Waugh Daniel C Silk Silkroad Seattle Art of the Silk Road July 2004

Silk Route extending from Europe through Arab republic of egypt, Somalia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Islamic republic of pakistan, Republic of india, Bangladesh, Java-Indonesia, and Vietnam until information technology reaches China. The country routes are ruddy, and the h2o routes are blueish.

Part of a serial on trade routes
Amber Route · Hærvejen . Incense Route
Kamboja-Dvaravati Route . King's Highway
Rome–India routes . Royal Road
Silk Road · Spice Route . Tea route
Varangians to the Greeks · Via Maris
Triangular trade .Volga trade road
Trans-Saharan trade . Table salt Route
Hanseatic League . Yard Trunk Road

The Silk Road (from German: Seidenstraße ) or Silk Route is a modern term referring to a historical network of interlinking trade routes beyond the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Southwest asia with the Mediterranean and European earth, likewise as parts of North and East Africa. The land routes were supplemented by sea routes, which extended from the Red Sea to littoral India, China and Southeast Asia.

Extending 4,000 miles (half dozen,500 km), the Silk Road gets its name from the lucrative Chinese silk trade along it, which began during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE). The central Asian sections of the trade routes were expanded around 114 BCE by the Han dynasty,^[one] largely through the missions and explorations of Zhang Qian,^[2] just earlier merchandise routes across the continents already existed.^{[ citation needed ]} In the late Middle Ages, transcontinental merchandise over the state routes of the Silk Road declined as body of water trade increased,.^[3] In recent years, both the maritime and overland Silk Routes are once again being used, often closely following the aboriginal routes.

Trade on the Silk Route was a significant factor in the evolution of the civilizations of Prc, India, Aboriginal Egypt, Persia, Arabia, and Ancient Rome. Though silk was certainly the major trade item from China, many other appurtenances were traded, and various technologies, religions and philosophies, as well as the bubonic plague (the "Blackness Death"), besides traveled along the Silk Routes. Some of the other goods traded included luxuries such as silk, satin, hemp and other fine fabrics, musk, other perfumes, spices, medicines, jewels, glassware, and even rhubarb, every bit well as slaves.^[four] China traded silk, teas, and porcelain; while Bharat traded spices, ivory, textiles, precious stones, and pepper; and the Roman Empire exported gold, argent, fine glassware, wine, carpets, and jewels. Although the term the Silk Road implies a continuous journey, very few who traveled the road traversed it from end to end; for the most part, goods were transported by a serial of agents on varying routes and were traded in the bustling markets of the oasis towns.^[4] The main traders during Artifact were the Indian and Bactrian traders, so from the 5th to the 8th century CE the Sogdian traders, and then afterward the Arab and Western farsi traders.

1 Name
2 Routes taken
- 2.1 Overland routes
- 2.2 Maritime routes
3 Precursors
- 3.i Cantankerous-continental journeys
- 3.2 Chinese and Primal Asian contacts
- 3.3 Persian Royal Road
iv History
- 4.1 Hellenistic era
- iv.2 Chinese exploration of Central Asia
- four.iii Roman Empire
- 4.4 Medieval
- 4.five Mongol age
- 4.vi Disintegration
- 4.seven Restablishment
- 4.8 Modern day
five Cultural exchanges
- v.i Artistic transmission
- 5.2 Manual of Buddhism
half dozen Commemoration
seven See besides
eight Notes
nine References
10 Farther reading
11 External links

Proper name

The Silk Road gets its name from the lucrative Chinese silk trade, a major reason for the connectedness of trade routes into an extensive transcontinental network.^[5] ^[6]

The German terms "Seidenstraße" and "Seidenstraßen"- 'the Silk Road(south)' or 'Silk Route(s)' were coined by Ferdinand von Richthofen, who made seven expeditions to China from 1868 to 1872.^[7] ^[eight] Some scholars prefer the term "Silk Routes" considering the road included an extensive network of routes, though few were more than rough caravan tracks.

Routes taken

Overland routes

The Silk Road in the 1st century.

Every bit information technology extends westwards from the ancient commercial centers of China, the overland, intercontinental Silk Road divides into the northern and southern routes past passing the Taklimakan Desert and Lop Nur.

The northern route started at Chang'an (at present called Xi'an), the capital of the ancient Chinese Kingdom, which, in the Later on Han, was moved further due east to Luoyang. The route was defined about the 1st century BCE as Han Wudi put an terminate to harassment by nomadic tribes.^{[ commendation needed ]}

The northern road travelled northwest through the Chinese province of Gansu from Shaanxi Province, and split into three further routes, ii of them post-obit the mountain ranges to the north and south of the Taklamakan Desert to rejoin at Kashgar; and the other going north of the Tian Shan mountains through Turpan, Talgar and Almaty (in what is now southeast Republic of kazakhstan). The routes split again westward of Kashgar, with a southern branch heading down the Alai Valley towards Termez (in modernistic Uzbekistan) and Balkh (Afghanistan), while the other traveled through Kokand in the Fergana Valley (in nowadays-solar day eastern Uzbekistan) and then westward across the Karakum Desert. Both routes joined the main southern route before reaching Merv (Turkmenistan). A route for caravans, the northern Silk Route brought to China many goods such as "dates, saffron powder and pistachio nuts from Persia; frankincense, aloes and myrrh from Somalia; sandalwood from India; glass bottles from Egypt, and other expensive and desirable appurtenances from other parts of the world."^[9] In commutation, the caravans sent dorsum bolts of silk brocade, lacquer ware and porcelain. Another co-operative of the northern road turned northwest by the Aral Sea and northward of the Caspian Sea, then and on to the Black Body of water.

The southern route or Karakoram route' was mainly a single route running from China, through the Karakoram, where information technology persists to modernistic times as the international paved road connecting Pakistan and China as the Karakoram Highway. It then fix off westwards, but with south spurs enabling the journey to be completed past bounding main from various points. Crossing the loftier mountains, it passed through northern Pakistan, over the Hindu Kush mountains, and into Afghanistan, rejoining the northern route near Merv. From there, information technology followed a virtually straight line w through mountainous northern Iran, Mesopotamia and the northern tip of the Syrian Desert to the Levant, where Mediterranean trading ships plied regular routes to Italian republic, while country routes went either north through Anatolia or south to North Africa. Another branch road traveled from Herat through Susa to Charax Spasinu at the head of the Farsi Gulf and across to Petra and on to Alexandria and other eastern Mediterranean ports from where ships carried the cargoes to Rome.

