the Silk Road

(noun)

Series of trade and cultural routes that were central to cultural interaction through regions of the Asian continent, connecting the West and East from China to the Mediterranean Sea.

Related Terms

Examples of the Silk Road in the following topics:

  • The Silk Road

    • Control of the Silk Road would shuttle between China and Tibet until 737 CE.
    • This second Pax Sinica helped the Silk Road reach its golden age.
    • However, as the Mongol Empire disintegrated, so did the Silk Road.
    • Gunpowder hastened the failing integration, and the Silk Road stopped being a shipping route for silk around 1453 CE.
    • In this map of the Silk Road, red shows the land route and blue shows the maritime route.

  • Trade Under the Tang Dynasty

    • By reopening the Silk Road and increasing maritime trade by sail at sea, the Tang were able to gain many new technologies, cultural practices, rare luxuries, and foreign items.
    • The Silk Road was the most important pre-modern Eurasian trade route.
    • 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.
    • When the An Lushan Rebellion ended in 763, the Tang Empire had once again lost control over its western lands, as the Tibetan Empire largely cut off China's direct access to the Silk Road.
    • The Silk Road also affected Tang dynasty art.

  • Trade and Currency Under the Yuan

    • During the Yuan dynasty, trade flourished and peace reigned along the newly revived Silk Road, a period known as the Pax Mongolica.
    • On the Silk Road, caravans with Chinese silk, as well as spices such as pepper, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg came to the West from the Spice Islands via the transcontinental trade routes.
    • Along with land trade routes, a Maritime Silk Road contributed to the flow of goods and establishment of a Pax Mongolica.
    • This Maritime Silk Road started with short coastal routes in Southern China.
    • A closeup of the Mallorquín Atlas depicting Marco Polo traveling to the East on the Silk Road during the Pax Mongolica.

  • Break from the Seleucid Empire and Rise of the Parthian Empire

    • The Parthian Empire was also called the Arsacid Empire, after the Arscaid dynasty.
    • As the heirs to the Achaemenid Empire, the Arsacid rulers titled themselves the "King of Kings. " The earliest enemies of the Parthians were the Seleucids in the west and the Scythians in the east.
    • These military victories gave Parthia control of the overland trade routes between east and west (the Silk Road and the Persian Royal Road).
    • The empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and the Han Empire of China, became a center of trade and commerce.
    • The Parthians controlled the major trade routes between the Roman Empire and the Han Empire of China, which became the foundation of Parthia's wealth and power.

  • Overview of the Mongol Empire

    • The Mongol Empire began in the Central Asian steppes and lasted throughout the 13th and 14th centuries.
    • The Pax Mongolica refers to the relative stabilization of the regions under Mongol control during the height of the empire in the 13th and 14th centuries.
    • In this environment the largest empire to ever exist helped one of the most influential trade routes in the world, known as the Silk Road, to flourish.
    • This route allowed commodities such as silk, pepper, cinnamon, precious stones, linen, and leather goods to travel between Europe, the Steppe, India, and China.
    • In India, the Mongols' gains survived into the 19th century as the Mughal Empire.

  • The Black Death

    • The Black Death is thought to have originated in the arid plains of Central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road, reaching the Crimea by 1346.
    • From Central Asia the Black Death was carried east and west along the Silk Road by Mongol armies and traders making use of the opportunities of free passage within the Mongol Empire offered by the Pax Mongolica.
    • This did help, but not for the reasons the doctors of the time thought.
    • The thought the only way to be rid of the plague was to be forgiven by God.
    • The peak of the activity was during the Black Death.

  • Expansion and Decline of the Kushan Empire

    • The Kushan Empire in South Asia originally formed in the early 1st century CE (Common Era) in the territories of ancient Bactria around the Oxus River in Central Asia.
    • During the 1st and early 2nd centuries CE, the Kushans expanded across the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent.
    • Around 152 CE, Emperor Kanishka, a Buddhist, sent his armies north of the Karakoram Mountains to capture additional territories and subsequently opened a direct road from Gandhara to China that remained under Kushan control for more than a century.
    • The Kushan Empire linked the seagoing trade of the Indian Ocean with the commerce of the Silk Road via the Indus Valley, while providing security that encouraged travel across the Khunjerab Pass and facilitated the spread of Mahayana Buddhism to China.
    • The eastern Kushan kingdom was based in the Punjab.

  • Kingdom of Aksum

    • The state established its hegemony over the declining Kingdom of Kush and regularly entered the politics of the kingdoms on the Arabian Peninsula, eventually extending its rule over the region with the conquest of the Himyarite Kingdom.
    • The Kingdom used the name "Ethiopia" as early as the 4th century.
    • Covering parts of what is now northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, Aksum was deeply involved in the trade network between India and the Mediterranean (Rome, later Byzantium), exporting ivory, tortoise shell, gold and emeralds, and importing silk and spices.
    • The land was fertile during the time of the Aksumites and the principal crops were grains such as wheat and barley.
    • The economically important northern Silk Road and southern Spice (Eastern) trade routes.

  • The Role of Foreign Trade

    • In the early Ming, after the devastation of the war which expelled the Mongols, the Hongwu Emperor imposed severe restrictions on trade (the "haijin" or "sea ban").
    • By the late Ming, the state was losing power to the very merchants which Hongwu had wanted to restrict.
    • The Portuguese bought Chinese silk and sold it to the Japanese in return for Japanese-mined silver; since silver was more highly valued in China, the Portuguese could then use Japanese silver to buy even larger stocks of Chinese silk.
    • The thriving of trade and commerce was aided by the construction of canals, roads, and bridges by the Ming government.
    • The gentry and merchant classes started to fuse, and the merchants gained power at the expense of the state.

  • The Five Emperors

    • The Mythical Period was next under the rule of the Five Emperors, who served as moral exemplars and introduced the use of fire, houses, and silk.
    • According to myth, following the period of the Three Sovereigns, five successors, known as the Five Emperors, introduced the basic aspects of culture.
    • These rulers were legendary sage-kings and moral exemplars and are said to have introduced the use of fire, taught people how to build houses, and invented silk culture.
    • Some of his achievements include the institution of Chinese characters--and therefore literacy--the development of silk (from silkworms), and the establishment of the principles of traditional Chinese medicine (though Shennong, one of the Three Sovereigns, is sometimes credited with this as well).
    • Yu the Great, Color on silk at the National Palace Museum in Shilin, Taipei, Taiwan.