The tomb of Sogdian Shi Jun (Wirkak) in the context of cross-cultural contacts of China in the early middle ages

The article deals with some materials on the excavations of the tomb of Wirkak (Shi Jun), a Sogdian on a civil service in China in the period of Northern Zhou dynasty (557-581). Brief descriptions of the tomb, remained grave goods and the stone sarcophagus decorated with reliefs depicting social and religious (Zoroastrian, Buddhist and, more than possible, Manichean) scenes are presented. The bilingual inscription (in Sogdian and Chinese languages) on the one of stone slabs contains information about the people buried in the tomb and precisely dates the funerary complex back to the 580 AD. The motifs of carvings illustrate the situation of the interaction between different religions as a part of intensive commercial and cultural exchanges along the Silk Road. An active search for the new ideologies is typical for transitional periods (in this particular case - from the Antiquity to the Middle Ages).