The southwest route is believed to be the Ganges/Brahmaputra Delta which has been the subject of international interest for over two millennia. Strabo, the 1st Century Roman writer, mentions the deltaic lands: 'Regarding merchants who now canvass from Egypt…as far as the Ganges, they are just private citizens...' His comments seem to exist interesting since the Roman beads and other materials are being found at Wari-Bateshwar, the ancient urban center with roots from much earlier before the Bronze Historic period presently being slowly excavated beside the Quondam Brahmaputra in Bangladesh. Ptolemy'south map of the Ganges Delta, a remarkably accurate piece of mapping, showed quite clearly that his informants knew all nigh the course of the Brahmaputra River, crossing through the Himalayas then bending westward to its source in Tibet. It is doubtless that this delta was a major international trading center, almost certainly from much earlier than the Mutual Era. Gemstones and other merchandise from Thailand and Java were traded in the delta and through it. A famous Chinese archaeological writer Bin Yang, whose piece of work, 'Betwixt Winds and Clouds; The Making of Yunnan', published in 2004 past the University of Republic of colombia and some before writers and archaeologists, such as Janice Stargardt strongly suggest this road of international merchandise as Sichuan-Yunnan-Burma-People's republic of bangladesh route. According to Bin Yang, especially from twelfth Century CE the route was used to send bullion from Yunnan (Aureate and Silvery being amongst the minerals in which Yunnan is rich), through northern Burma, into modern People's republic of bangladesh, making use of the ancient road, known as the 'Ledo' road. The emerging evidence of the ancient cities of People's republic of bangladesh, in particular Wari-Bateshwar ruins, Mahasthangarh, Bhitagarh, Bikrampur, Egarasindhur and Sonargaon are believed to be the international trade centers in this route.

Maritime routes

Going dorsum nearly 2000 years, during China's Eastern Han Dynasty, a sea route, although not part of the formal Silk Route, led from the mouth of the Red River well-nigh mod Hanoi, through the Malacca Straits to Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka and Republic of india, then on to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea kingdom of Axum and eventually to Roman ports. From ports on the Reddish Sea, goods, including silks, were transported overland to the Nile and then to Alexandria from where they were shipped to Rome, Constantinople and other Mediterranean ports.^[10]

Another co-operative of these body of water routes led downwards the E African coast, called "Azania" past the Greeks and Romans in the 1st century, CE, as described in the Periplus of the Erythraean Body of water (and, very probably, 澤散 Zesan in the 3rd century past the Chinese),^[11] at least as far equally the port known to the Romans every bit "Rhapta," which was probably located in the delta of the Rufiji River in modern Tanzania.^[12]

The maritime Silk Road extends from Guangzhou port, located in Southern Mainland china, to nowadays day coastal Vietnam, southern Cambodia, Thailand, Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, Burma, Bangladesh, Republic of india, Ceylon, Pakistan, Persia and Iraq. Another branch extends from Persian Gulf to Red Bounding main, connecting Persian, Arab, Somalian and Ethiopian ports all the style to Arab republic of egypt. In Europe information technology extends from Israel, Lebanon, Arab republic of egypt, and Italy (historically, Venice) in the Mediterranean Sea to other European ports or caravan routes such equally the not bad Hanseatic League fairs via the Spanish road and other Alpine routes. This water route is called in some sources "the Indian Ocean Maritime System" or Indian Ocean trade network. The maritime trade networks connects various commodity traded beyond Asia as far as Europe; such equally spices (eq. cloves and nutmeg) from eastern Indonesian archipelago was traded as far as China, India, Middle East, and Europe.

Precursors

Cantankerous-continental journeys

As the domestication of pack animals and the development of aircraft technology both increased the chapters for prehistoric peoples to carry heavier loads over greater distances, cultural exchanges and trade developed rapidly. In addition, grassland provides fertile grazing, water, and piece of cake passage for caravans. The vast grassland steppes of Asia enabled merchants to travel immense distances, from the shores of the Pacific to Africa and deep into Europe, without trespassing on agricultural lands and arousing hostility.

Chinese and Primal Asian contacts

From the 2nd millennium BCE nephrite jade was being traded from mines in the region of Yarkand and Khotan to China. Significantly, these mines were not very far from the lapis lazuli and spinel ("Balas Ruby") mines in Badakhshan and, although separated past the formidable Pamir Mountains, routes across them were, apparently, in employ from very early times.

The Tarim mummies have been found in the Tarim Basin, in the area of Loulan located along the Silk Road 200 km Eastward of Yingpan, dating to as early equally 1600 BCE and suggesting very ancient contacts between East and West. These mummified remains may take been of people who spoke Indo-European languages, that remained in use in the Tarim Basin, in the modern day Xinjiang region, until replaced past Turkic influences from the northern Xiongnu Empire, and by Chinese influences from the eastern Han Dynasty, who spoke a Sino-Tibetan language.

Following contacts of metropolitan China with nomadic western border territories in the 8th century BCE, gold was introduced from Key Asia, and Hotan Kashteshi Hotan jade carvers began to make imitation designs of the steppes, adopting the Scythian-manner animal art of the steppes (depictions of animals locked in combat). This style is particularly reflected in the rectangular belt plaques made of gold and bronze with alternating versions in jade and steatite.

The expansion of Scythian cultures stretching from the Hungarian manifestly and the Carpathians to the Chinese Kansu Corridor and linking Islamic republic of iran, and the Middle East with Northern India and the Punjab, undoubtedly played an important role in the development of the Silk Route. Scythians accompanied the Assyrian Esarhaddon on his invasion of Egypt, and their distinctive triangular arrowheads have been found as far due south as Aswan. These nomadic peoples were dependent upon neighbouring settled populations for a number of important technologies, and in improver to raiding vulnerable settlements for these commodities, also encouraged long distance merchants as a source of income through the enforced payment of tariffs. Soghdian Scythian merchants played a vital function in later periods in the evolution of the Silk Road.

