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Changes in the silk road from 1200 to 1750
The influence of the silk road on culture
Changes in the silk road from 1200 to 1750
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The Silk Road experienced many transformations between 200 BCE and 1450 CE. It still served its original purpose however. Diseases, spices, goods, ideas, and jewelry were all traded along the road, but over time, the materials being traded slowly changed. Many boundaries and identities of the countries were also revised.
Aside from the materials that were changed, the reason for the Silk Road still remained the same. European and Asian supplies were bartered with one another through the road and vice versa. The economy of Asia, or Chine to be exact, relied greatly on the profit from trade occurring on the Silk Road. It didn’t matter where the good came from or even what it was. Equivalently, Europe’s economy stayed fueled by the Asian trades.
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It began first as a basic mode of transportation for Eurasian merchants. However, it grew into a worldwide certainty, both economically and culturally. When Asian spices and fabrics were exposed to the road, Europeans became more and more captivated to their treasures. This slowly shaped both cultures. The road created many political changes which then led to the fall of the Roman Empire. In turn, many nations and cultures had shaped identities along the Silk Road.
Overall, the Silk Road’s main purpose stayed together from 200 B.C.E. to 1450 C.E., but the patterns of interactions that occurred along it did not. For example, empires collapsed, new nations were created, and that brought many changes to Silk Road cultures and the connections between those that traveled on
The Silk Road made sure if you didn’t trade items you can hold, then you can trade items you can cherish. Finally, in the western civilizations (Rome), it was accessed by boat. Boats could carry a ton more items and it was less of a walk for the merchants/traders. However, the Silk Road did lead a small backup path up north of Parthia. Around 27 B.C.E., the Roman Empire had only begun, but the silk road had been a thing for a very long time before that.
As new ideas traveled main trade routes, such as the Silk Road and the Mediterranean, the effects of such were felt through an influx of contact between countries due to increased desire for new information and countries gaining a larger presence on the world stage. This phenomenon can also be seen through the lens of cultural exchange that took place during this same time period in Eurasia. A major component of the Eurasian trade networks, such as the Silk Road and Indian Ocean, was that they fostered interregional contacts that had ceased to previously exist. When a country had a desire for study or technology, they earned more respect on the global stage. This can be further examined by looking at Marco Polo’s voyage into Asia.
The Major religions spread across Eurasia and Africa through trade routes and conquest. Along with the religions came ideas and practices to new and distance places, changing local populations and create new traditional beliefs and customs. Beliefs and religions ebbed and flowed through the Silk Roads that was “an artery that for nearly a thousand years was the primary commercial network linking East Asia and the Mediterranean world. This trade route extended over 5000 miles and took its name from the huge quantities of precious silk that passed along it.” Nomads, monks and traders survived on these open roads selling goods, services, and ideas to other people and traders to pass on.
Particularly, the Silk road brought wealth to many civilizations. In fact, many of these civilizations would not be known without this trading route. Because of the riches the Silk road brought the empires.
During the classical era, there were shifts worldwide with regards to economic imports and exports. As many societies transformed from hunting-gathering societies into specialization societies, global trade networks expanded. This led to the founding and growth of many complex trade networks, both on land and by sea. Two notable trade networks were the Mediterranean Sea network and the Silk Road. The Mediterranean Sea is in Europe, and the trade network lined the shores of Turkey and North Africa. The Silk Road was trans-Asian. It reached from China to the Eastern Mediterranean. While these networks had multiple similarities in their expansion and spread of religion and ideas, there were many differences. These included the type of materials
At the time of the Han Dynasty, general trade began over the Silk Road, which was a network of trails that stretched 4,000 miles from China extending to the Roman Empire. At the time the Chinese were unique in their knowledge of how to raise silkworms and weave silk. Chinese silk was extremely expensive. In fact it was worth its weight as gold in Rome! Europeans also preferred other Asian luxury goods including but not limited to exotic sp...
