Silk road trade route technology
In addition to economic trade, the Silk Road served as a means of carrying out cultural trade among the civilizations along its network. The borderless nature of eTechnologies allows and calls for new approaches to efficient and effective cross-border eCollaboration between the organizations within a specific macro region and between regions themselves. There are several goals on its agenda. Overall, its most important task is to investigate why and how diverse organizations in the cooperation of sixteen Central and Eastern European Countries CEEC with China could be involved, as well as how they could strengthen and further develop their relations, create synergy opportunities and identify challenges and opportunities ahead. In the period — numerous events focusing at eRegion research and development issues and opportunities have been organized in Slovenia. Several have been investigating revitalization of the historic trading Silk and Amber Roads in the environment of Internet and logistics eTechnologies.
The Silk Road: the Route for Technological Exchange that Shaped the Modern World
Jump to navigation. Human beings have always moved from place to place and traded with their neighbours, exchanging goods, skills and ideas. Throughout history, Eurasia was criss-crossed with communication routes and paths of trade, which gradually linked up to form what are known today as the Silk Roads; routes across both land and sea, along which silk and many other goods were exchanged between people from across the world.
Maritime routes were an important part of this network, linking East and West by sea, and were used for the trade of spices in particular, thus becoming known as the Spice Routes. These vast networks carried more than just merchandise and precious commodities however: the constant movement and mixing of populations also brought about the transmission of knowledge, ideas, cultures and beliefs, which had a profound impact on the history and civilizations of the Eurasian peoples.
Travellers along the Silk Roads were attracted not only by trade but also by the intellectual and cultural exchange that was taking place in cities along the Silk Roads, many of which developed into hubs of culture and learning. Science, arts and literature, as well as crafts and technologies were thus shared and disseminated into societies along the lengths of these routes, and in this way, languages, religions and cultures developed and influenced each other.
Silk is a textile of ancient Chinese origin, woven from the protein fibre produced by the silkworm to make its cocoon, and was developed, according to Chinese tradition, sometime around the year 2, BC.
Regarded as an extremely high value product, it was reserved for the exclusive usage of the Chinese imperial court for the making of cloths, drapes, banners, and other items of prestige. Its production was kept a fiercely guarded secret within China for some 3, years, with imperial decrees sentencing to death anyone who revealed to a foreigner the process of its production. Tombs in the Hubei province dating from the 4 th and 3 rd centuries BC contain outstanding examples of silk work, including brocade, gauze and embroidered silk, and the first complete silk garments.
Indeed, Chinese cloths from this period have been found in Egypt, in northern Mongolia, and elsewhere. At some point during the 1 st century BC, silk was introduced to the Roman Empire, where it was considered an exotic luxury and became extremely popular, with imperial edicts being issued to control prices. Its popularity continued throughout the Middle Ages, with detailed Byzantine regulations for the manufacture of silk clothes, illustrating its importance as a quintessentially royal fabric and an important source of revenue for the crown.
Additionally, the needs of the Byzantine Church for silk garments and hangings were substantial. This luxury item was thus one of the early impetuses in the development of trading routes from Europe to the Far East. Knowledge about silk production was very valuable and, despite the efforts of the Chinese emperor to keep it a closely guarded secret, it did eventually spread beyond China, first to India and Japan, then to the Persian Empire and finally to the west in the 6 th century AD.
This was described by the historian Procopius, writing in the 6 th century:. About the same time [ca. They said that they were formerly in Serinda, which they call the region frequented by the people of the Indies, and there they learned perfectly the art of making silk. Moreover, to the emperor who plied them with many questions as to whether he might have the secret, the monks replied that certain worms were manufacturers of silk, nature itself forcing them to keep always at work; the worms could certainly not be brought here alive, but they could be grown easily and without difficulty; the eggs of single hatchings are innumerable; as soon as they are laid men cover them with dung and keep them warm for as long as it is necessary so that they produce insects.
When they had announced these tidings, led on by liberal promises of the emperor to prove the fact, they returned to India. When they had brought the eggs to Byzantium, the method having been learned, as I have said, they changed them by metamorphosis into worms which feed on the leaves of mulberry.
