The Silk Road Series

The Silk Road

POSTED OCTOBER 26, 2021

The Silk Road was the most important trade route in the history of humankind.  For more than 1500 years, the network of trade routes known today as the Silk Road connected diverse cultures across Europe and Asia.  Along with the commercial goods the merchants traded from country to country, art, religion, philosophy, technology, language, science, architecture, and every other element of civilization was exchanged. 

Origins

The first portions of the Silk Road date from the 6th century BCE when the Persian Royal Road, which would come to serve as one of the main arteries of the Silk Road, was established during the Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE).   The Persian Royal Road ran from Susa, in north Persia (modern day Iran) to the Mediterranean Sea in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) and featured postal stations* along the route with fresh horses for envoys to quickly deliver messages throughout the empire. 

The next stage in the development of the Silk Road came with the campaigns of Alexander III of Macedon, better known as Alexander the Great.  In the 4th century BCE, he created a vast empire that stretched from Macedonia to Egypt and from Greece through Persia to parts of India.  Hellenistic culture, having recently experienced its "Great Awakening",  spread eastward throughout the region, and stories of the riches and customs of the East reached the ancient Western world.  

The third stage in the origin story is the unification of China in the late 3rd century BCE.  After the unification, the Han Dynasty sought potential allies in the west, and around 130 BCE, they opened up China for trade.  The Silk Road now stretched from Rome to Xi'an, China.

The Road

The Silk Road was the most important trade route in the history of humankind.  Stretching 4000 miles and traversing forbidding landscapes of deserts and mountains, it was also a dangerous journey.  A camel caravan would take 6 or 7 months under the best conditions, and few traders traveled the entire route.  As a result, way stations sprang up along the route where traders could exchange goods from other lands along the Silk Road.  So, from the East came silk, jade, precious stones, porcelain, tea, gold artifacts, and spices.  From the West came horses, grapevines, glassware, textiles, and manufactured goods. 

As religions and ideas spread along the Silk Road, towns along the route grew into multicultural cities. The exchange of information gave rise to new technologies and innovations that would change the world. The horses introduced to China contributed to the might of the Mongol Empire, while gunpowder from China changed the nature of war in Europe.  But diseases also traveled along the Silk Road, and some research suggests that the Black Death, which devastated Europe in the 14th century, likely spread from Central Asia along the Silk Road. 

Endings and Beginnings

In 1453, with the fall of Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire, the Ottoman Turks closed the trade routes to Asia to European traders.  Forced to find new ways to get to the East, Europe's Age of Discovery began.  

In 1488, Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias became the first European mariner to round the southern tip of Africa, opening the way for a sea route from Europe to Asia.  

In 1492, the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, sailing westward for Spain, made landfall on an island of what is now the Bahamas.  

In the next several posts, we'll journey along the Silk Road, stopping on the way to learn about the cultures and peoples along the route and some famous characters who traveled it.  

*The ancient Greek historian and geographer Herodotus wrote of these Persian messengers praise that would become the motto of the US postal service: "There is nothing in the world that travels faster than these Persian couriers. Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor darkness of night prevents these couriers from completing their designated stages with utmost speed. "

Sources: The Silk Road and Music: Trade, Connections, and Change - Spinditty; The Silk Road | National Geographic Society; World History website; Afar; National Geographic

The Silk Road: from "La Serenissima" to Xanadu

POSTED NOVEMBER 10, 2021

The Book of Marvels of the World  (aka The Travels of Marco Polo) is the most famous account of traveling the Silk Road.  The book was written by Rustichello da Pisa, who worked from accounts which he had heard from Marco Polo when they were imprisoned together. The Travels of Marco Polo, published in 1300, described to Europeans the then mysterious culture and inner workings of the Eastern world, including the wealth and great size of the Mongol Empire and China in the Yuan Dynasty, giving their first comprehensive look into China, Persia, India, Japan and other Asian cities and countries.  

Marco Polo's father and uncle had been to China previously as part of a diplomatic mission to the court of Kublai Khan, the Mongol leader whose grandfather, Genghis Khan, had conquered Northeast Asia.  During their stay, Khan expressed his interest in Christianity and asked the Polo brothers to visit again with 100 priests and a collection of holy oil.  They returned to Venice in 1269 and began the journey back to the Orient in 1271 with 17-year-old Marco in tow.  

A Twenty-Four-Year Road Trip

Our story thus begins in Venice, my favorite city and one of the most unique and improbable in the world.  Venice came into being after the fall of the western Roman Empire when refugees from the mainland fled to the islands in the lagoon. As their numbers grew, so did the need for more space.  They drove wooden poles deep into the clay beneath the ground. On top of the wooden poles, they built wooden platforms, and then on top of that, they constructed their buildings.  

