The Silk Road
Early trading between China, Africa, Europe and the Levant
In American grade school we learned very little about the world before 1492. The Silk Road is something we never learned about, even though it still effects our world now.
The Silk Road
The “Silk Road” is how we now refer to a network of trade routes that reached from China through India, Persia, the Levant, and on to Europe. Because of a European bias it is normally defined by delivering silk TO Europe, but the actual trade ran multiple ways. Silk and pottery from China, spices and teas from India, horses and wine from Europe are among a few of the goods traded along these routes. Although we use the term “the silk road” in the singular, it was, in fact, multiple routes between China and Constantinople.
On the Silk Road, trade did not happen like trains, where it is loaded once and unloaded at the end. Trades, purchases, middlemen, and religious evangelizing all happened along the Silk Road.
These routes were originally developed by the Chinese Empire as it began to dominate first their western borders, later extending into the more central Asia. The routes were well used to supply, fortify, and maintain order of these newly conquered area. The beginnings of these routes were found in central Asia as early as 130 BC.
Why was The Silk Road used?
The Silk Road was used to trade goods not produced locally. Silk was a valuable commodity that was only produced in China. By 30 BCE, silk was in use in the Roman Empire and so we know trade was occurring by then. To keep the road open, China maintained control and safety along the route for centuries.
The Silk Road was used for trade because with ocean travel transporting in bulk was impossible. Distances were very far, ships were not large or built for trade, and navigation at sea was not developed. Known and dependable trading partners could be reached via overland routes and so the empires did not spread via the ocean. The Silk Road was the most important of all trade routes.
The Silk Road extended through central Asian regions that had not previously been linked to the wider world. Transit cities along the route grew and the grew rich and sometimes powerful. The cities built by the riches can still be seen in some regions. But this growth also enabled the decline in use. Small clans turned into more rich kingdoms and then into empires. Conflicts over territories made the routes unsafe. Travel and trade fluctuated over time dependent on military conditions along the route.
Peace was mainly enforced by the Chinese Empire in cooperation with other smaller kingdoms. This kept the Silk Road relatively safe, even if caravans had to include their own set of enforcers.
The rise of trade also supported by later sea routes. By the second century, China had improved sea traffic to the point where a “Silk Road of the Sea” was also created, and Chinese influences can be seen from this time in India all the way to the Persian Gulf. These routes, however, were subject to greater threats and were not as important as the sea routes.
The Silk Road traffic was often limited by conflict and local thieves and so the use fluctuated over time. For about 5 hundred years from the 8th to the 13th century, the route fell further and further into disuse. It was the Mongol Empire that reestablished the safety and use of the Silk Road. However, it gradually became less and less important with the advent of better ships from Europe in the 15th Century.
The Geographic Factors
Aside from the obvious rise of overland trade and the instability of early sea travel, there is still a question of why the Silk Road to China instead of routes from China to southeast Asia or from Europe to Southern Africa. These routes would also have been overland.
Jared Diamond described a major benefit of geography in his book “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies” that is important in this case. Trade along an east – west route is easier than trade along a similar length route going north and south. The weather, while unpredictable in the short term, is more consistent along such a route in the long term. The same types of growth cycles, animals, and often actual food stuffs are common across a east – west route, or an able to be adapted on that route. We can see this in the trade of horses and camels. Native or domesticated in the west, an animal like a camel van be used all along the road. Taking a camel through the rainforests of Africa was not possible, even though the physical distance from Egypt to southern Africa is shorter than the distance between Egypt and China.
Religion Spread via Silk Road
The Silk Road was used for trade, but it also shared ideas and philosophies. Often these ideas opened up new avenues for trade and culture. Buddhism and Christianity did spread via the Silk Road, but it was the primary route for the spreading of Islam. Islam conversion often occurred by force and the religious wars accelerated the decline of the Silk Road for trade.
However, in the 9th and 10th centuries the Silk Road became even more important int he spread of knowledge. Islam was the primary producer of knowledge at this time. Science and Technology were spread through the world, first through the Silk Road to other empires and kingdoms in the region.
Other Ancient Trades Routes
As noted, the Silk Road was the key ancient trade route between East Asia and the Mediterranean. But there were other ancient routes that fed into this system.
West African Salt / Gold Route
One of the key feeders to the Silk Road was salt and gold from Africa. These goods came from West Africa and traveled through Timbuktu and Gao to Carthage.
The Volga and Dneiper Trade Routes
The Volga and Dneiper rivers were deep and wide enough for trade to travel overland from the Baltic Sea, Polish and Livonian lands to Volga and Dneiper Rivers. This trade proceed south to met the Silk Road in Constantinople and the Caspian Sea, respectively.
Why do we care?
Historically, the Silk Road is useful for understanding the development of central Asia. And, in this case, history is prolog. But I think understanding the impact of the Silk Road is important to understanding initiatives today.
The current Chinese government has untaken a second type of Silk Road, this time called the Belt and Road Initiative which specifically calls back to Chinese trade dominance in the region. This new “Silk Road” looks to extend Chinese influence throughout the region and beyond. I will explore this in the next posting.