Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast,
Where I help you drift off one fact at a time.
I'm your host,
Benjamin Boster,
And today's episode is about the Silk Road.
The Great Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the 2nd century BCE until the mid-15th century.
Spanning over 6,
400 kilometers or 4,
000 miles on land,
It played a central role in facilitating economic,
Cultural,
Political,
And religious interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds.
The name Silk Road was coined in the late 19th century,
But some 20th and 21st century historians instead prefer the term Silk Routes,
On the grounds that it more accurately describes the intricate web of land and sea routes connecting Central,
East,
South,
Southeast,
And West Asia,
As well as East Africa and Southern Europe.
In fact,
Some scholars criticize or even dismiss the idea of Silk Roads and call for a new definition or alternate term.
According to them,
The literature using this term has privileged the sedentary and literature empires at either end of Eurasia,
Thereby ignoring the contributions of steppe nomads.
In addition,
The classic definition sidelines prominent civilizations such as India and Iran.
The Silk Road derives its name from the highly lucrative trade of silk textiles that were primarily produced in China.
The network began with the expansion of the Han Dynasty into Central Asia around 114 BCE through the missions and explorations of the Chinese imperial envoy,
John Chen,
Which brought the region under unified control.
The Chinese took great interest in the security of their trade products and extended the Great Wall of China to ensure the protection of the trade route.
The Parthian Empire provided a vital bridge connecting the network to the Mediterranean.
Meanwhile,
The rise of the Roman Empire in the West further established the Western terminus of the interconnected trade system.
By the 1st century CE,
Chinese silk was widely sought after in Rome,
Egypt,
And Greece.
Other lucrative commodities from the East included tea,
Dyes,
Perfumes,
And porcelain.
Among Western exports were horses,
Camels,
Honey,
Wine,
And gold.
Aside from generating substantial wealth for emerging mercantile classes,
The proliferation of goods,
Such as paper and gunpowder,
Greatly affected the trajectory of political history in several theaters in Eurasia and beyond.
The Silk Road was utilized over a period that saw immense political variation across the continent.
The network was highly decentralized and security was sparse.
Travelers faced constant threats of banditry and nomadic raiders,
And long expanses of inhospitable terrain.
Few individuals traveled the entire length of the Silk Road,
Instead relying on a succession of middlemen based at various stopping points along the way.
In addition to goods,
The network facilitated an unprecedented exchange of religious,
Especially Buddhist,
Philosophical and scientific thought,
Much of which was syncretized by societies along the way.
Likewise,
A wide variety of people use the routes.
From 1453 onwards,
The Ottoman Empire began competing with other gunpowder empires for greater control over the overland routes,
Which prompted European polities to seek alternatives,
While themselves gaining leverage over their trade partners.
This marked the beginning of the Age of Discovery,
European colonialism,
And the further intensification of globalization.
In the 21st century,
The name New Silk Road is used to describe several large infrastructure projects along many of the historic trade routes.
Among the best known include the Eurasian Land Bridge and the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.
UNESCO designated the Chong'an-Tianshan Corridor of the Silk Road as a World Heritage Site in 2014 and Azarovshan-Karakum Corridor in 2023.
The Ferghana-Sirdiya Corridor,
The Indian and Iranian portions,
And the remaining sites in China remain on the tentative lists.
Despite the popular imagination,
Silk Road was never a singular east-west trade route that linked China to the Mediterranean,
Nor was there unrestricted trade before the Mongol Empire.
It was a network of roads.
Even Marco Polo,
Often linked to the Silk Road,
Never used the term,
Despite traveling during a time of Mongol-enabled ease of movement.
The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk,
First developed in China,
And a major reason for the connection of trade routes into an extensive transcontinental network.
It derives from the German term Seidenstrasse,
Literally Silk Road,
And was first popularized in 1877 by Ferdinand von Richthofen,
Who made seven expeditions to China from 1868 to 1872.
However,
The term itself had been in use in decades prior to that.