Thus began the art of making silk from that time on in the Roman Empire. However, whilst the silk trade was one of the earliest catalysts for the trade routes across Central Asia, it was only one of a wide range of products that was traded between east and west, and which included textiles, spices, grain, vegetables and fruit, animal hides, tools, wood work, metal work, religious objects, art work, precious stones and much more.
Indeed, the Silk Roads became more popular and increasingly well-travelled over the course of the Middle Ages, and were still in use in the 19 th century, a testimony not only to their usefulness but also to their flexibility and adaptability to the changing demands of society. Nor did these trading paths follow only one trail — merchants had a wide choice of different routes crossing a variety of regions of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Far East, as well as the maritime routes, which transported goods from China and South East Asia through the Indian Ocean to Africa, India and the Near East.
These routes developed over time and according to shifting geopolitical contexts throughout history. Similarly, whilst extensive trade took place over the network of rivers that crossed the Central Asian steppes in the early Middle Ages, their water levels rose and fell, and sometimes dried up altogether, and trade routes shifted accordingly. Maritime trade was another extremely important branch of this global trade network. Most famously used for the transportation of spices, the maritime trade routes have also been known as the Spice Roads, supplying markets across the world with cinnamon, pepper, ginger, cloves and nutmeg from the Moluccas islands in Indonesia known as the Spice Islands , as well as a wide range of other goods.
Textiles, woodwork, precious stones, metalwork, incense, timber, and saffron were all traded by the merchants travelling these routes, which stretched over 15, kilometres, from the west coast of Japan, past the Chinese coast, through South East Asia, and past India to reach the Middle East and so to the Mediterranean.
The history of these maritime routes can be traced back thousands of years, to links between the Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilization. The early Middle Ages saw an expansion of this network, as sailors from the Arabian Peninsula forged new trading routes across the Arabian Sea and into the Indian Ocean.
Indeed, maritime trading links were established between Arabia and China from as early as the 8 th century AD. Technological advances in the science of navigation, in astronomy, and also in the techniques of ship building combined to make long-distance sea travel increasingly practical.
Lively coastal cities grew up around the most frequently visited ports along these routes, such as Zanzibar, Alexandria, Muscat, and Goa, and these cities became wealthy centres for the exchange of goods, ideas, languages and beliefs, with large markets and continually changing populations of merchants and sailors.
In the late 15 th century, the Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, navigated round the Cape of Good Hope, thereby connecting European sailors with these South East Asian maritime routes for the first time and initiating direct European involvement in this trade. By the 16 th and 17 th centuries, these routes and their lucrative trade had become subject of fierce rivalries between the Portuguese, Dutch, and British. The conquest of ports along the maritime routes brought both wealth and security, as they effectively governed the passage of maritime trade and also allowed ruling powers to claim monopolies on these exotic and highly sought-after goods, as well as gathering the substantial taxes levied on merchant vessels.
The map above illustrates the great variety of routes that were available to merchants bearing a wide range of goods and travelling from different parts of the world, by both land and sea. Most often, individual merchant caravans would cover specific sections of the routes, pausing to rest and replenish supplies, or stopping altogether and selling on their cargos at points throughout the length of the roads, leading to the growth of lively trading cities and ports.
Perhaps the most lasting legacy of the Silk Roads has been their role in bringing cultures and peoples in contact with each other, and facilitating exchange between them. On a practical level, merchants had to learn the languages and customs of the countries they travelled through, in order to negotiate successfully. Cultural interaction was a vital aspect of material exchange. Moreover, many travellers ventured onto the Silk Roads in order to partake in this process of intellectual and cultural exchange that was taking place in cities along the routes.
Knowledge about science, arts and literature, as well as crafts and technologies was shared across the Silk Roads, and in this way, languages, religions and cultures developed and influenced each other. One of the most famous technical advances to have been propagated worldwide by the Silk Roads was the technique of making paper, as well as the development of printing press technology.
Similarly, irrigation systems across Central Asia share features that were spread by travellers who not only carried their own cultural knowledge, but also absorbed that of the societies in which they found themselves. Indeed, the man who is often credited with founding the Silk Roads by opening up the first route from China to the West in the 2 nd century BC, General Zhang Qian, was on a diplomatic mission rather than a trading expedition.