Persian Purple Road

Past the time of Herodotus (c. 475 BCE), the Royal Road of the Persian Empire ran some 2,857 km from the city of Susa on the Karun (250 km east of the Tigris) to the port of Smyrna (modern İzmir in Turkey) on the Aegean Sea.^[13] It was maintained and protected past the Achaemenid Empire (c.500–330 BCE), and had postal stations and relays at regular intervals. By having fresh horses and riders ready at each relay, imperial couriers could carry messages the entire altitude in 9 days, though normal travellers took about 3 months. This Royal Road linked into many other routes. Some of these, such as the routes to India and Key Asia, were also protected by the Achaemenids, encouraging regular contact between India, Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean. There are accounts in the biblical Book of Esther of dispatches being sent from Susa to provinces every bit far out as India and the Kingdom of Kush during the reign of Xerxes the Great (485–465 BCE).

History

Hellenistic era

The get-go major stride in opening the Silk Road between the East and the West came with the expansion of Alexander the Cracking'southward empire into Central Asia. In August 329 BCE, at the mouth of the Fergana Valley in Tajikistan he founded the city of Alexandria Eschate or "Alexandria The Furthest".^[14] This subsequently became a major staging point on the northern Silk Route.

In 323 BCE, Alexander the Great's successors, the Ptolemaic dynasty, took control of Arab republic of egypt. They actively promoted merchandise with Mesopotamia, India, and Eastward Africa through their Ruddy Body of water ports and over state. This was assisted by a number of intermediaries, especially the Nabataeans and other Arabs.

The Greeks remained in Key Asia for the adjacent three centuries, starting time through the administration of the Seleucid Empire, then with the establishment of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom in Bactria. They continued to aggrandize eastward, specially during the reign of Euthydemus (230–200 BCE) who extended his control beyond Alexandria Eschate to Sogdiana. In that location are indications that he may have led expeditions as far every bit Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan, leading to the starting time known contacts between China and the W effectually 200 BCE. The Greek historian Strabo writes "they extended their empire even every bit far as the Seres (China) and the Phryni." ^[15]

Chinese exploration of Key Asia

With the Mediterranean linked to the Fergana Valley, the next step was to open a route across the Tarim Bowl and the Gansu Corridor to China Proper. This came around 130 BCE, with the embassies of the Han Dynasty to Central Asia, following the reports of the administrator Zhang Qian^[16] (who was originally sent to obtain an alliance with the Yuezhi against the Xiongnu). After the defeat of the Xiongnu, however, Chinese armies established themselves in Cardinal Asia, starting the famed Silk Road, which became a major avenue of international merchandise.^[17] Some say that the Chinese Emperor Wu became interested in developing commercial relationships with the sophisticated urban civilizations of Ferghana, Bactria and Parthian Empire: "The Son of Sky on hearing all this reasoned thus: Ferghana (Dayuan) and the possessions of Bactria (Ta-Hsia) and Parthian Empire (Anxi) are large countries, full of rare things, with a population living in fixed abodes and given to occupations somewhat identical with those of the Chinese people, but with weak armies, and placing keen value on the rich produce of China" (Hou Hanshu, Later on Han History). Others^[18] say that Emperor Wu was mainly interested in fighting the Xiongnu and that major trade began only later on the Chinese pacified the Hexi Corridor.

A pottery equus caballus head and neck (cleaved from the body) of the Late Han Dynasty (1st–2nd century CE)

The Chinese were as well strongly attracted by the tall and powerful horses (named "Heavenly horses") in the possession of the Dayuan, which were of capital importance in fighting the nomadic Xiongnu. The Chinese subsequently sent numerous embassies, around x every year, to these countries and equally far as Seleucid Syria. "Thus more than embassies were dispatched to Anxi [Parthia], Yancai [who later joined the Alans ], Lijian [Syria under the Seleucids], Tiaozhi [Chaldea], and Tianzhu [northwestern India]… Every bit a dominion, rather more than ten such missions went forward in the course of a yr, and at the to the lowest degree five or six." (Hou Hanshu, Later Han History). The Roman historian Florus too describes the visit of numerous envoys, included Seres, to the get-go Roman Emperor Augustus, who reigned between 27 BCE and 14:

"Fifty-fifty the rest of the nations of the world which were not discipline to the purple sway were sensible of its grandeur, and looked with reverence to the Roman people, the bully conqueror of nations. Thus even Scythians and Sarmatians sent envoys to seek the friendship of Rome. Nay, the Seres came likewise, and the Indians who dwelt beneath the vertical sunday, bringing presents of precious stones and pearls and elephants, only thinking all of less moment than the vastness of the journeying which they had undertaken, and which they said had occupied four years. In truth information technology needed but to wait at their complexion to see that they were people of another world than ours." ("Red china and the way thither", Henry Yule).

The "Silk Road" came into existence from the 1st century BCE, following these efforts by the Yuezhi and Xiongnu in the Tarim Basin to consolidate a road to the Western globe and India, both through direct settlements in the surface area of the Tarim Basin and diplomatic relations with the countries of the Dayuan, Parthians and Bactrians further west.

A maritime "Silk Route" opened up between Chinese-controlled Giao Chỉ (centred in modernistic Vietnam [see map above], most Hanoi) probably by the 1st century. It extended, via ports on the coasts of India and Sri Lanka, all the fashion to Roman-controlled ports in Egypt and the Nabataean territories on the northeastern declension of the Red Sea.

Roman Empire

Soon after the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BCE, regular communications and trade betwixt China, Southeast Asia, Republic of india, the Middle East, Africa and Europe blossomed on an unprecedented calibration. The Greco-Roman trade with India started by Eudoxus of Cyzicus in 130 BCE kept on increasing, and co-ordinate to Strabo (II.five.12), by the time of Augustus, up to 120 ships were setting sail every year from Myos Hormos in Roman Egypt to Republic of india.^[19]

The party of Maës Titianus became the travellers who penetrated farthest east along the Silk Route from the Mediterranean world, probably with the aim of regularizing contacts and reducing the role of middlemen, during 1 of the lulls in Rome's intermittent wars with Parthia, which repeatedly obstructed motility along the Silk Road. Country and maritime routes were closely linked, and novel products, technologies and ideas began to spread beyond the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. Intercontinental trade and advice became regular, organized, and protected by the 'Peachy Powers.' Intense trade with the Roman Empire soon followed, confirmed by the Roman craze for Chinese silk (supplied through the Parthians), even though the Romans thought silk was obtained from trees. This belief was affirmed by Seneca the Younger in his Phaedra and by Virgil in his Georgics. Notably, Pliny the Elder knew better. Speaking of the bombyx or silk moth, he wrote in his Natural Histories "They weave webs, like spiders, that get a luxurious habiliment material for women, chosen silk."^[xx]

The Roman Senate issued, in vain, several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, on economic and moral grounds: the importation of Chinese silk caused a huge outflow of gold, and silk clothes were considered to exist decadent and immoral:

"I tin can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one's decency, can exist called clothes… Wretched flocks of maids labour so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin apparel, so that her married man has no more than associate than any outsider or greenhorn with his wife'south body" Seneca the Younger (c.3 BCE–65, Declamations Vol. I).

