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by Riaz Dean.
Hardback (6.3×9.3 inches). 239 pages. 2025.
Subtitle: The Riddle of Ptolemy’s Stone Tower
The Silk Road consists of trade routes from West to China. Typically, caravans would ply the paths across Central Asia, braving weather and bandits to bring silk from China for sale in the West.
The geographer Claudius Ptolemy mapped the Roman world, including part of the Silk Road. In describing the route, he noted that a “Stone Tower” marked the midway point — except no one has ever found it. Enter Dean, who is trying to locate the tower.
Ptolomy wrote his Geographia, which mentions the Stone Tower, around 140AD/CE, but it had been mentioned in Chinese texts as early as 140BC/BCE. Dean starts with these and rifles through other texts to try and pinpoint the Tower using descriptions of what was around the Tower. In some ways, this is a detective story, not unlike trying to discover what pass Hannibal used in marching through the Alps.
As the information and analysis grow, you’ll learn about the empires in between Rome/Parthia and China. Bits and pieces I’ve read before in another books, but the full panoply of diplomatic and commercial agreements are on display here.
The book contains 18 black and white photos and illustrations, and six black and white maps.
In the end, he asserts there was no man-made Stone Tower — it was the Suliemon-Too mountain that jutted up over the plain and is visible for miles around. There’s more, but it seems as good an idea as any. I had never heard of the Stone Tower, but that’s what makes reading this marvelous detective adventure a pleasure.
Enjoyed it.
— Reviewed by Russ Lockwood
