous reasons.
as a common emporium, partly of the Asiatic and European nomads and partly of those who sailed the Bosporus-the former bringing slaves, hides and other such things as nomads possess, and the latter exchanging wine and other things of civilized life.
The Aorsi and Alans traded and negotiated deals with Sogdian merchants who brought goods including slaves, from India and China to the shores of the Aral Sea which the nomads controlled at various times.
Rome also traded with the Kushans via the Indian Ocean after the Kushans defeated various Saka and Indo-Parthian kingdoms around the Indus and being Yuezhi there was probably a high Asiatic admixture as discussed in the thread Origin of the Alans. There are a few Roman sources mentioning Kushan ambassadors like Aurelius Victor during the reign of Antonius Pius and Dio Chrysostom during the reign of Trajan who wrote about the appearance of foreign peoples in the city wearing ‘the turbans and trousers’ of Persians and Bactrians. Not absolute proof but it is possible that Asians were present at Rome but highly unlikely in Britain unless a slave.
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