After losing at the battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, 10,000 Roman prisoners were sent by the Parthians to Margiana to assistance guard the eastern frontier of the Parthian Empire. It is possible that contingents of these men found their way into China.^[21]

The Hou Hanshu records that the first Roman envoy arrived in China by this maritime route in 166 CE, initiating a serial of Roman contacts with People's republic of china.^[22]

The unification of Key Asia and Northern India inside Kushan Empire in the 1st to tertiary centuries reinforced the role of the powerful merchants from Bactria and Taxila.^[23] They fostered multi-cultural interaction as indicated past their 2nd century treasure hoards filled with products from the Greco-Roman earth, China and Bharat, such as in the archeological site of Begram.

The Roman Empire, and its demand for sophisticated Asian products, crumbled in the Due west around the 5th century.

Byzantine historian Procopius stated that two Christian monks somewhen uncovered the way of how silk was made. From this revelation spies were sent to steal the silkworm eggs, resulting in silk production in the Mediterranean.^[24]

Maenad in silk dress, Naples National Museum.
Sassanid silk twill material of a Senmerv in a beaded surround, six–7th century

Medieval

Central Asian and East-Asian Buddhist monks, Bezeklik, Eastern Tarim Bowl, 9th–10th century.

The Silk Road represents an early on phenomenon of political and cultural integration due to inter-regional trade. In its heyday, it sustained an international civilisation that strung together groups as diverse every bit the Magyars, Armenians, and Chinese. The route experienced its prime periods of popularity and action in differing eras at dissimilar points along its length.

In the west, the Silk Road reached its acme during the time of the Byzantine Empire; in the Nile-Oxus section, from the Sassanid Empire menses to the Il Khanate flow; and in the sinitic zone from the Three Kingdoms menstruation to the Yuan Dynasty period. Merchandise between Eastward and Westward too developed on the bounding main, between Alexandria in Egypt and Guangzhou in China, fostering beyond the Indian Ocean.

Under its strong integrating dynamics on the one paw and the impacts of change it transmitted on the other, tribal societies previously living in isolation along the Silk Road or pastoralists who were of barbarian cultural development were fatigued to the riches and opportunities of the civilizations connected by the Silk Route, taking on the trades of marauders or mercenaries. Many barbarian tribes became skilled warriors able to conquer rich cities and fertile lands, and forge strong armed services empires.

A.5. Dybo noted that "according to historians, the main driving force of the Neat Silk Road were not but Sogdians, simply the carriers of a mixed Sogdian-Türkic culture that often came from mixed families." ^[25]

The Sogdians dominated the East-West trade afterwards the 4th century CE up to the 8th century CE, with Suyab and Talas ranking amongst their main centers in the north. They were the main caravan merchants of Central Asia. Their commercial interests were protected by the resurgent armed forces power of the Göktürks, whose empire has been described as "the joint enterprise of the Ashina clan and the Soghdians".^[23] ^[26] Their trades with some interruptions connected in the 9th century within the framework of the Uighur Empire, which until 840 extended beyond northern Central Asia and obtained from China enormous deliveries of silk in exchange for horses. At this time caravans of Sogdians traveling to Upper Mongolia are mentioned in Chinese sources. They played an equally important religious and cultural function. Part of the information about eastern asia provided by Muslim geographers of the tenth century actually goes dorsum to Sogdian information of the menses 750–840 and thus shows the survival of links betwixt east and west. All the same, later the cease of the Uighur Empire, Sogdian trade went through a crunch. What mainly issued from Muslim Key Asia was the merchandise of the Samanids, which resumed the northwestern road leading to the Khazars and the Urals and the northeastern i toward the nearby Turkic tribes.^[23]

The Silk Road gave rise to the clusters of military states of nomadic origins in Due north China, invited the Nestorian, Manichaean, Buddhist, and later Islamic religions into Central Asia and China, created the influential Khazar Federation and at the terminate of its glory, brought about the largest continental empire ever: the Mongol Empire, with its political centers strung forth the Silk Road (Beijing in Northward Cathay, Karakorum in cardinal Mongolia, Sarmakhand in Transoxiana, Tabriz in Northern Iran, Sarai and Astrakhan in lower Volga, Solkhat in Crimea, Kazan in Fundamental Russian federation, Erzurum in eastern Anatolia), realizing the political unification of zones previously loosely and intermittently connected by material and cultural goods.

In Central Asia, Islam expanded from the seventh century onward, bringing a stop to Chinese due west expansion at the Boxing of Talas in 751. Further expansion of the Islamic Turks in Cardinal Asia from the 10th century finished disrupting trade in that part of the world, and Buddhism almost disappeared. For much of the Middle Ages, the Islamic Caliphate (centred in the Near Eastward) often had a monopoly over much of the trade conducted across the Old World (see Muslim age of discovery for more details).

A Silk Road-era bridge at Selim Pass in Armenia.

Mongol historic period

The Mongol Empire and its sphere of influence (to include vassal states such equally Goryeo at its summit. The gray area is the later Timurid empire.