...r I. Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the
During this time in China the Han dynasty was responsible for the greatest expansion of China, to what is now southern China, northern Vietnam, and parts of Korea and had trade with Central Asia, India, Persia. Because of the expansion of the territory they were able to trade with more countries. This was furthered by the discovery of the Silk Road in 2nd century BC. The Silk Road, discovered by a Chinese ambassador Zhang Qian, was a series of trade routes from China to the Mediterranean Sea. The Silk Road got its name from the amount of silk used for trade during the Han dynasty. This route was used to travel from West to East on land they traveled to India, Persia, Arabia, and Europe, while traveling by sea they traveled through Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. These paths were used by merchants, pilgrim, monks, soldiers, nomads, and urban dwellers.
2.) The Asian sea trading network was traditionally divided into three distinct sections that each handled certain types of goods. With the arrival of the Europeans, these zones became blurred as there was an increase of trade between each zone and Europeans bolstered the textile and spice trade with their efforts in joining the trade system. Due to large amounts of trade, trading factories and ports were established all throughout Southeast Asia, establishing permanent points of trade, widening the area that the network influenced.
The Mongols influenced the world in many great ways, one of them was their vast trade system. They relied quite heavily on trade, not only to gain resources, but also to get their inventions and objects to the Europeans and then hopefully spread from there. The Mongols enhanced the trading system by composing the “Silk Road”. The Silk Road was a path/road that the Mongols had control of and it was a trade route that many travelers and traders took. Along the Silk Road, the main resource that was traded was silk, hence the name “Silk Road.” The
The Mongols conquered and then united China. This created peace among the country and led to other great things. One of these great things is the Silk Road. The Silk Road is a long trading route that was created when China was united as they had started
It is not possible to think clearly about the Silk Road without taking into consideration the whole of Eurasia as its geographical context. Trade along the Silk Road flourished or diminished according to the conditions in China, Byzantium, Persia, and other countries along the way. There was also competition for alternative routes, by land and sea, to absorb long-distance
The Silk Road is trade route that connected east and west. Inaccurately named by Ferdinand von Richthofen in the 19th century, it is actually a collection of roads. Traders didn’t usually traverse the whole length of the route, however. Goods were usually traded multiple times before they reached the final destination. Items leaving from Asia and China were goods such as: silk, spices, textiles, ivory, jade, bronze objects, ceramics, lacquarware, flowers, furs, paper, jewelry, minerals, horses, and exotic plants and animals. Goods from the west were: wool, linen, coins, bullion, ambergris, gold, ivory, amber, coral, other precious stones, beads, and glass (a commodity that China has not been able to produce at this point). Goods originating from India were:...
The Chinese were the first to produce silk from the silkworm. This was something that was very much desired by the West. The Romans even referred to it as the ‘land where silk comes from. ’ The Romans set out to find where this wonderful material was coming from. According to the Ancient History Encyclopedia it is thought that the first contact between China and the west was around 200 BCE . Many types of merchandise were traded along this road. China had things like silk, bamboo work, and Chinese lacquers. The West had many new fruits, vegetables, spices, gold, and medicinal materials that China wanted. So this was a mutually beneficial trade route. As mentioned before much more than just material things were traded among this road like ideals, beliefs, and technology.
There exists a time when major civilizations were once divided in nature and were unaware of each other’s existence. The major civilizations developed at an independent rate, and most of the technologies and ideas were innovated without the influence of other civilizations. The Chinese were famed for their production of silk, a valuable textile coveted for its splendid texture and color. The Roman Empire was known for its wealth and domesticated animals. India was famous for its spices [1]. However, this situation then took a drastic change when the Silk Road was established by the Han Dynasty. The main purpose of this establishment was to maintain political contact with the kingdoms located in Central Asia. This route soon evolved into a trade route that connected China, Central Asia and Constantinople [2]. Sometime between 206 B.C and 220 A.D, Silk Road was known to be the main trade route that linked the west and the east [2]. The Silk Road then became one of the most iconic symbols of trade in the world, as it became the first trade route of its kind that managed to connect the west with the east. Although the Silk Road disappeared after 220 A.D due to the fall of Constantinople, it remained to be one of the most important human systems in history. This is because it gave rise to globalization, expedited the development of great civilizations and inspired the rise of maritime exploration.