Over the ensuing centuries, Venice grew into a wealthy maritime city and extended its influence to parts of present-day Italy.  For 1100 years from 697 until 1797, "La Serenissima" was a sovereign state and governed as a maritime republic. Centered on the lagoon communities of Venice, it eventually incorporated numerous overseas possessions in modern Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Greece, Albania and Cyprus. 

Celebrated until the present day by artists, writers, composers, and film makers , Venice is now endangered more than ever as a result of rising sea levels because of climate change.  The frequency of acqua alta has increased from fewer than 10 times a year to more than 60 times a year in the last century.  Visit it soon.  

Marco Polo, his father, and his uncle set out from Venice in 1271 and, traveling the Silk Road, reached China in 1275.  They arrived with the requested holy oil but with just six priests who had agreed to join them on the 4,000 mile journey.  The Polos spent 17 years in China in service to the Emperor Kublai Khan before returning to Venice.  Unfortunately they arrived back in Venice in 1295 while Venice was at war with Genoa.   Marco was captured and imprisoned by the Genoese after joining the war effort and dictated his stories to Rustichello da Pisa, a cellmate.  Released in 1299, Marco went on to become a wealthy merchant,  married, and had three children.  He died in 1324 and was buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Venice.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan...

After four years on The Silk Road, Marco, his father and uncle arrived at the court of Kublai Khan in 1275.  About the time that the Polos were leaving Venice, Kublai was establishing the Yuan dynasty, which ruled over present-day China, Mongolia, Korea, and some adjacent areas; he also amassed influence in the Middle East and Europe as a Khagan and assumed the role of Emperor of China. By 1279, the Mongol conquest was complete, and Kublai had united all of China proper.

Perhaps not the first stop, but certainly soon after the arrival of the Venetian travelers, Kublai Khan brought his guests to his summer palace in Xanadu, immortalized in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan".  Xanadu was located in what is now Shangdu Town, Inner Mongolia, 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of Beijing.  Coleridge imagines the summer palace of the Mongolian leader Kublai Khan as an impressive domed building on the banks of a holy river in the opening lines:  

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

 Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round;

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

Here is Marco's original description:

"And when you have ridden three days from the city last mentioned, between north-east and north, you come to a city called Chandu, which was built by the Khan now reigning. There is at this place a very fine marble palace, the rooms of which are all gilt and painted with figures of men and beasts and birds, and with a variety of trees and flowers, all executed with such exquisite art that you regard them with delight and astonishment.

"Round this Palace a wall is built, inclosing a compass of 16 miles, and inside the Park there are fountains and rivers and brooks, and beautiful meadows, with all kinds of wild animals, which the Emperor has procured and placed there to supply food for his gerfalcons and hawks, which he keeps there....The Khan himself goes every week to see his birds and sometimes he rides through the park with a leopard behind him on his horse's croup...Moreover at a spot in the Park where there is a charming wood he has another Palace built of cane, of which I must give you a description. It is gilt all over, and most elaborately finished inside...The roof, like the rest, is formed of canes, covered with a varnish so strong and excellent that no amount of rain will rot them."

Xanadu is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but ruins are all that remain of Kublai Khan's legendary capital city and summer palace. UNESCO describes the site as a unique attempt to assimilate the nomadic Mongolian and the agrarian Han Chinese cultures, continuing: "From this base, Kublai Khan established the Yuan dynasty that ruled China over a century, extending its boundaries across Asia. The religious debate that took place here resulted in the dissemination of Tibetan Buddhism over north-east Asia, a cultural and religious tradition still practised in many areas today. The site was planned according to traditional Chinese feng shui in relation to the nearby mountains and river. It features the remains of the city, including temples, palaces, tombs, nomadic encampments and the Tiefan’gang Canal, along with other waterworks."

Now that we've seen the end points of Marco Polo's journey to China, we'll take a look at other points along the Silk Road in future posts.

The Silk Road: Persia

POSTED NOVEMBER 29, 2021

The Silk Road was the most important trade route in the history of humankind.  For more than 1500 years, the network of trade routes known today as the Silk Road connected diverse cultures across Europe and Asia.  

The Silk Road (Oct 26)

The Silk Road: from "La Serenissima" to Xanadu (Nov 10)

It was at the western end of the Silk Road, the region of southwest Asia that we now call the Middle East, that the essential features of civilization developed over the course of millennia.  Mesopotamia, the area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in modern-day Iraq, is often referred to as the Cradle of Civilization because it is the first place where complex urban centers grew.* 

Indeed, the ancient Middle East was one of the most crucial regions in the history of the world. It was here that farming first arose, the earliest cities appeared, and writing first developed.  The wheel, the sail, bronze metallurgy, iron metallurgy, the first empires, the first law codes – all were seen here first.

