My Silk Road History Report

Silk, Spice, and Everything Nice: The Story of the Silk Road

By Yoanna

Introduction

Imagine that you are a merchant in ancient times. You want to get wealthy by trading and make a fortune. You are a newbie and you are just getting started. Where would you go to trade? The Silk Road, of course. (Assuming that you are a merchant in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East. Not the Americas and certainly not Australia.) You may think the Silk Road is a smooth, shiny, and comfortable road made of silk. Then you are hopelessly wrong. The Silk Road was not made of silk! It is called the “Silk Road” because silk was traded along it. It is not a single road, either. The Silk Road was actually a network of little trading routes all over the Middle East, Asia, and the edge of Europe. (Some scholars prefer to call it the Silk Routes.) Think of it as a vast spider web of trade routes all twisted and tangled up, through which is transported exotic goods across a whole continent. It was more than 4,000 miles long, covered deserts and mountains and stretched all the way from Rome to China. Before you go, let me warn you. Nowadays, when you want to get somewhere, you just hop in your car and follow your GPS. When it is cold or hot, you just turn on the air conditioner or heater. But back in ancient times, there were none of these brilliant modern inventions that make your life more comfortable. Alas, you must cross perilous terrain with boiling or freezing temperatures without trucks to carry your goodies on sale, air-conditioned SUVs, or GPS to guide you when you get lost in unfamiliar territory far from home. You have a lot to learn. Where are the important ports along the Silk Road bustling with merchants where you might want to go to trade? Which countries does the Silk Road pass through? What are the most demanded goods you will make a fortune out of? What exports should you expect to trade for? Are you smart enough to survive the perils and dangers of the Silk Road? How will you protect yourself from terrible deaths? What will your transportation be? Once upon a time, there was no Silk Road, so how was it formed? Who is a famous traveler of the Silk Road? And finally, what are some results of the Silk Road? Let’s get started.

Excuse Me, Ma’am, Where Would I Find the Silk Road?

In ancient times, the Silk Road began in Sian, China and crossed through Arabia, Persia, India, and even the tip-top part of Africa, finally ending in Rome. It was more than 4,000 miles long. All along the Silk Road were little towns and trading posts where traveling merchants stopped to rest and trade goods. As a result, cities and villages along the Silk Road prospered. Important stops included Alexandria in Egypt, Burkhara, and Samarkand. The Silk Road also threaded its way around the Taklamakan Desert, Gobi Desert, and over the Pamir Mountains. The Silk Road also included a few sea routes, but it was mostly just on land. Traders sometimes sailed across the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean, or the Persian Gulf. In today’s world, some of the present day countries it passed through include Italy, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Today there is no Silk Road; it’s been disused for centuries.

Silk, Spice, and Everything Nice

Exports from the West (Europe) included garlic, glass, gold, grapes, animal furs, honey, wool, weapons, and armor. These were exchanged with goods from the East: frankincense, myrrh, woven tapestries, tea, and spices such as ginger, saffron, salt, or cinnamon. Salt was especially valuable because it preserved food so it would not spoil for a long time. In fact, sometimes it would be traded for its weight in gold! Back then there were no refrigerators so food rotted quickly and people often had to eat spoiled food. Spices were used to cover up the stench and nasty flavor of rotting food. No wonder they were so precious. From Arabia came wine, tortoise shells, and incense. In Africa, merchants bought gold, salt and ivory while in India they loaded their bags with jewels, beads, woven fabric, and cotton. And finally, in China, traders got their hands on tea, spices, paper, gunpowder, porcelain bowls, vases, plates, and cups, and of course...silk. At that time, nobody except the Chinese knew how silk was produced, so China prospered from selling their precious secret fabric. You could get extremely wealthy by being a merchant in those days. However, you need to start with some money. You need to begin with enough money to purchase something to sell to someone else and to pay for your transportation, whether it be camels or a ship and to pay to take care of your transportation if you will ride an animal (feeding, watering, etc.) and don’t forget about taxes. So if you are poor, you have a slimmer chance of making a big profit. It is better for you to be at least middle class since you want to be a merchant. The more money you have, it is probably easier for you to make even more.

Jewels Are Valuable...But So Is Comfort

Out of the whole crowd of Silk Road merchants, only a few traveled the entire length. Of course, not everybody was willing to risk their life crossing a desert to buy spices. Once they set off on a journey along the entire Silk Road, they might never return. Sure, they valued exotic goods, but they also valued comfort, so most traders traveled in short trips to cities close to home. This way they had less access to foreign goods from very far away, but it was safer and shorter. This is an example of what might have happened. Think of it as a relay: a Chinese trader travels southwest to India, where he exchanges his silk for gems. Then the Indian merchant takes his newly bought silk to Persia, where he trades it for spices from another merchant. Now the Persian merchant has the silk. He travels to Egypt, where he swaps his silk for gold and ivory. Now the African merchant has the silk, and he travels to Rome and sells the silk. There, the silk is quickly bought by wealthy European noblemen and women and becomes extremely popular and in demand. Each merchant only traveled a little part of the Silk Road but the silk still wound up far away from China.

