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The Silk Road was a group of trade routes that went across Asia to the Mediterranean Sea. This let China trade with the Middle East and the Mediterranean world.
It was called the Silk Road because silk was traded along it. At the time, silk was only made in China, and it was a valuable material. The Silk Road not only earned China a lot of money, but all along the route cities prospered and markets flourished. Cities like Samarkand and Bukhara were built largely on the trade from the silk route.
Trade on the Silk Road played a big part in the growth of the ancient cultures of China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, and Rome, and helped to make the beginning of today's world. The term Silk Road is English for the German word "Seidenstraße". The first person who called it that was a German geographer in 1877.
Of course, many other things were also traded, even ideas. Because the traders came from many places, different ideas were brought to China, and China's ideas were taken to other places.
Some of the other things traded were porcelain and other types of pottery, food, wine, and spices. Chess pieces from northern India were brought to China and Persia. Paper arrived in the west from China. Metals and jewels were certainly transported, and very likely slaves also. Probably no trader went the whole way along. Goods would be traded on at every stopping-point. Deals might be needed to get past difficult places.
The Silk Road first traveled west from northern China. Then the part of the Silk Road on land split into two branches. One branch went north of the Tibetan Plateau, and the other branch went south of it.
After the two parts rejoined, it went in an almost straight line west through mountains via Tabriz in north Iran and the north tip of the Syrian Desert to the Levant (Syria, Israel, Palestine). From there Mediterranean trading ships took routes to Italy, and land routes went north through Anatolia or south to North Africa.
The sea route was also called "Silk Road". It ran from South China, to the Philippines, Brunei, Siam, Malacca, Ceylon, India, Pakistan, and Iran. In Europe it went between Israel, Lebanon, Egypt and Italy. Past the Mediterranean Sea, it continued to Portugal and Sweden.
The Buddhist religion and the Greco-Buddhist culture started to move east on the Silk Road, reaching China from around the second century BC. Trading also helped make many arts and crafts, brought different religions, and food to China. Chinese people helped build the Silk Road. They bought and sold with other people, and built up their culture. The Kushan empire, in the northwest part of India, was in the middle of these trades.
The Silk Road brought other cultures into Central Asia and China. It also helped the rise of the Mongol Empire, the largest land empire ever.
The Roman Empire, which bought a lot of Chinese goods, began to fall from power in the West around the 5th century. In Central Asia, Islam expanded starting in the 7th century. This brought a stop to Chinese growth westwards at a battle in 751 AD. More growth of the Islamic Turks in Central Asia from the 10th century stopped trade in that part of the world.
Achaemenid Persian Empire at its greatest extent, showing the Royal Road.
A pottery horse head and neck (broken from the body), from the Chinese Eastern Han dynasty (1st–2nd century CE)
Central Asia during Roman times, with the first Silk Road
A Westerner on a camel, Northern Wei Dynasty (386–534)
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Coin of Constans II (r. 641-648), who is named in Chinese sources as the first of several Byzantine emperors to send embassies to the Chinese Tang dynasty
A Chinese sancai statue of a Sogdian man with a wineskin, Tang Dynasty (618–907)
Caravan on the Silk Road, 1380
Map of Eurasia and Africa showing trade networks, c. 870
The Round city of Baghdad between 767 and 912 was the most important urban node along the Silk Road.
Port cities on the maritime silk route featured on the voyages of Zheng He.
Blue represents Portuguese India Armadas in the Atlantic and Indian oceans and some routes of the Portuguese Pacific network to the Moluccas, China and its nanban trade route to Japan. White represents the route of the Manila Galleons in the Pacific to the Philippines and the Spanish treasure fleet in the Atlantic.
Italian pottery of the mid-15th century was heavily influenced by Chinese ceramics. A Sancai ("Three colours") plate (left), and a Ming-type blue-white vase (right), made in Northern Italy, mid-15th century. Musée du Louvre.
The Silk Road
The Nestorian Stele, created in 781, describes the introduction of Nestorian Christianity to China
Blue-eyed Central Asian monk teaching East-Asian monk, Bezeklik, Turfan, eastern Tarim Basin, China, 9th century; the monk on the right is possibly Tocharian, although more likely Sogdian.
Iconographical evolution of the Wind God. Left: Greek Wind God from Hadda, 2nd century. Middle: Wind God from Kizil, Tarim Basin, 7th century. Right: Japanese Wind God Fujin, 17th century.
Sultanhani caravanserai
Sultanhani caravanserai
18th century caravanserai in Sheki, Azerbaijan
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Selim Pass caravanserai
Remains of a bridge, Eastern Turkey
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Taldyk pass
Dunhuang
Zeinodin Caravanserai
Sogdian man on a Bactrian camel, sancai ceramic glaze, Chinese Tang Dynasty (618-907)
Ancient Chinese customs post on Silk Road near Dunhuang
The ruins of a Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) Chinese watchtower made of rammed earth at Dunhuang, Gansu province
A Chinese Western Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 9 CE) bronze rhinoceros with gold and silver inlay
Han dynasty Granary west of Dunhuang on the Silk Road.
Modern woven carpet illustrating camel caravan on Silk Road, from Kashgar
Green Roman glass cup unearthed from an Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 CE) tomb, Guangxi, southern China
