Ancient trade route from E China to C Asia and Europe. From the 2nd-c AD, the best-known route ran from Xian through the Hexi Corridor to the E Mediterranean coast. During the Sui dynasty (581618), a route further N ended at Istanbul. In exchange for silk, China received grapes, cotton, chestnuts, lucerne, and pomegranates; Chinese techniques for silkworm breeding, iron-smelting, paper-making, and irrigation spread W. The route also brought Buddhism to China. The silk trade had a serious economic impact on the Roman Empire. Payment was in precious metals, and by AD 10 China's gold reserves exceeded those of much later mediaeval Europe. The situation possibly contributed to the fall of Rome.
For the modern road Karakoram Highway, see Karakoram Highway.The Silk Road – Georgian: აბრეშუმის დიდი გზა;
These exchanges were significant not only for the development and flowering of the great civilizations of China, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India and Rome but also helped to lay the foundations of the modern world.
The continental Silk Road diverges into northern and southern routes as it extends from the commercial centers of North China, the northern route passing through the Bulgar–Kypchak zone to Eastern Europe and the Crimean peninsula, and from there across the Black Sea, Marmara Sea and the Balkans to Venice;
The last missing railroad link on the Silk Road was completed in 1992, when the international railway communication Almaty–Urumqi opened.
The Silk Road on the Sea extends from South China, to present-day Philippines, Brunei, Siam, Malacca, Ceylon, India, Iran, Egypt, Italy, Portugal and Sweden. On August 7, 2005 it was reported that the Antiquity and Monument Office of Hong Kong was planning to propose the Silk Road on the Sea as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Silk road is a translation from the German Seidenstraße.
Origins
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The Great Silk Road Related Articles: |
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Regions
Eurasia
Eastern Asia, Southeastern Asia, Central Asia, Southern Asia, Southwestern Asia Southern Europe, Eastern Europe |
| Route China (Chang'an) Japan Korea Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan,Kyrgyzstan, Iran (Persia) Syria (Antioch) Venice, Italy |
| Cultures en route China Qin, Han, Xin, India Thailand Persian Empire Parthia, Sassanid Bulgars, Kypchaks Kushan Empire Roman Empire |
| Timeline Royal Road, Persian Empire |
| Wars and Battles etc. |
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Cultural exchanges Greco-Buddhism |
| Animals Dromedary Bactrian camel |
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End of Silk Road
Direct European Sea Trade |
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Cross-continental travel
As water-born shipping and domestication of efficient pack animals both increased the capacity for prehistoric peoples to carry heavier loads over greater distances, cultural exchanges and trade developed rapidly. For example, shipping in predynastic Egypt was already established by the 4th millennium BC along with domestication of the donkey, with the dromedary possibly having been domesticated as well.
Just as waterways provide easy means of transport, broad stretches of grasslands — all the way from the shores of the Pacific to Africa and deep into the heart of Europe — provide fertile passage for grazing, plus water and fuel for caravans.
Ancient transport
The ancient peoples of the Sahara had already imported domesticated animals from Asia between 7500 and 4000 BC.
Lapis lazuli was being traded from its only known source in the ancient world — Badakshan, in what is now northeastern Afghanistan — as far as Mesopotamia and Egypt by the second half of the 4th millennium BC.
Routes along the Persian Royal Road (constructed 5th century BC) may have been in use as early as 3500 BC.
In 1994 excavators discovered an incised ceramic shard with the serekh sign of Narmer, dating to circa 3000 BC.
The ancient harbor constructed in Lothal, India, may be the oldest sea-faring harbor known.
Egyptian maritime trade
The Palermo stone mentions King Sneferu of the 4th Dynasty sending ship to import high-quality cedar from Lebanon (see Sneferu).
The oldest known expedition to the Land of Punt was organized by Sahure, which apparently yielded a quantity of myrrh, along with malachite and electrum.
Iranian and Scythian Connections
The expansion of Scythian Iranian cultures stretching from the Hungarian plain and the Carpathians to the Chinese Kansu Corridor and linking Iran, and the Middle East with Northern India and the Punjab, undoubtably played an important role in the development of the Silk Road. Soghdian Scythian merchants were in later periods to play a vital role in the development of the Silk Road. (See Saka)
Chinese and Central Asian contacts
From the 2nd millennium BC nephrite jade was being traded from mines in the region of Yarkand and Khotan to China.
The Tarim mummies, Chinese mummies of non-Chinese, apparently western, individuals, have been found in the Tarim Basin, such as in the area of Loulan located along the Silk Road 200 km east of Yingpan, dating to as early as 1600 BC and suggesting very ancient contacts between East and West.
Some remnants of what was probably Chinese silk have been found in Ancient Egypt from 1070 BC. Though the originating source seems sufficiently reliable, silk unfortunately degrades very rapidly and we cannot double-check for accuracy whether it was actually cultivated silk (which would almost certainly have come from China) that was discovered or a type of "wild silk," which might have come from the Mediterranean region or the Middle East.
Following contacts of metropolitan China with nomadic western and northwestern border territories in the 8th century BC, gold was introduced from Central Asia, and Chinese jade carvers began to make imitation designs of the steppes, adopting the Scythian-style animal art of the steppes (descriptions of animals locked in combat).