Although the term was coined in the 19th century,
It did not gain widespread acceptance in academia or popularity among the public until the 20th century.
The use of the term Silk Road is not without its detractors.
For instance,
Warwick Ball contends that the maritime spice trade with India and Arabia was far more consequential for the economy of the Roman Empire than the silk trade with China.
Which at sea was conducted mostly through India,
And on land was handled by numerous intermediaries,
Such as the Sogdians.
Going as far as to call the whole thing a myth of modern academia,
Ball argues that there was no coherent overland trade system and no free movement of goods from East Asia to West until the period of the Mongol Empire.
William Dalrymple points out that in pre-modern times,
Maritime travel cost only a fifth of overland transport,
And argues for the pre-13th century primacy of an India-dominated Golden Road extending from Rome to Japan.
Two important silk road paths from Merv went through Nysa and Sarox.
They joined together in Meshad,
A big religious and trade city in Khorasan.
The Silk Road consisted of several routes.
As it extended westwards from the ancient commercial centers in China,
The overland intercontinental Silk Road divided into northern and southern routes,
Bypassing the Taklamakan Desert and Lop Nur.
Merchants along these routes were involved in relay trade,
In which goods changed hands many times before reaching their final destinations.
The northern route started at Chang'an,
Now called Xi'an,
An ancient capital of China that was moved further east during the later Han to Luyang.
A route for caravans,
The Northern Silk Road brought to China many goods such as dates,
Saffron powder,
And pistachio nuts from Persia,
Frankincense,
Aloes,
And myrrh from Somalia,
Sandalwood from India,
Glass bottles from Egypt,
And other expensive and desirable goods from other parts of the world.
In exchange,
The caravan sent back bolts of silk brocade,
Lacquerware,
And porcelain.
The Southern Route,
Or Karakoram Route,
Was mainly a single route from China through the Karakoram Mountains,
Where it persists in modern times as the Karakoram Highway,
A paved road through Kundrab Pass that connects Pakistan and China.
It then set off westwards,
But was southwards spurs,
So travelers could complete the journey by sea from various points.
Crossing the high mountains,
It passed through northern Pakistan,
Over the Hindu Kush mountains,
And into Afghanistan,
Rejoining the northern route near Merv,
Turkmenistan.
From Merv it followed a nearly straight line west through mountainous northern Iran,
Mesopotamia,
And the northern tip of the Syrian desert to the Levant,
Where Mediterranean trading ships plied regular routes to Italy,
While land routes went either north through Antolia or south to North Africa.
Another branch road traveled from Herat through Susa to Karak Spasinu at the head of the Persian Gulf,
And across to Petra and on to Alexandria and other eastern Mediterranean ports,
From where ships carried the cargoes to Rome.
The Maritime Silk Road or Maritime Silk Route is the maritime section of the historic Silk Road that connected Southeast Asia,
East Asia,
The Indian Subcontinent,
The Arabian Peninsula,
Eastern Africa,
And Europe.
It began by the 2nd century BCE and flourished until the 15th century CE.
The Maritime Silk Road was primarily established and operated by Austronesian sailors in Southeast Asia,
Who sailed large long-distance ocean-going sewn plank and lashed lug trade ships.
The route also utilized by the Daos of the Persian and Arab traders in the Arabian Sea and beyond,
And the Tamil merchants in South Asia.
China also started building their own trade ships and followed the routes in the later period,
From the 10th to the 15th century CE.
Central Eurasia has been known from ancient times for its horse riding and horse breeding communities,
And the overland steppe routes across the northern steppes of Central Eurasia was in use long before that of the Silk Road.
From the 2nd millennium BCE,
Nephrite jade was being traded from mines in the region of Jharkhand and Khotan to China.
Significantly,
These mines were not very far from the Lapis Lazuli and Spinal mines in Badakhshan,
And although separated by the formidable Pamir mountains,
Routes across them were in use from very early times.
