The Silk Road

About the Silk Road

The term “Silk Road” was first used in 1877 by the German explorer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen. Silk and other valuable commodities traveled along the road, as did ideas, religions, and explorers. As the only permanent transcontinental conduit of Eurasia, the importance of the Silk Road cannot be overestimated. The major overland trade route from western China (Xinjiang), traversing the Pamirs and Central Asia, passing into and through northern India and on to the Middle East, and thence by ship to the markets of the Roman Mediterranean. The end of the Western Roman Empire led to a significant decline in regional and world trade. Commerce slowly revived as the Byzantine Empire clung to existence and small successor kingdoms took shape in Western Europe. Along this prosperous route grew up magnificent cities, such as Samarkand, which were seats of advanced ancient learning and great civilizations. Such rich trade in silk, spice, porcelains, and precious metals also drew in brigands, bandits, and nomadic raiders. The worst of these were the Mongols, but once their empire was established (even Mongol order was better than none) the Silk Road became once more a major route of travel between European and Asian lands. The Black Death also traveled this road, in the fourteenth century. After the Mongol Empire collapsed the Silk Road again became too dangerous to traverse, and Arab and Indian traders resorted instead to cartage by sea. The overland path was made mostly obsolete by the Age of Exploration, which opened up oceanic trade routes between Europe and Asia. Silk Road is considered as a trade route, 6400 km (4000 mi) long, that connected China with the Mediterranean. It was most used in antiquity, when silk was taken westwards and wool and precious metals eastwards, but was again travelled in the later middle ages, notably by Marco Polo. Although it was superseded by E-W sea routes in the 15th century, it has remained important for communications in S central Asia. An oil pipeline some 3017 km (1875 mi) long is currently being constructed along the Silk Road from China to Kazakhstan. In the East, the Silk Road originated in the important city of Xi'an in China, then proceeding west through the Chinese city of Lanzhou, it followed the Great Wall to the oasis town of Dunhuang. Shortly before Dunhuang, the road split into a northern route that passed through the oases cities of Turfan and Aksu, and the southern route through Miran, Cherchen, Khotan, and Yarkand, bypassing the great deserts of Lop Nor and Taklimakan. The routes met again in the important city of Kashgar in eastern Turkestan before splitting once more. The northern route headed through Kokand westward into the Central Asian oases cities of Samarkand and Bukhara and then farther north into Volga Bulgaria and Eastern Europe. The southern route went through Herat and Merv into Persia and then into the Middle East, ending in the ports of Tyre and Antioch on the Mediterranean. As the name ...