The Silk Road was a network of trade routes which linked regions of the Asian continent with the West and East. Along this route, many goods and services were exchanged between people from all over the world. There was also an exchange of different ideas and inventions due to the nonstop interaction of different cultures. For example, Buddhism spread into China from India after the Han dynasty collapsed. The Silk Road became one of the most important trade routes because it produced trade between various empires across the world. As a result, when many people hear the term Silk Road, “every sort of romantic notion” (“Traveling the Silk Road”) is evoked. However, the men and women that traveled along the Silk Road thought otherwise. This is because they were faced with many problems and difficulties while traveling along the road. First, the deserts and mountains along the Silk Road brought about horrible climatic and geographical conditions (“Trade Along the Silk Roads”). For example, during the winter the mountains were covered in feet upon feet of snow. Some mountains were even covered in snow year round. Travelers would also have to face harsh ice storms and sandstorms that would last for days. These violent conditions made moving goods along the route very painful and difficult …show more content…
Various ideas, cultures, and inventions were spread across the world because of the Silk Road. Although the Silk Road had a very positive influence, it also posed many problems and challenges. In other words, travel along the Silk Road was very dangerous. For example: merchants would experience harsh climate conditions; it would take them a very long time to reach their destination, bandits would raid merchants and steal their goods; and merchants would suffer from hunger and thirst while traveling. Despite these challenges, however, travelers still made the journey
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.
Francesco Pegolotti was a Florentine merchant and politician. He wrote the The Practice of Commerce in which he expressed the personal qualities he believed that merchants were most needed to survive, which were compliancy and the skill to work with others, and have understanding. Pegolotti’s history was based on the sensitivity to local rules and customs was the key to survival. In this paper it will argue that the personal qualities that was needed to succeed in the Silk Road trade.
With the lack of canals or other means of transportation, it was almost impossible for many farmers to reach distant cities or waterways to get their goods to market.
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...
The merchants from East Asia continued to exchange goods with the European merchants, and vice versa. Both of the merchants from East Asia and Western Europe remained intensely dependent on trade, especially on the Silk Road. These exchanges led to a great and powerful state, regardless of what sort of merchandise was being traded. This was one essential reason for why the Silk Road remained, for the most part, unaltered, but another is that it allowed for the diffusion of religion, since the very beginning of this trade routes existence. Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and other religions were being diffused all throughout Eurasia. The Diffusion of religion never really stopped to extend their minister effort to different parts of the world. For example, Old Greek writing and content of literature were acquired and deciphered by the Islamic Caliphates and eventually, the Christian’s in Europe got these amid the Crusades along the Silk
Slaves and slave trade has been an important part of history for a very long time. In the years of the British thirteen colonies in North America, slaves and slave trade was a very important part of its development. It even carried on to almost 200 years of the United States history. The slave trade of the thirteen colonies was an important part of the colonies as well as Europe and Africa. In order to supply the thirteen colonies efficiently through trade, Europe developed the method of triangular trade. It is referred to as triangular trade because it consists of trade with Africa, the thirteen colonies, and England. These three areas are commonly called the trades “three legs.”
Due to their positive attitude towards trades, they reopened the Afro-Eurasian trade routes and once again the old Silk Road was open. This then brought about other trades such as people, as slavery was still prominent, animals and other goods. While that sounds like the beginning of a thriving business, the traffic of people and animals brought with them diseases, in this case, specifically the Black Death.
One of the trackable patterns is in the products traded on the Silk Roads. The first traded product on the Silk Roads were Ferghana horses. In return, Central Asian countries receive a variety of Chinese goods, such as silk, bronze, medicinal herbs, jade, and other luxurious goods. Trades such as these continued through 200 CE with more countries and groups getting involved. Some goods being traded included Central Asian camels and horses, European gold and silver, and Indian cotton and spices. However, by 476 CE, both the Roman Empire and Han Dynasty have fallen, decreasing trade significantly because of less demand and more fear of unprotected routes. Eventually, the rise of the Tang Dynasty and the stabilization of the Byzantine Empire by
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, pilgrims, monks, soldiers, nomads, and urban dwellers.... ... middle of paper ...
The Silk Road was a trading route, beginning in China and created during the Han Dynasty, which acted as the main course of trade throughout Eurasia. Running through its routes were not only european luxuries, but ideas, religions, and even disease! From 200 BC to 1450 AD, the Silk Road’s patterns of interactions changed with the Black Plague and the spread of Islam and Buddhism, but the Silk Road maintained continuity with the goods that passed along its routes and its main purpose.
The Silk Road was a colossal interconnected networked generated by established trade routes that spanned the whole Eurasian continent as told by religious travelers, historians, and merchants.
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
Railroads could offer to go to more remote areas like in the country, where other means of transportation couldn’t go, like canals. These means of transportation caused much
The term Silk Road does not refer to a single, clearly defined road or highway, but rather denotes a network of trails and trading posts, oasis and markets scattered all across Central Asia. All along the way, branch routes led to destinations off to the side of the main route, with one especially important branch leading to northwestern India, and thus to other routes throughout the subcontinent. The Silk Road network is generally thought of as stretching from an eastern station at the old Chinese capital city of Chang'an to westward stations at Byzantium (Constantinople), Antioch, Damascus, and other Middle Eastern cities. But beyond those end points, other trade networks distributed Silk Road goods throughout the Mediterranean world and Europe, on one end, and throughout eastern Asia on the other end.