Genetic study of the Tarim mummies,
Found in the Tarim Basin,
In the area of Lulan,
Located along the Silk Road,
200 km or 124 miles east of Yingpen,
Dating to as early as 1600 BCE,
Suggest very ancient contacts between east and west.
Following contacts between China and nomadic groups along its western borders in the 8th century BCE.
Gold was introduced from Central Asia,
And Chinese jade carvers began to imitate step designs,
Adopting the Scythian-style animal art depicting animals locked in combat.
The Silk Road was initiated and spread by China's Han Dynasty through exploration and conquests in Central Asia.
Was a Mediterranean link to the Fergana Valley.
The next step was to open a route across the Tarim Basin and the Hexi Corridor to China proper.
This extension came around 130 BCE,
With the embassies of the Han Dynasty to Central Asia following the reports of the ambassador Zhang Chen,
Who was originally sent to obtain an alliance with the Yuqi against the Zong.
Changchen visited directly the kingdom of Dayuan in Ferghana,
The territories of the Yueqi in Transoxiana,
The Bactrian country of Daxue with its remnants of Greco-Bactrian rule in Gengju.
Zhang Chen's report suggested the economic reason for China's expansion and wall building westward,
And trailblazed the Silk Road,
Making it one of the most famous trade routes in history and in the world.
A maritime silk road opened up between Chinese-controlled Giao Chi,
Centered in modern Vietnam near Hanoi,
Probably by the first century.
It extended via ports on the coasts of India and Sri Lanka,
All the way to Roman-controlled ports in Roman Egypt and the Nabataean territories on the northeastern coast of the Red Sea.
The earliest Roman glassware bowl found in China was unearthed from a western Han tomb in Guangzhou,
Dated to the early 1st century BCE,
Indicating that Roman commercial items were being imported through the southern China Sea.
According to Chinese dynastic histories,
It is from this region that the Roman embassies arrived in China,
Beginning in 166 CE during the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Emperor Huan of Han.
Other Roman glasswares have been found in Eastern Han era tombs,
Further inland in Luyang,
Nanyang,
And Nanjing.
The traveling party of Maya traditionists penetrated farthest east along the Silk Road from the Mediterranean world,
Probably with the aim of regularizing contacts and reducing the role of middlemen during one of the Lolls and Rome's intermittent wars with Parthia,
Which repeatedly obstructed movement along the Silk Road.
Intercontinental trade and communication became regular,
Organized,
And protected by the Great Powers.
Intense trade with the Roman Empire soon followed,
Confirmed by the Roman craze for Chinese silk,
Even though the Romans thought silk was obtained from trees.
This belief was affirmed by Seneca the Younger in his Phaedra,
And by Virgil in his Georgics.
Notably Pliny the Elder knew better.
Speaking of the Bombix or silk moth,
He wrote in his Natural Histories,
They weave webs like spiders and become a luxurious clothing material for women called silk.
The Romans traded spices,
Glassware,
Perfumes,
And silks.
Roman artisans began to replace yarn with valuable plain silk cloths from China and the Silla Kingdom in Gyeongju,
Korea.
Chinese wealth grew as they delivered silk and other luxury goods to the Roman Empire,
Whose wealthy women admired their beauty.
The Tang Dynasty established a second Pax Sinica,
And the Silk Road reached its golden age,
Whereby Persian and Sogdian merchants benefited from the commerce between East and West.
At the same time,
The Chinese Empire welcomed foreign cultures,
Making it very cosmopolitan in its urban centers.
In addition to the land route,
The Tang Dynasty also developed the maritime silk route.
Chinese envoys had been sailing through the Indian Ocean to India since perhaps the 2nd century BCE.
Yet it was during the Tang Dynasty that a strong Chinese maritime presence could be found in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea into Persia,
Mesopotamia,
Arabia,
Egypt,
Aksum,
Ethiopia,
And Somalia in the Horn of Africa.
The Silk Road represents an early phenomenon of political and cultural integration due to inter-regional trade.