Thirteen years later he escaped and made his way back to China. Pleased with the wealth of detail and accuracy of his reports, the emperor sent Zhang Qian on another mission in BC to visit several neighbouring peoples, establishing early routes from China to Central Asia. Religion and a quest for knowledge were further inspirations to travel along these routes.
Buddhist monks from China made pilgrimages to India to bring back sacred texts, and their travel diaries are an extraordinary source of information. The diary of Xuan Zang whose year journal lasted from to AD not only has an enormous historical value, but also inspired a comic novel in the sixteenth century, the 'Pilgrimage to the West', which has become one of the great Chinese classics.
Perhaps the most famous was the Venetian explorer, Marco Polo, whose travels lasted for more than 20 years between and , and whose account of his experiences became extremely popular in Europe after his death. The routes were also fundamental in the dissemination of religions throughout Eurasia. Buddhism is one example of a religion that travelled the Silk Roads, with Buddhist art and shrines being found as far apart as Bamiyan in Afghanistan, Mount Wutai in China, and Borobudur in Indonesia.
Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Manicheism spread in the same way, as travellers absorbed the cultures they encountered and then carried them back to their homelands with them. Thus, for example, Hinduism and subsequently Islam were introduced into Indonesia and Malaysia by Silk Roads merchants travelling the maritime trade routes from India and Arabia.
The process of travelling the Silk Roads developed along with the roads themselves. In the Middle Ages, caravans consisting of horses or camels were the standard means of transporting goods across land. Caravanserais, large guest houses or inns designed to welcome travelling merchants, played a vital role in facilitating the passage of people and goods along these routes.
Found along the Silk Roads from Turkey to China, they provided not only a regular opportunity for merchants to eat well, rest and prepare themselves in safety for their onward journey, and also to exchange goods, trade with local markets and buy local products, and to meet other merchant travellers, and in doing so, to exchange cultures, languages and ideas.
As trade routes developed and became more lucrative, caravanserais became more of a necessity, and their construction intensified across Central Asia from the 10th century onwards, and continued until as late as the 19th century. This resulted in a network of caravanserais that stretched from China to the Indian subcontinent, Iran, the Caucasus, Turkey, and as far as North Africa, Russia and Eastern Europe, many of which still stand today. On average, this resulted in a caravanserai every 30 to 40 kilometres in well-maintained areas.
Maritime traders had different challenges to face on their lengthy journeys. The development of sailing technology, and in particular of ship-building knowledge, increased the safety of sea travel throughout the Middle Ages. Ports grew up on coasts along these maritime trading routes, providing vital opportunities for merchants not only to trade and disembark, but also to take on fresh water supplies, with one of the greatest threats to sailors in the Middle Ages being a lack of drinking water.
Pirates were another risk faced by all merchant ships along the maritime Silk Roads, as their lucrative cargos made them attractive targets. In the nineteenth century, a new type of traveller ventured onto the Silk Roads: archaeologists and geographers, enthusiastic explorers looking for adventure. Coming from France, England, Germany, Russia and Japan, these researchers traversed the Taklamakan desert in western China, in what is now Xinjiang, to explore ancient sites along the Silk Roads, leading to many archaeological discoveries, numerous academic studies, and most of all, a renewed interest in the history of these routes.
Today, many historic buildings and monuments still stand, marking the passage of the Silk Roads through caravanserais, ports and cities. However, the long-standing and ongoing legacy of this remarkable network is reflected in the many distinct but interconnected cultures, languages, customs and religions that have developed over millennia along these routes. The passage of merchants and travellers of many different nationalities resulted not only in commercial exchange but in a continuous and widespread process of cultural interaction.
As such, from their early, exploratory origins, the Silk Roads developed to become a driving force in the formation of diverse societies across Eurasia and far beyond. About the Silk Roads.
The so-called Silk Road was not a route in which only this fabric was function throughout history: the exchange of knowledge and technology. Chinese Technologies Introduced into the West via Silk Road. Silkworms. The cultural exchange between China and the West offered mutual.