The Mongol expansion throughout the Asian continent from around 1207 to 1360 helped bring political stability and re-institute the Silk Road (via Karakorum). It also brought an stop to the Islamic Caliphate's monopoly over world trade. Since the Mongol had dominated the merchandise routes, it immune more trade to come up in and out of the region. Merchandise that did not seem valuable to the Mongols was oftentimes seen as very valuable by the west. As a result, the Mongol received in return a large amount of luxurious appurtenances from the West. However, they never abased their nomadic lifestyle. Presently after Genghis Khan died, the Silk Road was in the hand of Genghis Khans' daughters. The Mongol diplomat Rabban Bar Sauma visited the courts of Europe in 1287–1288 and provided a detailed study back to the Mongols. Around the same time, the Venetian explorer Marco Polo became one of the first Europeans to travel the Silk Road to China, and his tales, documented in The Travels of Marco Polo, opened Western eyes to some of the community of the Far East. He was non the first to bring back stories, just he was i of the widest-read. He had been preceded by numerous Christian missionaries to the East, such as William of Rubruck, Benedykt Polak, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, and Andrew of Longjumeau. Later envoys included Odoric of Pordenone, Giovanni de' Marignolli, John of Montecorvino, Niccolò de' Conti, or Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan Muslim traveller, who passed through the present-24-hour interval Middle Due east and across the Silk Route from Tabriz, between 1325–1354.^[27]

The 13th century also saw attempts at a Franco-Mongol alliance, with exchange of ambassadors and (failed) attempts at military collaboration in the Holy Land during the later Crusades, though somewhen the Mongols in the Ilkhanate, later they had destroyed the Abbasid and Ayyubid dynasties, eventually themselves converted to Islam, and signed the 1323 Treaty of Aleppo with the surviving Muslim power, the Egyptian Mamluks.

Some research studies indicate that the Black Death, which devastated Europe in the tardily 1340s, may have reached from Key Asia (or Prc) to Europe along the trade routes of the Mongol Empire.^[28]

Disintegration

The fragmentation of the Mongol Empire loosened the political, cultural and economic unity of the Silk Road. Turkmeni marching lords seized land effectually the western part of the Silk Road, belonging to the decaying Byzantine Empire. After the Mongol Empire, the great political powers forth the Silk Road became economically and culturally separated. Accompanying the crystallization of regional states was the pass up of nomad power, partly due to the devastation of the Blackness Death and partly due to the encroachment of sedentary civilizations equipped with gunpowder.

Gunpowder and early modernity in Europe led to the integration of territorial states and increasing mercantilism. Meanwhile on the Silk Route, gunpowder and early modernity had the reverse impact: the level of integration of the Mongol Empire could not be maintained, and merchandise declined (though partly due to an increase in European maritime exchanges).

The Silk Road stopped serving equally a aircraft route for silk around 1400.^{[ citation needed ]}

Restablishment

The disappearance of the Silk Road following the end of the Mongols' reign was 1 of the chief factors that stimulated the Europeans to accomplish the prosperous Chinese empire through another route, especially past sea. Tremendous profits were to be obtained for anyone who could achieve a directly trade connexion with Asia. This was the main driving factor for the Portuguese explorations of the Indian Ocean, including the bounding main of China, resulting in the arrival in 1513 of the offset European trading transport to the coasts of China, nether Jorge Álvares and Rafael Perestrello, followed past the Fernão Pires de Andrade and Tomé Pires diplomatic and commercial mission of 1517, under the orders of Manuel I of Portugal, which opened formally relations between the Portuguese Empire and the Ming Dynasty during the reign of the Zhengde Emperor. The handover of Macau (Macao) to Portugal in 1557 past the Emperor of China (equally a reward for services rendered against the pirates who infested the Southward Prc Bounding main) resulted in the first permanent European maritime trade mail service between Europe and China, with other European powers post-obit suit over the next centuries, which acquired the eventual demise of the Silk Road landroute.

Italian pottery of the mid-15th century was heavily influenced by Chinese ceramics. A Sancai ("Three colors") plate (left), and a Ming-type blueish-white vase (right), made in Northern Italy, mid-15th century. Musée du Louvre.

When he went West in 1492, Christopher Columbus reportedly wished to create yet another Silk Road to China. Information technology was initially a neat disappointment to accept found a continent "in-between" before recognizing the potential of a "New Globe".

In 1594, Willem Barents left Amsterdam with two ships to search for the Northeast passage north of Siberia, on to eastern Asia. He reached the w coast of Novaya Zemlya and followed it north, being finally forced to turn back when confronted with its northern extremity. By the end of the 17th century, the Russians re-established a land trade route between Europe and Communist china under the name of the Great Siberian Road.

The desire to merchandise directly with China and India was also the principal driving force backside the expansion of the Portuguese beyond Africa afterwards 1480, followed by the netherlands and England from the 17th century. While the Portuguese (and, subsequently, other Europeans) were entering China from its southern coast, past the sea route, the question arose as to whether it happens to be the same state equally Cathay which Marco had reached by the overland route. By c. 1600, the Jesuits stationed in Mainland china, led past Matteo Ricci, were pretty certain that it was, but others were not convinced withal. To check the situation on the ground, Bento de Góis, a Portuguese former soldier and explorer who had joined the Jesuits equally a Lay Brother in Goa, India, traveled in 1603–1605 from India via Afghanistan and one of the routes of the traditional Silk Road (via Badakhshan, the Pamirs, Yarkand, Kucha, and Turpan to the Ming China's border equally Suzhou, Gansu.^[29]

Leibniz, echoing the prevailing perception in Europe until the Industrial Revolution, wrote in the 17th century that: Everything exquisite and admirable comes from the Eastward Indies... Learned people have remarked that in the whole earth there is no commerce comparable to that of China.

In the 18th century, Adam Smith declared that China had been one of the about prosperous nations in the earth, but that it had remained brackish for a long time and its wages always were depression and the lower classes were especially poor:^[xxx]

Red china has long been one of the richest, that is, ane of the most fertile, best cultivated, almost industrious, and most populous countries in the earth. Information technology seems, however, to have been long stationary. Marco Polo, who visited it more than five hundred years ago, describes its cultivation, industry, and populousness, almost in the same terms as travellers in the present time describe them. Information technology had perhaps, even long before his time, acquired that full complement of riches which the nature of its laws and institutions permits it to learn.

—Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776

Modernistic day

The terminal link of a railway route along the Silk Road was completed in 1990, when the railway systems of Mainland china and Republic of kazakhstan connected in Alataw Pass (Alashan Kou). Currently (2008), the line is used by direct passenger service from Urumqi in China's Xinjiang to Almaty and Astana in Kazakhstan.[ii].

Since July 2011 Chongqing is officially linked to Duisburg, Germany by a freight rail beyond Eurasia.^[31] Compared to the traditional sea trade routes from Guangzhou and Shanghai, the rail link to Europe cuts travel time to Europe from about 36 days past container ship to just 13 days by freight train.