The Silk Road and the Persian Empire

The beginnings of the Silk Road in the Middle East go back as far as the 6th century BCE and the Persian Empire.  The Persian Royal Road, which ran from Susa, in northern Persia (modern-day Iran) to the Mediterranean Sea in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), became one of the main arteries of the Silk Road.

The first Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great around 550 BCE,  became one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Europe’s Balkan Peninsula in the West to India’s Indus Valley in the East.  From its capital in Persepolis, the empire united under one government three important sites of early human civilization in the ancient world: Mesopotamia, Egypt’s Nile Valley and India’s Indus Valley.  

The Silk Road: India, the trade goods

POSTED DECEMBER 22, 2021

In the beginning, of course, there was silk.  According to Chinese legend, Empress His Ling Shi was the first person to discover silk as a weavable fiber in the 27th century BC.  The ancient Chinese considered the beautiful cloth woven from it more valuable than gold, and for almost three millennia, silk was only produced in China.  By 300 A.D., though, travelers, merchants, and immigrants had brought sericulture (the production of silk and the raising of silk worms) to India, Japan, and Persia.  By the 6th century A.D., knowledge of this magical fabric had reached Europe via the Byzantine Empire (the "Eastern Roman Empire").  As silk flowed westward, Western and Middle Eastern goods flowed to the east.  Thus the Silk Road was born.  

In addition to the main route through Central Asia connecting Mediterranean Europe and China, the Silk Road included a network of roads that stretched into Persia, India, Arabia, and Egypt.  

In this post, we look at India's role on the Silk Road.  According to legend, sericulture as well as silk had spread overland from China to India by 140 BCE. By the 2nd century AD India was shipping its own raw silk and silk cloth to Persia. 

India’s caravan trade with central Asia was right in the middle of the complex web of trade routes that we call the Silk Road.  India's merchants reached the main artery of the Silk Road using four corridors: through the high Tibetan plateau, through the valleys and mountains of western Nepal, through the Karakoram Pass in the Western Himalayas, and via the road along the Ganges River.

The first exchanges were on a subsistence level - food grains grown in the lower Indus River valley traded for wool and salt from northern India and western Tibet.  Eventually, the articles which found their way into Central Asia through the passes of the Himalayas and other routes consisted not only of food grains but also cotton, dyeing material, gunny bags, utensils,  dry fruits, silk, saffron, shawls and works of arts from the Western Himalayas and semi precious stones, herbs, gold dust, musk, salt, borax and pack animals from Tibet.  

As India established itself on the Silk Road, their merchants brought India's famous fabrics, spices, precious and semi-precious gems, dyes, and ivory - all of which were highly prized by the other traders.  

The Silk Road: India, the religions

POSTED DECEMBER 23, 2021

The Silk Road facilitated the exchange of ideas as well as goods.  The spread of two of the world's major religions to other regions is an excellent example of the importance of the Silk Road in shaping the world.  Along the Silk Road, Buddhism went from India to China and the Far East, and Islam came from the Arabian Peninsula to India.

Buddhism goes to the Far East

Gautama Buddha, "the Buddha", was an ascetic, a religious leader and teacher who lived in ancient India around the 5th century BCE.  The Hindu religion remained dominant in India, but Buddhism spread via the early routes of the Silk Road to the Far East.  Buddhist monks from India brought the beliefs and practices to China during the latter part of the Han dynasty, ca. 150 AD.  Buddhism came to Korea from China in the fourth century and to Japan from Korea in the sixth century.

One of the key factors in Buddhism’s success in China was Taoism. To help the Chinese comprehend Buddhist concepts, Buddhists borrowed ideas from Taoism via the Chinese language. Both Buddhism and Taoism benefited from this exchange. Taoists expanded their ideas about the cosmos and ways to structure their monastic orders. Buddhists gained a vocabulary that made it easier to teach their tradition.  Over time Buddhism became a popular force in the lives of the Chinese, from the common people to the emperor himself.

Several magnificent sites remind us of Buddhism's historic influence in China, among them the Mogao Caves and the Dafo Temple.  

The Mogao Caves are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Carved into the cliffs above the Dachuan River, the Mogao Caves south-east of the Dunhuang oasis, Gansu Province, comprise the largest, most richly endowed, and longest used treasure house of Buddhist art in the world. It was first constructed in 366AD and represents the great achievement of Buddhist art from the 4th to the 14th century. 492 caves are presently preserved, housing about 45,000 square meters of murals and more than 2,000 painted sculptures.  The entrance to the Mogao caves is shown below left.  A video about the caves and the art within them is below right.