Persian Royal Road
By the time of Herodotus (c. 475 BC) the Persian Royal Road ran some 2,857 km from the city of Susa on the lower Tigris to the port of Smyrna (modern Izmir in Turkey) on the Aegean Sea.
Hellenistic conquests
The first major step in opening the Silk Road between the East and the West came with the expansion of Alexander the Great deep into Central Asia, as far as Ferghana at the borders of the modern-day Xinjiang region of China, where he founded in 329 BC a Greek settlement in the city of Alexandria Eschate "Alexandria The Furthest", Khujand (also called Khozdent or Khojent — formerly Leninabad), in the state of Tajikistan.
When Alexander the Great’s successors, the Ptolemies, took control of Egypt in 323 BC, they began to actively promote trade with Mesopotamia, India, and East Africa through their ports on the Red Sea coast, as well as overland. There are indications that he may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan, leading to the first known contacts between China and the West around 200 BC.
Following the collapse of Bakhtria, their place was taken by the Kushana, a tribe of the people called Yuezhi in Chinese records, and identified with the Tocharians.
Chinese exploration of Central Asia
Zhang Qian (138–126 BC)
The next step came around 130 BC, with the embassies of the Han Dynasty to Central Asia, following the reports of the ambassador Zhang Qian (who was originally sent to obtain an alliance with the Yuezhi against the Xiongnu, in vain).
The Chinese were also strongly attracted by the tall and powerful horses in the possession of the Dayuan (named “Heavenly horses”), which were of capital importance in fighting the nomadic Xiongnu. The Chinese campaigned in Central Asia on several occasion, and direct encounters between Han troops and Roman legionaries (probably captured or recruited as mercenaries by the Xiong Nu) are recorded, particularly in the 36 BC battle of Sogdiana (Joseph Needham, Sidney Shapiro).
The Roman historian Florus also describes the visit of numerous envoys, included Seres (Chinese), to the first Roman Emperor Augustus, who reigned between 27 BC and 14:
Many artistic influences transited along the Silk Road, especially through the Central Asia, where Hellenistic, Iranian, Indian and Chinese influence were able to intermix.
Buddhist deities
The image of the Buddha, originating during the 1st century in northern India (areas of Gandhara and Mathura) was transmitted progressively through Central Asia and China until it reached Korea in the 4th century and Japan in the 6th century.
Another Buddhist deity, Shukongoshin, is also an interesting case of transmission of the image of the famous Greek god Herakles to the Far-East along the Silk Road.
Wind god
Various other artistic influences from the Silk Road can be found in Asia, one of the most striking being that of the Greek Wind God Boreas, transiting through Central Asia and China to become the Japanese Shinto wind god Fujin.
Floral scroll pattern
Finally the Greek artistic motif of the floral scroll was transmitted from the Hellenistic world to the area of the Tarim Basin around the 2nd century, as seen in Serindian art and wooden architectural remains.
Mongol era
The Mongol expansion throughout the Asian continent from around 1215 to 1360 helped bring political stability and re-establish the Silk Road (vis-à-vis Karakorum). In the late 13th century, a Venetian explorer named Marco Polo became one of the first Europeans to travel the Silk Road to China.
Technological transfer to the West
Main article: Medieval technology
Many technological innovations from the East seem to have filtered into Europe around that time. The period of the High Middle Ages in Europe saw major technological advances, including the adoption through the Silk Road of printing, gunpowder, the astrolabe, and the compass.
Chinese maps such as the Kangnido and Islamic mapmaking seem to have influenced the emergence of the first practical world maps, such as those of De Virga or Fra Mauro.
Large Chinese junks were also observed by these travelers and may have provided impetus to develop larger ships in Europe.
Disintegration
However, with the disintegration of the Mongol Empire also came discontinuation of the Silk Road's political, cultural and economic unity. Turkmeni marching lords seized the western end of the Silk Road — the decaying Byzantine Empire. After the Mongol Empire, the great political powers along the Silk Road became economically and culturally separated.
The effect of gunpowder and early modernity on Europe was the integration of territorial states and increasing mercantilism; whereas on the Silk Road, gunpowder and early modernity had the opposite impact: the level of integration of the Mongol Empire could not be maintained, and trade declined (though partly due to an increase in European maritime exchanges).
The Silk Road stopped serving as a shipping route for silk around 1400.
The great explorers: Europe reaching for Asia
The disappearance of the Silk Road following the end of the Mongols was one of the main factors that stimulated the Europeans to reach the prosperous Chinese empire through another route, especially by the sea.
When he went West in 1492, Christopher Columbus reportedly wished to create yet another Silk Route to China.
The wish to trade directly with China was also the main drive behind the expansion of the Portuguese beyond Africa after 1480, followed by the powers of the Netherlands and Great Britain from the 17th century.
In the 18th century, Adam Smith, declared that China had been one of the most prosperous nations in the world, but that it had remained stagnant for a long time and its wages always were low and the lower classes were particularly poor :
“China has been long one of the richest, that is, one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious, and most populous countries in the world.In effect, the spirit of the Silk Road and the will to foster exchange between the East and West, and the lure of the huge profits attached to it, has affected much of the history of the world during these last three millennia.
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