Speaker Bio
Huang Rong is a Visiting Assistant Professor at New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. She received her PhD and MA from Harvard University and her BA from Tsinghua University. From 2021 to 2023, she was the William R. Tyler Fellow in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, where she co-curated the exhibition “Garden and Nature in the Medieval World.” Her research focuses on the religious and cultural history of medieval China and Central Asia, with particular attention to the Silk Road and cross-cultural exchange. She studies how East Syriac Christianity (“Jingjiao”) took root in Tang China (618–907) and how it engaged, adapted to, and was shaped by Chinese Buddhist and Daoist intellectual and material worlds.
Recapping the Academic Lecture “Sogdians on the Tang Dynasty Silk Road: Trade, Religion, and Cultural Interaction” on 24 February 2026
Dr. HUANG Rong from the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, delivered a lecture at CUHK on 24 February 2026 titled “Sogdians on the Tang Dynasty Silk Road: Trade, Religion, and Cultural Interaction.” She highlighted the Tang Dynasty as a highly international and multicultural era shaped by exchanges of people, goods, religions, and arts across the Silk Road, emphasizing the Sogdians as particularly influential intermediaries.
Drawing on Bai Juyi’s poem The Hu‑Xuan Girl and artifacts such as Northern Qi ceramic flasks, Tang relief bricks, and Tang Sancai figurines, Dr. HUANG illustrated how Sogdian music and dance became integrated into elite Tang culture.
Her lecture focused on three main themes: the identity and origins of the Sogdians; their trading networks and settlements in China; and the cultural practices they introduced, as reflected in Tang material culture. She also discussed Zoroastrianism, the Sogdians’ principal religion. Although their traditional burial practices were not replicated in China, core religious motifs—such as fire altars, priests, and the judgment of the soul—were adapted into tomb iconography. This demonstrates both continuity and transformation as Sogdian beliefs interacted with Tang society.