Cultural exchanges

Richard Foltz, Xinru Liu and others have described how trading activities along the Silk Road over many centuries facilitated the transmission non just of goods only likewise ideas and civilization, notably in the expanse of religions. Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Manichaeism, and Islam all spread across Eurasia through trade networks that were tied to specific religious communities and their institutions.^[32] The spread of religions and cultural traditions along the Silk Roads, according to Jerry H. Bentley, also led to syncretism. One example was the encounter with the Chinese and Xiongnu nomads. These unlikely events of cantankerous-cultural contact allowed both cultures to adapt to each other equally an alternative. The Xiongnu adopted Chinese agricultural techniques, wearing apparel mode, and lifestyle. On the other hand, the Chinese adopted Xiongnu military techniques, some dress style, and music and dance.^[33]

Artistic manual

Iconographical evolution of the Air current God. Left: Greek Air current God from Hadda, second century. Middle: Wind God from Kizil, Tarim Basin, 7th century. Correct: Japanese Current of air God Fujin, 17th century.

Many artistic influences transited along the Silk Road, especially through the Primal Asia, where Hellenistic, Iranian, Indian and Chinese influence were able to intermix. In particular Greco-Buddhist art represent i of the well-nigh vivid examples of this interaction.

Transmission of Buddhism

The transmission of Buddhism to Red china via the Silk Road started in the 1st century CE with a semi-legendary account of an embassy sent to the West by the Chinese Emperor Ming (58–75 CE). Extensive contacts still started in the 2nd century CE, probably as a consequence of the expansion of the Kushan empire into the Chinese territory of the Tarim Bowl, with the missionary efforts of a swell number of Central Asian Buddhist monks to Chinese lands. The beginning missionaries and translators of Buddhists scriptures into Chinese were either Parthian, Kushan, Sogdian or Kuchean.^[34]

From the quaternary century onward, Chinese pilgrims as well started to travel on the Silk Road to India, the origin of Buddhism, past themselves in social club to get improved access to the original scriptures, with Fa-hsien'due south pilgrimage to India (395–414), and afterward Xuan Zang (629–644) and Hyecho, who traveled from Korea to India.^[35] The legendary accounts of the holy priest Xuan Zang were described in a famous novel called Journeying to the West, which envisaged trials of the journey with demons but with the help of various disciples.

During the 5th and sixth centuries B.C.E., Merchants played a large role in the spread of religion, in particular Buddhism. Merchants institute the moral and ethical teachings of Buddhism to exist an appealing alternative to previous religions. Every bit a upshot, Merchants supported Buddhist Monasteries along the Silk Roads and in return the Buddhists gave the Merchants somewhere to stay equally they traveled from city to city. As a result, Merchants spread Buddhism to foreign encounters equally they travelled.^[36] Merchants too helped to found diaspora within the communities they encountered and overtime their cultures became based on Buddhism. Considering of this, these communities became centers of literacy and culture with well organized marketplaces, lodging, and storage.^[37] The Silk Road transmission of Buddhism substantially ended around the 7th century with the rising of Islam in Primal Asia.

Commemoration

Both Bishkek and Almaty now take a major east-west street named after the Silk Road (Kyrgyz: Жибек жолу, Jibek Jolu in Bishkek, and Kazakh: Жібек жолы, Jibek Joly in Almaty).

Artifacts from the history of the Silk Road are displayed in the Silk Route Museum in Jiuquan, People's republic of china.

