Mapping the Silk Road: The Riddle of Ptolemy’s Stone Tower

“As the information and analysis grow, you’ll learn about the empires in between Rome/Parthia and China.” – Historical Miniatures Gaming Society

For over 2,000 years, the precise location of the Stone Tower—the midpoint of the ancient Silk Road, where caravans traveling between Europe and Asia paused to rest, trade, and resupply—has remained a mystery. Claudius Ptolemy (AD 90–168), an Alexandrian, was an astronomer and geographer. In his third work Geographia, he described the Stone Tower, a special place high up in the mountains in a region referred to as the Roof of the World, which marked the mid-point on a complex network of overland routes collectively known today as the Silk Road. Scholars have long debated its location, but no work until now has focused solely on identifying this elusive site.

This book explores the search for the Stone Tower and its significance in ancient geography, cartography, and trade. Determining its location not only resolves a historical puzzle but could also lead to the discovery of other lost settlements described in Ptolemy’s Geographia. The book is divided into three sections: the origins of the Silk Road, the historical forces that led to the tower’s prominence, and the precise identification of its location.

The author demonstrates why Ptolemy’s text alone is insufficient to pinpoint the site and introduces four key criteria that the location would have logically needed to satisfy for it to have become such a prominent meeting place and caravanserai. He argues that the Stone Tower corresponds to the Sulaiman-Too in Kyrgyzstan, the holiest mountain in Central Asia. This site was a key meeting point for traders and holds significant spiritual and cultural importance, with connections to Zoroastrianism and the Sasanian Empire.

By solving this ancient riddle, the book sheds new light on Silk Road history, offering fresh perspectives on trade, geography, and the civilizations that shaped this vital network of commerce and cultural exchange.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: BIRTH OF THE SILK ROAD
1. The Grand Historian
2. Barbarians from the North
3. The Journey West
4. Heavenly Horses
5. The First Caravans
6. The Silk Road

Part II: IN THE HEART OF ASIA
7. Migration of the Yuezhi
8. The Kushan Empire
9. Sogdian Traders
10. The Archaeological Explorer
11. The Hidden Library

Part III: PTOLEMY’S STONE TOWER
12. Ptolemy’s Geographia
13. The Data
14. The Description
15. A New Approach
16. Solomon’s Throne

Epilogue
Appendix
Timeline of Key Events
Glossary
Select Bibliography

Riaz Dean has travelled much of the area described in this book, including the two halves of what was once Turkestan, and to the Roof of the World which divides them. He collects old maps and books about the exploration of this region, and has written of the ancient Silk Road and its mapping. Born and raised in the Fiji Islands, he subsequently lived on three continents before settling in New Zealand.