The Intrusion Of East Asian Imagery In Thirteenth-Century Armenia : Political And Cultural Exchange Along The Silk Road

The pax mongolica of the thirteenth century instituted after the conquests of Genghis Khan reopened the Silk Road and provided a locus for the exchange?or, better, the importation into the imagination of medieval Armenia?of a number of notions and artistic expressions from China. This chapter is devoted to a close analysis of this cultural contact with East Asia by examining in depth a number of oriental motifs only casually described in earlier literature. The chapter also talks about the influence of East Asia on the legendary Alexander Romance . Though the Armenian translation of the Pseudo-Callisthenes was made in the late fifth century, it was only at the end of the thirteenth and the first years of the fourteenth century that there was a major revival of interest in it. Keywords: Alexander Romance ; artistic expressions; China; cultural contact; East Asia; medieval Armenia; oriental motifs; Silk Road