The Tea Horse Road: An Ancient Trade Route
Michael Freeman, photographer and author of the ‘Tea Horse Road: China’s Ancient Trade Road to Tibet’, explores the pressed tea bricks in MAA’s care and the longest trade route in the ancient world.
7 February 2023
‘Looks more like a dog’ – Rabbits or Not Rabbits at MAA
To mark Chinese New Year this year, and the Year of the Rabbit, we did the obvious thing and looked for rabbits in the collections at MAA. But we didn’t find what we thought we would.
31 January 2023
More than Music: Collecting Kun Opera
Explore collections of Chinese musical instruments which began arriving in Cambridge in 1902, and have since been a part of several digital exhibition, and outreach projects.
25 January 2023
May you always have alcohol and meat
Alcoholic beverages made from fermented rice and sorghum grains were considered ritually important in ancient China. This post looks at some vessels involved in the use of alcohol in the Han Dynasty.
18 January 2023
Brick Tea as a Form of Currency
In a previous blog post on this object, I pursued one of the clues found on its label to show that it was a product of the Russian brick tea trade in China. In this one, we look at how it functioned as currency.
20 December 2022
‘Square Face’: Gin, Currency, and Colonialism in Africa
Discover stories of trade in West Africa, colonial exploitation, Christianity, traditional African religious practices, alcohol consumption and prohibition through a bottle of European gin.
13 December 2022