In declaring the Taj Mahal's "universal value", the UNESCO inscription states: 

"The Taj Mahal is located on the right bank of the Yamuna River in a vast Mughal garden that encompasses nearly 17 hectares, in the Agra District in Uttar Pradesh. It was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal with construction starting in 1632 AD and completed in 1648 AD, with the mosque, the guest house and the main gateway on the south, the outer courtyard and its cloisters were added subsequently and completed in 1653 AD...For its construction, masons, stone-cutters, inlayers, carvers, painters, calligraphers, dome builders and other artisans were requisitioned from the whole of the empire, from Central Asia and Iran. 

"The Taj Mahal is considered to be the greatest architectural achievement in the whole range of Indo-Islamic architecture. Its recognised architectonic beauty has a rhythmic combination of solids and voids, concave and convex and light shadow; such as arches and domes further increases the aesthetic aspect. The colour combination of lush green scape reddish pathway and blue sky over it show cases the monument in ever changing tints and moods. The relief work in marble and inlay with precious and semi precious stones make it a monument apart. "

An informative documentary video about the Taj Mahal and the Mughal Empire is below.

Sources: Asia Society, Wikipedia, UNESCO -1, China Highlights, UNESCO - 2, New World Encyclopedia, SupChina

The Silk Road: Central Asia

POSTED JANUARY 18, 2022

A traveler on the Silk Road passed through the forbidding landscapes of Central Asia on his way from Europe to China.  The Silk Road runs through one of the harshest desert environments in the world, with little water or vegetation or life. It is sandy, and sandstorms bury everything in their way. The local inhabitants refer to the Taklimakan Desert as “the Land of Irrevocable Death.”   The caravans, which had between 100 and 1000 camels each, also had to contend with bandits along the road and were often accompanied by armed escorts. 

The present-day nations of this region - Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan - were once part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  To this day the "other -stans", located north and east of the more well-known countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan, remain mysterious to most Westerners.  

Uzbekistan is the most populous of these countries and an important part of China's Belt and Road Initiative, which includes plans for a revitalized series of the ancient overland trading routes connecting Europe and Asia.  Uzbekistan is home to five UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including Itchin Kala and Samarkand.

The caravans' dangerous trek across the deserts of Central Asia was made bearable by oasis towns which sprang up along the trade routes.  Itchan Kala is the inner town of the old Khiva oasis, which was the last resting-place of caravans before crossing the desert to Persia (modern-day Iran).

None of the UNESCO sites is more illustrative of the mixing of cultural, religious, scientific, artistic and philosophical ideas that occurred along the Silk Road than Samarkand.  The city of Samarkand has been at the crossroads of world cultures for over two and a half millennia, and is one of the most important sites on the Silk Routes traversing Central Asia. Located in the Zerafshan River valley, in north-eastern Uzbekistan, the city enjoys the benefits of abundant natural resources and settlement in the region can be traced back to 1500 BCE. 

Before the Muslim Conquest in the eighth century, the ancient city of Samarkand seems to have been a crucible of cultures and religions. An archaeological reserve in the north-east of Samarkand contains numerous indications of a diverse medieval society.  Excavations have revealed brilliant murals, whose fragments seem to illustrate a number of exotic scenes: a wedding procession, ambassadors bearing gifts, a diplomatic ceremony, and scenes from the royal hunt. Another shows a Chinese princess being conveyed across a river in a boat. Evidence in the paintings, as well as in other archaeological material and written sources indicate that several religions were practiced in the ancient city, in particular, Zoroastrianism and Christianity. There were, additionally, two Buddhist temples, and wall paintings showing influences of Hinduism and Manichaeism, as well as Central Asian deities.

Among the most visited sites in Samarkand are the Registan and the Shah-i-Zinda.

The Registan, lit up at night in the image below left, was the heart of the ancient city of Samarkand of the Timurid Empire - a public square, where people gathered to hear royal proclamations, heralded by blasts on enormous copper pipes called dzharchis.  It is framed by three madrasahs (Islamic schools) of distinctive Islamic architecture. The square was regarded as the hub of the Timurid Renaissance (late 14th to early 16th century).

The Shah-i-Zinda necropolis (below right) is one of the oldest and longest-running examples of a continually constructed historic site in the world.  It was established with a single religious monument over 1,000 years ago.  Various temples, mausoleums, and buildings were continually added throughout the ensuing centuries, from approximately the 11th century to the 19th. The result is a fascinating cross-reference of various architectural styles, methods, and decorative craftsmanship as they have changed throughout a millennium of work.