Importing Ideas...And Exporting Diseases

While traders exchanged silk and tea for glass and gold, they also exchanged ideas. Customs. Religions. For example, Indian Buddhism spread to distant China, Korea, and Japan! Greek mathematics and philosophy was carried across Asia Minor via the Silk Road. However, goods and ideas were not the only things traded on the Silk Road. Scholars think that there were bad things spread by Silk Road travelers unintentionally. Dangerous things. Life-threatening things...Like contagious diseases and sicknesses. Something like this could have happened: Imagine you are a merchant and you sail to Rome to sell some silk. Europe has had a deadly outbreak of plague, but you do not know much about it because you are from Arabia. Unfortunately, mice are everywhere in Rome. Some mice have fleas...and fleas spread diseases. Like plague. You make bargains and swap some stuff and soon you are ready to leave Rome. Your ship pulls out of the harbor, loaded with Roman goods and more mice. The vermin could have easily hitched a ride inside your bags or scampered across the ropes to your ship while it was docked. But they are not just any vermin. They have fleas that carry plague. The next thing you know, the ship’s crew and passengers have caught plague and so have you. When you make it back home, the mice scamper off the ship, onto the dock, and disappear into your city, spreading sickness like wildfire. Situations like this probably contributed to the Black Death. The Black Death was a terrible and enormous outbreak of plague in Europe during the Middle Ages, killing millions of people and wiping out entire towns and cities.

WARNING: DANGER!

Beware, traveler. There were several ways to die on the Silk Road. You can only find great fortune and travel to exotic lands if you survive the way there and back. If you were a merchant of the Silk Road, you faced treacherous mountain ranges, life-threatening weather, blizzards, extreme temperatures, and water shortage while crossing deserts, not to mention sandstorms. And then there were unfriendly local people who sometimes fought among themselves, which would make you have to detour to avoid fighting. Silk Road trading was not for sissies, cowards, weaklings, chickens, or cream puffs. Silk Road travelers needed to be smart...to not only make good bargains, but to figure out the best routes, shortcuts, and ways to escape dangerous, greedy pirates and thieves. The Silk Road attracted bandits like horses attract flies. They were everywhere, robbing traveling merchants. Imagine if you were a thief. The Silk Road is crawling with merchants hauling bags overflowing with goodies. Wouldn’t you go there? Well, that is exactly what happened.

Better Safe Than Sorry

With thieves and pirates around every corner, merchants traveled in large groups together, called caravans, to protect themselves. Some kings and rulers sent out their soldiers to guard Silk Road travelers from bandits because lots of the travelers were traders importing and exporting goods into the country, so it benefited that ruler and their kingdom.

Camels Instead of Cabs

Some travelers used oxen or ships, but most people preferred camels as their choice of transportation because camels could go for a long time without drinking water and could withstand extremely cold or hot climates. Camels might not have been very fast, but they were certainly a good choice if you had to cross a desert or mountain...or both.

The History of The Silk Road

Once upon a time, there was no Silk Road. There were only tiny routes between neighboring cities. Then, when powerful rulers conquered those cities and founded massive empires, roads were built to connect those cities. Alexander the Great, King Darius of Persia, and the Han Dynasty of China are some of those great rulers. Then, the Han Dynasty officially opened trade with the West in 130 B.C. Around this time, Chinese silk was transported to Rome, where wealthy Romans ogled at the marvelous fabric for the very first time. They were absolutely delighted and fell in love with their new discovery. Soon, silk became extremely popular in Europe and grew in demand, encouraging merchants to travel farther to get their hands on more silk. Now there was a string of trading routes crossing from one continent to another: from Europe through the Middle East, all the way to East Asia. The Silk Road thrived for centuries...Until the Ottoman Empire rose to power and shut down trade with China in 1453 A.D. After that, sailing and shipping goods leaped to the top while traveling by land through the Silk Road took a deep dive in popularity. Eventually, the Silk Road was abandoned, disused, and replaced by sailing.

The Explorers Hall of Fame: Marco Polo

The most famous European to travel the whole Silk Road was Marco Polo. He traveled farther east than any other Europeans of his time, but he was not just a traveler. He was also a guest of the king of the Mongols and a celebrity after he returned from his journey! Marco was born in Venice, Italy, when his merchant father, Niccolo, left home to go make his fortune by trading in China. In China, he met the great Kublai Khan, leader of the massive Mongol Empire which included China. Since Kublai Khan wanted to learn more about Christianity, he commanded Niccolo to go back to Europe, fetch some holy oil from the pope, and bring it back to him. So Niccolo obeyed, but this time, when he returned to China, he brought his son Marco with him. They left in 1271 and returned in 1295. The entire trip took 24 years. They traveled all the way from Venice to the Khan’s court in Beijing, China along the Silk Road. All along the trip, Marco was fascinated by all the new cultures, foods, animals, and luxuries he saw. He was amazed at the glamorous palace of the Khan, the luxurious Chinese cities, and seeing rhinos and tigers for the first time. Those must have seemed like monsters come alive from myths to him. After serving for 17 years in Kublai Khan’s court, Marco returned home loaded with bags of jewels and exotic goods from China. Later, he met a writer named Rusticello who wrote down the stories of Marco’s journey in a book titled, The Travels of Marco Polo. The book quickly became a bestseller and was read all over Europe. Through the book, Marco Polo became famous and his book was the closest thing average citizens had to a glimpse of China and the East. Today, scholars think the book is a mix of fact and fiction to embellish the stories and make them more exciting.

Conclusion

The Silk Road may have been tough and perilous, but the world benefited from it greatly. Cities and towns along the Silk Routes grew wealthy and prospered because of all the trade. Brilliant new inventions such as paper and gunpowder spread through the Silk Road. Some merchants traveled across treacherous terrain with extreme climates and dangerous thieves to obtain foreign treasures. As a result, people had access to foreign goods such as spices and salt to preserve their food that improved their lives but could not obtain otherwise because the items were from extremely far-off countries. Through the Silk Road, diseases were spread, but so were ideas, so people learned about other cultures different from their own, other religions, and different ways of thinking in math and science. The Silk Road promoted global diversity and a thirst for other faraway places that inspired explorers, such as Christopher Columbus, who wanted to find an easier trade route to Asia. The Silk Road may have been tough and dangerous, but the world benefited from it greatly.