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Letters from the Silk Road
One letter for each Wayward film: the story behind it, and the sources for every fact.
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Nov 5, 2026A Kingdom KeptGoryeo, the Choe generals and the Mongol khans, from the coup of 1170 to the woodblocks at Haeinsa
Nov 5, 2026Horn, Sinew and PowderBows, armor, bombs and siege engines in the age of the Mongol invasions of Japan, c. 1250 to 1300
Nov 4, 2026One Edge of the WorldAcre, the friars, the Black Sea ports and the Vivaldi galleys: Latin Europe in the Mongol age, 1241 to 1309
Nov 4, 2026Who Watches the ScaleSix kinds of market, from Cairo and Hangzhou to Champagne and Hakata, around 1275
Nov 3, 2026Bells, Calls and ChantsHow people prayed across the Mongol world, from Goryeo to Cairo, around 1280
Nov 3, 2026Four Desks in 1270Brush, reed, quill, bark and palm leaf along the Silk Road, and Kublai’s new script of 1269
Nov 2, 2026Four Scents from Four CornersAmbergris, frankincense, musk and camphor between Arabia, Tibet, Sumatra and China, c. 1270 to 1290
Nov 2, 2026Who Pays for School?Students in the madrasas of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo and the universities of Bologna, Paris and Oxford, about 1280
Nov 1, 2026The Patriarch Who Knew the KhansRabban Sauma, Markos and the Church of the East, from Khanbaliq to Maragha, about 1275 to 1317
Nov 1, 2026The Unpaid VictoryWarriors, shrines and the fall of the Kamakura shogunate, 1281 to 1333
Oct 31, 2026A Horse Bought Every YearGulf ports, the Pandya kingdom of Maabar and the sea trade in warhorses, c. 1270 to 1300
Oct 31, 2026Where the Year TurnsMaragha, Dadu, Dengfeng and the astronomers of two Mongol khans, 1259 to 1281
Oct 30, 2026A Bowl at the DoorSufi lodges, their guests and their patrons, from Saladin’s Cairo (1173) to Ibn Battuta’s Anatolia (1332)
Oct 30, 2026The Man BetweenCho In-gyu, the friars’ letters and the interpreters of the Mongol world, c. 1250 to 1300
Oct 29, 2026Two Ports, One StraitHakata, Busan and the Mongol fleets of 1274 and 1281
Oct 29, 2026What the Physician CarriedHealers, drugs and medical books between China, Persia and Cairo, 1222 to 1377