Silk Roads at the British Museum review: conjures the romance of captivating ancient cities and civilisations

Silk Roads is about lots more than silk. John Masefield summed up the allure of trade with the east in his poem Cargoes: “Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,/Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,/With a cargo of ivory,/And apes and peacocks,/Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.”

The thrill of that trade from east to west is the draw for Silk Roads, the British Museum’s ambitious exhibition about half a millennium of commerce, from 500 to 1000 AD. It starts with a small green statue of the Buddha produced in Pakistan in the seventh century and found among Viking remains dating from the eighth century in an island in Sweden – quite what the Scandinavians made of it is anyone’s guess.