Notes

^ Elisseeff, Vadime (2001). The Silk Roads: Highways of Culture and Commerce. UNESCO Publishing / Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-92-3-103652-1.
^ Boulnois, Luce (2005). Silk Road: Monks, Warriors & Merchants. Hong Kong: Odyssey Books. p. 66. ISBN 962-217-721-2.
^ Hogan, C. Michael. "The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map: Silk Route, North Communist china [Northern Silk Road, Northward Silk Road Ancient Trackway"]. www.megalithic.co.uk. http://www.megalithic.co.uk/commodity.php?sid=18006 . Retrieved 2008-07-05.
^ ^a ^b Wood, Francis (2002). The Silk Road: Two 1000 Years in the Heart of Asia. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. pp. nine, 13–23. ISBN 978-0-520-24340-8.
^ Waugh (2007), p. four.
^ "Approaches Old and New to the Silk Roads" Eliseeff in: The Silk Roads: Highways of Culture and Commerce. Paris (1998) UNESCO, Reprint: Berghahn Books (2009), pp. one–two. ISBN 92-3-103652-i; ISBN 1-57181-221-0; ISBN ane-57181-222-nine (pbk)
^ "Approaches Old and New to the Silk Roads" Vadime Eliseeff in: The Silk Roads: Highways of Culture and Commerce. Paris (1998) UNESCO, Reprint: Berghahn Books (2000), pp. 1-2. ISBN 92-three-103652-1; ISBN 1-57181-221-0; ISBN one-57181-222-9 (pbk)
^ Waugh, Daniel. (2007). "Richthofen's "Silk Roads": Toward the Archæology of a Concept." The Silk Road. Book 5, Number 1, Summer 2007, p. 4.
^ Ulric Killion, A Modernistic Chinese Journey to the Due west: Economical Globalization And Dualism, (Nova Scientific discipline Publishers: 2006), p.66
^ Casson, Lionel. 1989. The Periplus Maris Erythraei. Text with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Princeton University Printing. ISBN 0-691-04060-5.
^ "Weilue: The Peoples of the Due west". Depts.washington.edu. 2004-05-23. http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/weilue/weilue.html . Retrieved 2011-07-xiii.
^ "The Egypto-Graeco-Romans and Panchea/Azania: sailing in the Erythraean Sea." Felix A. Chami. In: Society for Arabian Studies Monographs 2 Trade and Travel in the Cherry-red Sea Region. Proceedings of Ruby-red Sea Projection I held in the British Museum Oct 2002, pp. 93–104. Edited by Paul Lunde and Alexandra Porter. ISBN one-84171-622-7.
^ Delight refer to Royal Road.
^ Prevas, John. (2004). Envy of the Gods: Alexander the Bang-up'southward Ill-Fated Journey beyond Asia, p. 121. De Capo Press, Cambridge, Mass. ISBN 0-306-81268-1.
^ "Strabo XI.Eleven.I". Perseus.tufts.edu. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Strab.+xi.11.1 . Retrieved 2011-07-thirteen.
^ The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map. "''Silk Road, North Communist china'', C.Grand. Hogan, the Megalithic Portal, ed. A. Burnham". Megalithic.co.great britain. http://www.megalithic.co.great britain/commodity.php?sid=18006 . Retrieved 2011-07-13.
^ Li & Zheng 2001, p. 254
^ Di Cosmo,'Aboriginal Communist china and its Enemies', 2002
^ "Strabo's Geography Book II Chapter v "
^ Pliny the Elder, Natural Histories 11.xxvi.76
^ Kaveh Farrokh (2007). "Shadows in the desert: ancient Persia at state of war". Osprey Publishing p.140. ISBN i-84603-108-7
^ Hill (2009), p. 27 and nn. 12.18 and 12.20.
^ ^a ^b ^c Sogdian Merchandise, Encyclopedia Iranica, (retrieved 15 June 2007) <http://world wide web.iranica.com/newsite>
^ "Silk Route." http://www.livius.org/sh-si/silk_road/silk_road.html, LIVIUS Manufactures of Aboriginal History. 28 October 2010. Retrieved on 14 November 2010.
^ Dybo A.5., "Chronology of Türkic languages and linguistic contacts of early Türks", Moskow, 2007, p. 786, [1]
^ Flash, André. Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Brill Academic Publishers, 2002. ISBN 0-391-04173-8.
^ The Pax Mongolica, by Daniel C. Waugh, University of Washington, Seattle
^ J. N. Hays (2005). "Epidemics and pandemics: their impacts on human history". p.61. ISBN ane-85109-658-2
^ Henry Yule (1866), p. 530.
^ "The accounts of all travellers, inconsistent in many other respects, hold in the depression wages of labour, and in the difficulty which a labourer finds in bringing up a family in Mainland china. If by digging the ground a whole mean solar day he tin can get what will buy a small quantity of rice in the evening, he is contented. The status of artificers is, if possible, notwithstanding worse. Instead of waiting indolently in their work-houses, for the calls of their customers, every bit in Europe, they are continually running about the streets with the tools of their respective trades, offering their service, and as it were begging employment. The poverty of the lower ranks of people in China far surpasses that of the well-nigh beggarly nations in Europe. In the neighbourhood of County many hundred, it is unremarkably said, many 1000 families have no home on the country, merely live constantly in little fishing boats upon the rivers and canals. The subsistence which they find there is so scanty that they are eager to fish upwards the nastiest garbage thrown overboard from any European transport. Whatsoever carrion, the carcass of a dead dog or cat, for instance, though half putrid and stinking, is as welcome to them as the about wholesome food to the people of other countries. Spousal relationship is encouraged in China, not by the profitableness of children, just by the liberty of destroying them. In all great towns several are every night exposed in the street, or drowned like puppies in the water. The performance of this horrid office is even said to exist the avowed business past which some people earn their subsistence." (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776).
^ Silk Road for the 21st century: Freight rail linking China and Germany officially begins operations, Rail linking Europe to open upwardly China's West
^ Richard Foltz, Religions of the Silk Road, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2d edition, 2010, ISBN 978-0-230-62125-1
^ Jerry H. Bentley, Old Earth Encounters: Cantankerous-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 38.
^ Foltz, "Religions of the Silk Road", pp. 37–58
^ Ancient Silk Road Travellers
^ Jerry H. Bentley, Erstwhile Globe Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 43-44.
^ Jerry H. Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 48.

