Good morning everyone,

A history focus for today, as we turn to the Silk Road. Lots of great women on the Silk Road, including longtime Fem Fri heroine Sorghaghtani Beki, and for today we have two historical women and one modern woman.

Starting with history, how about Empress Irene of Byzantium, at the westernmost limit of the Silk Road. She was key in promoting and expanding the silk industry in the area but for whatever reason articles about her tend to focus on her wresting power from her own son when he acted like he… actually wanted to rule as Emperor rather than letting her do the hard stuff for him? Anyway, that’s what this next article is about rather than the development of the silk industry. I’m not above sensationalism:

Irene and Constantine had to leave the city for a safer hideout, giving Staurakios time to counter-plot. He stirred up Irene to punish her son’s co-conspirators and to reprimand Constantine. Irene locked her son up for several days and Constantine was still no closer to his rightful place as ruler. Their relationship went downhill from there.

https://www.rapiddiffusion.com/history/real-life-game-thrones-empress-irene-part-1/

Further east, we find Princess Wencheng – apparently one of the lesser princesses of the time, but who is laughing now because she was instrumental in developing the Tibetan writing system amongst many other achievements. Really making the most of being married off to an emperor for diplomatic reasons. I would probably just sulk and form little alliances with his other wives. Way to rise above the situation, Wencheng:

She arrived with the intent of introducing new agricultural methods. Seeds of grains and rapeseed which can adapt to high altitude climates were planted by Chinese craftsmen. Hoe plows, and other farm tools, and technical advice to on how to increase Tibetan agricultural productivity appeared. Han artisans also were brought to pass on their skills in metallurgy, farming, weaving, construction, and the manufacture of paper and ink. Wencheng is also credited with helping to developed Tibetan alphabet and writing.

http://womeninworldhistory.com/silk-road-05.html

Finally, you know how sometimes you don’t look at the notes in your phone for ages, and then you do and you have absolutely no memory of why you wrote that down or what it means? Imagine my delight to find that in fact the only thing in my Notes app was the words “abigail lost libraries” – I’d clearly been having a great chat because a search brought up this cool project – Abigail Reynolds went on a road trip to research and photograph the lost libraries of the Silk Road:

About six months ago I spent a few weeks intensively researching the lost libraries of the Silk Road from my home in Cornwall, England. I wrote to countless academics, scoured museum websites, and eventually identified 16. That is, I found 16 names, histories, and basic locations.

http://servinglibrary.org/journal/12/lost-libraries

Happy weekend! Happy Friday!

Alex xx.