There is much more to see in this country of 34 million that has been described by Forbes as "the hidden gem in China's New Silk Road."  A dynamic link to Uzbekistan tourism website is below.  

Sources: Geography, Chatham House, UNESCO - 1, Wikipedia, TripAdvisor, Atlas Obscura, UNESCO - 2, Forbes

The Silk Road: Xi'an

POSTED FEBRUARY 5, 2022

The Silk Road was the most important trade route in the history of humankind.  For more than 1500 years, the network of trade routes known today as the Silk Road connected diverse cultures across Europe and Asia.  Along with the commercial goods that the merchants traded, art, religion, philosophy, technology, language, science, architecture, and every other element of civilization were exchanged. For this last post in our Silk Road series, we take a look at the eastern starting point of the Silk Road, the ancient imperial capital of Xi'an.The name, which means "Western Peace", was adopted in 1369 when the Ming Dynasty was established.  In earlier days, the city, which has been inhabited since the Neolithic period, was called Chang'an - the name that Marco Polo would have recognized.  

Chang'an saw the first Chinese trade missions leave for south-east Asia, central Asia and the Mediterranean marking the beginnings of the Silk Road under the Han Dynasty in 141-87 BC.  Chang’an was a trading hub that was a melting pot of people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Several landmarks stand as witness to this history, prime among them the Tang West Market Museum and Chang’an’s Great Mosque.

The Tang West Market Museum

The city’s western market played an important role in the trade with the West along the Silk Road routes as a hub for traders to sell and buy goods. Among the dominant figures in this era were Sogdian** merchants from Central Asia, who were vital agents in the transporting and trading of goods to China.  

Located on the original site of the West Market, the Tang West Market Museum occupies an area of 35,000 square meters.  The ground floor of the museum preserves the archaeological site of the original streets and infrastructure of the West Market, including the "cross road" (shizijie), the well and ditch, the stone-panel bridge, and an expanse of stratum dated to the high Tang period where chariot grooves are still seen on the surface.  

The museum’s collection includes around 20,000 objects - exquisite and mysterious bronze objects, colorful pottery, terracotta figurines, brilliant gold and silver pieces, gorgeous silk weavings, and finely worked jade pieces.

Chang’an’s Great Mosque

The Great Mosque is China's largest mosque and one of its most important.  The mosque is representative of the city's atmosphere of religious tolerance.  Xi'an was a key religious center, home not only to Buddhism and Taoism but also Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity and Islam. 

During the Tang dynasty, Islam was introduced to China by the Arabian merchants.  Many Muslims settled in China and married there. Construction of the Great Mosque started in 742 AD to honor the founders of Islam in China. Additions were made during the Song (960-1279), Yuan (1271-1638), Ming (1368-1644), and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, which makes it an ancient architectural complex representative of many periods of time.

The Terracotta Army

Nearly 1500 years before the Polos' journey, the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, was having his tomb built.  Over the span of forty years, 720,00o laborers and craftsmen were employed for the project.  Lost to history for centuries, the location of Qin's tomb and its Terracotta Army was discovered in 1974 by local farmers digging a well outside Xi'an.  

The Terracotta Army is one of the greatest archaeological sites in the world and one of the great discoveries of the 20th century.  The role of the Terracotta Army was to "guard" the entire mausoleum, and Qin Shi Huang believed that the army could protect him in the afterlife.  The figures include life-sized soldiers, chariots and horses*.  It is estimated that the three pits containing the Terracotta Army held more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which remained buried in the pits near Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum.  Other terracotta non-military figures were found in other pits, including officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians.  

Every figure differs in facial features and expression, clothing, hairstyle, and gestures.  The abundant, detailed artifacts are used in studies of the military, cultural, and economic history of that period.  

More than 2000 of the pieces are on display at the Terracotta Army Museum in Xi'an [link below left], which consists of three vaults (one for each of the pits) and the Exhibition Hall of the Bronze Chariots.

This concludes WITW's series on the Silk Road.  Perhaps fittingly in this time of Covid, when pandemic restrictions are preventing many from travel, we end in Xi'an, which just emerged from a month-long lockdown (called "China's biggest Covid challenge since Wuhan" by the New York Times).

*The horses at the site look small - more like ponies than horses, but they are life-size.  It wasn't until much later that the Silk Road brought larger horses from the west to China.   

**The Sogdians were an ancient ethnic group that came to Central Asia from Persia (Iran). Their present-day descendents live in  Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. 0.

Sources: China Highlights-1, China Highlights-2, Wikipedia, UNESCO,