Silk Roads Gallery at the Oriental Museum

This major new gallery was completed in 2022, transforming the ground floor of the Oriental Museum.  

Silk Roads is an introductory gallery for the whole museum, bringing together works from across our collections to tell stories of trade, travel and exchange across the whole continent of Asia and into Europe, all the way to Durham.   

Silk, ceramics and spices have travelled these trade routes for centuries. At the same time, people living and travelling along these routes have exchanged knowledge, learned about other faiths and been influenced by new artistic styles. The new gallery features visitor favourites such as our magnificent Chinese bed alongside objects never seen before.   

Originally planned to open in May 2020 to mark the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Oriental Museum, the project was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.  Work on the gallery continued where possible through the generous support of the DCMS/Wolfson Foundation Museum and Galleries Improvement Fund, the Arts Council for England, the Sir James Knott Trust and the Islamic Art and Material Culture Subject Specialist Network.  

Working with our communities 

Our learning and engagement team have worked alongside our curators on an ambitious programme of community workshops and primary and secondary school art projects linked to the gallery. All of these also had to adapt to pandemic conditions.  

Members of our local Muslim, Asian Christian and Jewish communities helped us to select and interpret objects from our collections to ensure that the gallery reflects the range of voices in our faith communities.   

Our Learning and Engagement team developed a range of Arts Award resources focused on the theme of Silk Roads as part of this project and moved the project online due to the pandemic. Supported by the Arts Council England (ACE), Arts Award supports children and young people aged from five to 25 years who want to deepen their engagement with the arts, build creative and leadership skills and achieve a unique arts qualification.  

Researching our collections 

Oriental Museum curators carried out in-depth new research into the museum collections in support of this project. They were supported by a range of specialists both within Durham University and more widely. This includes support provided by the Islamic Art and Material Culture SSN to research Islamic calligraphic material.   

The gallery has been designed to be fully flexible. This has enabled curators to continue to make changes or create installations within the permanent gallery to reflect new research or as part of special exhibitions such as Guardians of the Silk Roads Heritage where many of the textiles which formed part of the exhibition were displayed within the Silk Roads Gallery.  

Find out more about the Silks Roads Gallery. 

Oriental Museum technicians put the finishing touches to the displays.