In February 2020, the IDA's exploration of Ancient Spice continued with a second conference in Samarkand. This site, apart from its obvious topical relevance, made it easier for scholars from the Near, Middle and Far East to attend.

This second conference focused on three related areas: (1) eastern lore relating to the medicinal and culinary uses of spice and the extent to and avenues through which such lore was transmitted, from antiquity through to the Middle Ages, to the west; (2) the fungibility or non-fungibility of culinary and medicinal plant names, species, cultivars, and preparation/propagation forms in both the east and west during antiquity, with a special emphasis on how non-fungibility might have influenced whether and how the medicinal and culinary lore attached to particular plants was transmitted from east to west (and back to east); and (3) eastern perspectives on the spice road, a route too often viewed as a one way street in the west.

A global panel, which includes a mix of scholars from both east and west, is essential to finding answers to these novel and difficult questions.