The Silk Road was a network of trade routes which connected the East and West , and was central to the economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between these regions from the 2nd century BCE to the 18th century. The Han dynasty expanded the Central Asian section of the trade routes around BCE through the missions and explorations of the Chinese imperial envoy Zhang Qian , as well as several military conquests. The Silk Road trade played a significant role in the development of the civilizations of China, Korea , [6] Japan , [2] the Indian subcontinent , Iran , Europe, the Horn of Africa and Arabia, opening long-distance political and economic relations between the civilizations. So in addition to economic trade, the Silk Road was a route for cultural trade among the civilizations along its network.
Marco Polo Ibn Battuta Xuanzang. Intro Art Literature Conclusion.
Jump to navigation. Human beings have always moved from place to place and traded with their neighbours, exchanging goods, skills and ideas.
About the Silk Roads
Despite what its evocative name suggests, what we know today as the Silk Road was not a route by means of which this fabric was exchanged, nor was it a single route or path that crossed the Asian continent to link the Far East with the West. Rather, it was a network of commercial, cultural and technological and also disease exchange routes that radiated from Central Asia. For 1, years these routes allowed China to be connected to the Mediterranean, playing a decisive role in the passage to the Modern Age. This framework of roads had its roots in the network of routes that started in Persia and along which emissaries with messages galloped throughout the empire in the 4th century BC. However, in its final configuration, the Silk Road was officially opened in BC, when the Chinese emperor sent his ambassador Zhang Quian on a diplomatic mission in search of new allies.
New Silk Road
The sea lanes of communication from China to Europe through the Malacca-Suez route are among the busiest in the world. Twenty-five percent of world trade passes through the Malacca Strait alone. But China intends to go much further down this road, almost literally. But its ambitions are set to ramp up even further. By doing so, their growth prospects grow from merely regional to global. The plan is written in black and white in his work report to the party congress. At no point in the post-Mao era have Chinese ambitions been so clear. And the maritime domain is central to this. By playing on the mythical appeal of the ancient route that first emerged during the Song dynasty, China seeks to promote an attractive narrative in international politics. The Maritime Silk Road therefore comes with a major public diplomacy push.
Good ideas and innovation travel easily—and far. Historically, these ideas spread along trade routes.
The Silk Road trade route was initiated about 2, years ago for trade and travel from China's Han Empire to Central Asia and Europe, and it revolutionized the world until it declined about the year The Chinese government is staking China's future on an ambitious trillion dollar plan for infrastructure development for a new Silk Road, and Silk Road trade, travel, and tourism is booming once again. The Silk Road was the world's most significant trade route that connected East and West for two thousand years. Trade and travel between east and west caused revolutionary changes in everything from culture, religion, and technology to the emergence of huge empires and the disappearance of many small tribes, kingdoms, and empires.
What Was Traded on China's Silk Road and Why
It was dubbed the Silk Route because of the heavy silk trading that took place during that period. This valuable fabric originated in China, which initially had a monopoly on silk production until the secrets of its creation spread. In addition to silk, the route facilitated the trade of other fabrics, spices, grains, fruits and vegetables, animal hides, wood and metal work, precious stones, and other items of value. The route included a group of trading posts and markets that were used to help in the storage, transport, and exchange of goods. It was also known as the Silk Road. The opening of the Silk Route brought many products that would have a big impact on the West. Many of these commodities had their roots in China and included gunpowder and paper. These became some of the most traded goods between China and its Western trading partners. Paper was especially important, as it eventually led to the invention of the printing press, which gave way to newspapers and books. There has been a push by China to reopen the Silk Route to improve cooperation among countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe. During a diplomatic mission, Quian was captured and detained for 13 years on his first expedition before escaping and pursuing other routes from China to Central Asia. Travelers could choose among a number of land and sea paths to reach their destination.
Silk Route
But there were other important exports as well. In return, China received many kinds of products ranging from precious metals to horses, weapons, and manufactured goods until modern times. Discover the products and items that made the Silk Road the world's most important ancient trade route here. The kinds of products exported from China during the at-least-3,year history of the Silk Road changed over time, but silk was generally the most precious export. Silk , the most luxurious fabric of all, was light and easy to pack, and it was the favorite export product along the Silk Road. It was almost exclusively made in China until the secret was found out by the Japanese around the year
