The Silk Road

The Silk Road took its name from the Chinese Silk which was one of the lucrative trade performed along since the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.). A area of steppes, Central Asia had gift for trade as the caravans tracks did not trespass upon farming lands. It was first a link between the Ferghana Valley -the last territory before Chinese Sinkiang- and the Mediterranean which was opened, with the Royal Road of the Persians, the conquest of the area by Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C. and its Greco-Central Asian successor kingdoms, or the vast Scythian empire, by the 1st century B.C., factors. The Parthians, on a other hand, by the late 2nd century B.C., might have established caravan links with China as they were large consumers of silk. The Han further, throuh a envoy of theirs in the area, Zhang Qian (138-119 B.C.), secured and officialized the part of the road between the Ferghana and China as they had decided to trade silk to foreigners because they needed allied and horses against nomadic tribes. Scholars generally use the terms 'Silk Routes' because the trade route consisted into varied routes. The Chinese interest in the area was likely of a commercial and strategic sort, Ferghana (with their famed horses of interest for Chinese military), Bactria and the Parthians being wealthy peoples, with weak armies and found of the riches of China, or The Xiongnu nomads a threat. The efforts of Chinese also brought a road segment to India. With the Silk Road thus established and secured by the Han military, the Central Asia region turned a area of encounters between Chinese and Rome, even in terms of minor battles. A maritime route also was settled as soon as that epoch, from Chinese-controlled Vietnam to Roman Egypt and the Nabatean kingdoms through ports in India and Sri Lanka. Ensued a period of trade both through the maritime, Indian and Central Asian parts of the Silk Road between Rome and China as the unified Kushan empire, a Indo-European empire in the areaduring the first 3 centuries A.D., reinforced both the latters until the end of the Roman Empire

The Silk Road likely kept extant, but minimized at the time of the early Byzantine empire as it was not before about 640 A.D., under the Chinese Tang who had just conquered their West again, that the Silk road turned back to being. The road closed back by 678 to reopen again by 699. Like under the Han, the Tang took on the military security of the area, with military outposts, bringing a second era of Pax Sinica and the Silk Road reaching its golden age. Persian and Sogdian merchants (a Indo-european people of Scythian origin, with Suyab and Talas their main centers) were the traders of the road as Sogdian was its language. Central Asia also provided both the Middleastern and Chinese merchants with horses and camels. Both types of merchants met in the cities of Sogdiane which were midway the trade route, where traders were provided with notaries, banks or markets. Sogdiane thus accumulated a large amount of wealth. Those exchange with the West were further encouraged by a cosmopolitan policy of the Tang in China self. The maritime Silk Road was also renewed with a strong Chine maritime presence until the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Ethiopia and Somalia. The Khazar federation was also a offshoot of the Silk Road like the transformation of nomadic people, for a time, into marauders or mercenaries. Tuyuhun khanate also existed at the time of the Tang. The Silk Road also was instrumental into favouring the circulation of Nestorianism, Manichaeanism, Buddhism (with was very lively until in the 7th century A.D. with numerous missionaries and lodging for traders along the route, or the splittering of Buddhism into several schools), Islam and other religions in the region. Islam superseded Buddhism in the western parts of the road. The route also allowed for Chinese techniques to reach to the West. Merchants but also pilgrims, armies and spies were traveling along. It might that the Ganges Delta, East of current India might have also be the output of a land trade route between southwestern China and Southeast Asia as soon as by the Carolingian times. The Silk Road was also a vector to infectious diseases, the most important of which was bubonic plague, anthrax or leprosy

click to a map of the Silk Road by the Carolingian times

Caravans, from the Chinese capital Chang'an (current Xi'an), or from Lanzhu or Xining, passed the Gansu corridor and exited China proper through the 'Jade Door,' by the start of the Tarim Basin. Shazhou, or the 'Prefecture of Sand', was located near an oasis, to the East of the Taklamakan Desert, near the junction of the two caravan tracks which bypass the desert North or South. It was built by the Chinese like a prefecture in 111 B.C. by the Han, after the campaign waged against the Huns. It became a considerable post of the Silk Road under the Han and then the Tang and, in the 2nd century of our era, it counted 76,000 inhabitants. After its capture, in the second half of the 7th century A.D. by the Tibetans -- they were pushed out in 851 -- the city went into decline. It was an important Buddhist and Taoist center. The ancient Kingdom of Loulan, or Kingdom of Kroraina existed since the second century BC by the northeastern edge of the Lop Desert, East of the Taklamakan Desert, South of the city of Turpan, and often dubbed the 'Eastern Pompeii.' It was a important stop on the Silk Road. Caravans then bypassed the Taklamakhan desert either North or South. Both routes were marked out with cities and caravanserai as caravans marched along fortress-oases either at the bottom of Tian Shan ('Celestial mountains') or the Kunlun mountains. Having reached Kashgar or Yarkand, merchants then reached either Persia or India crossing the high moutains ranges in the area. Thence they either reached Sogdiane or the Kashmir. From the city of Merv, North of current Iran, the goods went into the Near East oases, to Byzantium, or even the Khazar kingdom. check the map above for a more detailed view of the Silk Road by the Carolingian times. What goods were transiting through the Silk Road? The most part of the trade was performed westwards with the West importing silk above all, porcelain, varied spices, herbs, perfumes, precious stones, lacquer-ware and bamboo. Dehua County was one of the three major porcelain metropolises in ancient China as porcelain long was one of the important merchandises of Marine Silk Road since the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1271-1368) dynasties. China as far as it was concerned, imported gold and silver, agricultural products, varied spices, glass, jade, coral, and lapis. Turkish merchants also provided slaves along the Silk Road mostly to turn manpower in the Arabic countries. Silk self, generally, had turned a currency for trade along the road. Samarkand, the capital city to Sodgiana, turn a scholarly center as, with its role on the Silk Road, it was at times one of the greatest cities of Central Asia. Samarkand was conquered by the Sassasians about 206 A.D. and then was a essential city to Manicheism, helping the dissemination of that religion throughout Central Asia. The area at the time already saw the Sassanians fighting against some Turkish people as city then paid tribute to Chinese Tang as it eventually fell with Sogdiana into Umayyads' hands. Bukhara was also long a center of trade, scholarship, culture and religion and was a major intellectual center under the Samanids, second only to Baghdad as its decline occurred since about 350 A.D. passing to Turks or Mongols. Southern areas to the Silk Road, in its Persian side, formed the Khorasan ('the land where Sun is rising') which extended from Transoxiana to India, as southern Hindu Kush was recognized by the Arabs like 'al-Hind,' or the Sind as before the region was whence the Kushano-Sassanian civilization appeared

With the decline of the Tang dynasty, the Silk Road lasted in the 9th century under the alliance of the Sogdians with the Gökturks as Sogdians now ventured into Upper Mongolia, then the Uighur empire (which traded horses against silk). Samanids then also traded with the Khazars and the Urals or the Turkish tribes. The definitive expansion of Islamic Turks since the 10th century eventually disrupted the Silk Road and trade in that part of the world as it was the Islamic Caliphate in Baghdad which monopolized trade West of there. The Silk Road endured a last rebirth at the height of the Mongol might (1200-1350 A.D.). The end of the Mongols also was the end to the Silk Road and soon, which triggered the search by European kingdoms of new trade routes to the Far East as Ottomans further, since the fall of Constantinople by 1453, embargoed any trade with the West. The prosperity of the Silk Road, generally, always hung upon the pacification and the order against bandits, which explains a history of heights and eclipses. The area also is one of a harsh climate both in winter and summer