In its heyday,
It sustained an international culture that strung together groups as diverse as the Magyars,
Armenians,
And Chinese.
The Silk Road reached its peak in the West during the time of the Byzantine Empire,
In the Nile-Oxus section,
From the Sassanid Empire period to the Ilkhanate period,
And in the Sinaitic zone from the Three Kingdoms period to the Yuan Dynasty period.
Trade between East and West also developed across the Indian Ocean,
Between Alexandria in Egypt and Guangzhou in China.
Persian sassanid coins emerged as a means of currency,
Just as valuable as silk yarn and textiles.
Richard Foulds,
Xinru Liu,
And others have described how trading activities along the Silk Road over many centuries facilitated the transmission not just of goods,
But also ideas and culture,
Notably in the area of religions.
Zoroastrianism,
Judaism,
Buddhism,
Christianity,
Manichaeism,
And Islam all spread across Eurasia through trade networks that were tied to specific religious communities and their institutions.
Notably,
Established Buddhist monasteries along the Silk Road offered a haven,
As well as a new religion for foreigners.
The spread of religions and cultural traditions along the Silk Roads,
According to Jerry H.
Bentley,
Also led to syncretism.
One example was the encounter with the Chinese and Dzung nomads.
These unlikely events of cross-cultural contact allowed both cultures to adapt to each other as an alternative.
The Zeng adopted Chinese agricultural techniques,
Dress style and lifestyle,
While the Chinese adopted Zeng military techniques,
Some dress style,
Music and dance.
Perhaps most surprising of the cultural exchanges between China and Zeng,
Chinese soldiers sometimes defected and converted to the Zeng way of life,
And stayed in the steppes for fear of punishment.
The transmission of Christianity was primarily known as Nestorianism on the Silk Road.
In 781 an inscribed stelae shows Nestorian Christian missionaries arriving on the Silk Road.
Christianity had spread both east and west,
Simultaneously bringing Syriac language and evolving the forms of worship.
The transmission of Buddhism to China via the Silk Road began in the 1st century CE,
According to a semi-legendary account of an ambassador sent to the West by the Chinese Emperor Ming.
During this period,
Buddhism began to spread throughout Southeast,
East,
And Central Asia.
Mayana,
Theravada,
And Vajrayana are the three primary forms of Buddhism that spread across Asia via the Silk Road.
Parthian scholars were involved in one of the first-ever Buddhist text translations into the Chinese language.
Its main trade center on the Silk Road,
The city of Merv,
In due course and with the coming of age of Buddhism in China,
Became a major Buddhist center by the middle of the 2nd century.
Knowledge among people on the Silk Roads also increased when Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya dynasty converted to Buddhism and raised the religion to official status in his northern Indian empire.
From the 4th century CE onward,
Chinese pilgrims also started to travel on the Silk Road to India to get improved access to the original Buddhist scriptures,
With Faxian's pilgrimage to India,
And later Xuanzang and Heiko,
Who traveled from Korea to India.
The travels of the priest Xuanzang were fictionalized in the 6th century in a fantasy-adventure novel called Journey to the West,
Which told of trials with demons and the aid given by various disciples on the journey.
Many artistic influences were transmitted by the Silk Road,
Particularly through Central Asia,
Where Hellenistic,
Iranian,
Indian,
And Chinese influences could intermix.
Greco-Buddhist art represents one of the most vivid examples of this interaction.
Silk was also a representation of art,
Serving as a religious symbol.
Most importantly,
Silk was used as currency for trade along the Silk Road.
These artistic influences can be seen in the development of Buddhism,
Where,
For instance,
Buddha was first depicted as human in the Kushan period.
Many scholars have attributed this to Greek influence.
The mixture of Greek and Indian elements can be found in later Buddhist art in China and throughout countries on the Silk Road.
The production of art consisted of many different items that were traded along the Silk Roads from the East to the West.
One common product,
The lapis lazuli,
Was a blue stone with golden specks,
Which was used as paint after it was ground into powder.