References

Baines, John and Málek, Jaromir (1984): Atlas of Aboriginal Egypt. Oxford, Fourth dimension Life Books.
Boulnois, Luce. 2004. Silk Road: Monks, Warriors & Merchants on the Silk Road. Translated by Helen Loveday with additional textile by Bradley Mayhew and Angela Sheng. Airphoto International. ISBN 962-217-720-4 hardback, ISBN 962-217-721-2 softback.
Foltz, Richard, Religions of the Silk Route, Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd edition, 2010, ISBN 978-0-230-62125-1
Harmatta, János, ed., 1994. History of civilizations of Primal Asia, Book Ii. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations: 700 BC to 250. Paris, UNESCO Publishing.
Herodotus (fifth century BCE): Histories. Translated with notes by George Rawlinson. 1996 edition. Ware, Hertfordshire, Wordsworth Editions Limited.
Hopkirk, Peter: Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Primal Asia. The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1980, 1984. ISBN 0-87023-435-8
Hill, John East. (2009) Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Afterwards Han Dynasty, 1st to 2d Centuries CE. BookSurge, Charleston, South Carolina. ISBN 978-i-4392-2134-1.
Hulsewé, A. F. P. and Loewe, Thou. A. N. 1979. Mainland china in Fundamental Asia: The Early Stage 125 BC – 23: an annotated translation of chapters 61 and 96 of the History of the Former Han Dynasty. E. J. Brill, Leiden.
Huyghe, Edith and Huyghe, François-Bernard: "La route de la soie ou les empires du mirage", Petite bibliothèque Payot, 2006, ISBN ii-228-90073-7
Juliano, Annettte, L. and Lerner, Judith A., et al. 2002. Monks and Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China: Gansu and Ningxia, 4th-7th Century. Harry N. Abrams Inc., with The Asia Society. ISBN 0-8109-3478-7; ISBN 0-87848-089-7 softback.
Klimkeit, Hans-Joach, im. 1988. Dice Seidenstrasse: Handelsweg and Kulturbruecke zwischen Morgen- and Abendland. Koeln: DuMont Buchverlag.
Klimkeit, Hans-Joachim. 1993. Gnosis on the Silk Road: Gnostic Texts from Cardinal Asia. Trans. & presented past Hans-Joachim Klimkeit. HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 0-06-064586-5.
Knight, East. F. 1893. Where Three Empires Run across: A Narrative of Recent Travel in: Kashmir, Western Tibet, Gilgit, and the adjoining countries. Longmans, Green, and Co., London. Reprint: Ch'eng Wen Publishing Visitor, Taipei. 1971.
Li, Rongxi (translator). 1995. A Biography of the Tripiṭaka Master of the Great Ci'en Monastery of the Great Tang Dynasty. Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research. Berkeley, California. ISBN ane-886439-00-1
Li, Rongxi (translator). 1995. The Neat Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions. Numata Heart for Buddhist Translation and Research. Berkeley, California. ISBN 1-886439-02-8
Litvinsky, B. A., ed., 1996. History of civilizations of Key Asia, Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: 250 to 750. Paris, UNESCO Publishing.
Liu, Xinru, 2001. "Migration and Settlement of the Yuezhi-Kushan: Interaction and Interdependence of Nomadic and Sedentary Societies." Journal of World History, Volume 12, No. 2, Fall 2001. Academy of Hawaii Printing, pp. 261–292. [three].
Liu, Li, 2004, The Chinese Neolithic, Trajectories to Early States, Cambridge Great britain, Cambridge University Press.
Liu, Xinru (2010). The Silk Road in World History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-516174-8; ISBN 978-0-19-533810-2 (pbk).
McDonald, Angus. 1995. The V Human foot Road: In Search of a Vanished China. HarperCollinsWest, San Francisco.
Malkov, Artemy. 2007. The Silk Road: A mathematical model. History & Mathematics, ed. by Peter Turchin et al. Moscow: KomKniga. ISBN 978-5-484-01002-8
Mallory, J. P. and Mair, Victor H., 2000. The Tarim Mummies: Aboriginal Prc and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West. Thames & Hudson, London.
Ming Pao. "Hong Kong proposes Silk Road on the Sea as World Heritage", August seven, 2005, p. A2.
Osborne, Milton, 1975. River Road to China: The Mekong River Expedition, 1866–73. George Allen & Unwin Lt.
Puri, B. N, 1987 Buddhism in Central Asia, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Express, Delhi. (2000 reprint).
Ray, Himanshu Prabha, 2003. The Archeology of Seafaring in Ancient Southern asia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-80455-viii (hardback); ISBN 0-521-01109-iv (paperback).
Sarianidi, Viktor, 1985. The Gilded Hoard of Bactria: From the Tillya-tepe Excavations in Northern Afghanistan. Harry N. Abrams, New York.
Schafer, Edward H. 1963. The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A report of T'ang Exotics. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1st paperback edition: 1985. ISBN 0-520-05462-8.
Stein, Aurel Chiliad. 1907. Ancient Khotan: Detailed written report of archaeological explorations in Chinese Turkestan, ii vols. Clarendon Printing. Oxford.[4]
Stein, Aurel M., 1912. Ruins of Desert China: Personal narrative of explorations in Key Asia and westernmost Red china, two vols. Reprint: Delhi. Low Price Publications. 1990.
Stein, Aurel Grand., 1921. Serindia: Detailed report of explorations in Key Asia and westernmost China, 5 vols. London & Oxford. Clarendon Press. Reprint: Delhi. Motilal Banarsidass. 1980.[v]
Stein Aurel M., 1928. Innermost Asia: Detailed written report of explorations in Central Asia, Kan-su and Eastern Iran, 5 vols. Clarendon Press. Reprint: New Delhi. Cosmo Publications. 1981.
Stein Aurel M., 1932 On Ancient Central Asian Tracks: Brief Narrative of Three Expeditions in Innermost Asia and Northwestern People's republic of china. Reprinted with Introduction by Jeannette Mirsky. Book Faith India, Delhi. 1999.
Waugh, Daniel. (2007). "Richthofen "Silk Roads": Toward the Archæology of a Concept." The Silk Road. Book 5, Number 1, Summertime 2007, pp. 1–10. [6]
von Le Coq, Albert, 1928. Buried Treasures of Turkestan. Reprint with Introduction by Peter Hopkirk, Oxford Academy Printing. 1985.
Whitfield, Susan, 1999. Life Along the Silk Route. London: John Murray.
Wimmel, Kenneth, 1996. The Alluring Target: In Search of the Secrets of Central Asia. Trackless Sands Press, Palo Alto, CA. ISBN 1-879434-48-ii
Yan, Chen, 1986. "Earliest Silk Route: The Southwest Road." Chen Yan. China Reconstructs, Vol. XXXV, No. ten. Oct. 1986, pp. 59–62.
Yule (translator and editor), Sir Henry (1866). Cathay and the way thither: being a collection of medieval notices of China. Issue 37 of Works issued by the Hakluyt Lodge. Printed for the Hakluyt social club. http://books.google.com/books?id=KzEMAAAAIAAJ.

External links

Silk Road Atlas (University of Washington)
Silk Road in Tajikistan
Miami Academy Silk Route Project

Han Dynasty topics

History	Chu–Han Contention· Feast at Hong Gate· Lü Clan Disturbance· Sino-Xiongnu War· Gojoseon–Han War· Rebellion of the 7 States· Sino-Roman relations· Xin Dynasty· Chimei and Lülin· Goguryeo–Han Wars· Commencement Chinese domination of Vietnam· Second Chinese domination of Vietnam· Disasters of Partisan Prohibitions· Manner of the V Pecks of Rice· Yellow Turban Rebellion· End of Han

Society and civilisation	Records of the Grand Historian· Volume of Han· Huainanzi· Eight Immortals of Huainan· Mawangdui Silk Texts· Kings of the Han Dynasty· Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals· Onetime Texts· Fu (poetry)

Regime	Three Lords and Nine Ministers (Ix Ministers· 3 Ducal Ministers)· Four Commanderies· Protectorate of the Western Regions (Master Official)· List of emperors of the Han Dynasty

Economics	Silk Road· Ancient Chinese coinage

Science and technology	Zhang Heng· Hua Tuo· Zhou Bi Suan Jing· Book on Numbers and Computation· The Nine Capacity on the Mathematical Art· Huangdi Neijing· Jinkui Yaolue· Shang Han Lun

Silk

Fundamentals	Silk History of silk Silk Road Sericulture Wild silk

Types	Eri silk Tussar silk

Geographical	Mysore silk Assam silk Japanese silk Thai silk Byzantine silk Lao silk Silk in the Indian subcontinent Tenun Pahang Diraja

Related topics	Saree The Silk Industry of Cheshire

Part of a series on merchandise routes

Bister Route· Hærvejen· Incense Route· Kamboja-Dvaravati Route· King's Highway· Roman-Bharat routes· Royal Road· Salt Route· Siberian Route· Silk Road· Spice Route· Tea route· Varangians to the Greeks· Via Maris· Triangular trade· Volga trade route· Trans-Saharan trade· Old Salt Route· Hanseatic League· Grand Trunk Road

beckmanthaddlead.blogspot.com

Source: http://dictionnaire.sensagent.leparisien.fr/Silk%20Road/en-en/