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“Silk Road: Connecting People and Cultures”

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“Silk Road: Connecting People and Cultures”

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- Nathan Schlicht

- 1877
German gerographer of Central Asia
Baron Von Richtofen
- Named the silk road
Uncle of the First World War flying ace

-Arrival of silk to the west was a series of accidents

- China guarded silk production
- Persians fought wars over it
-Moved along the silk road with ease

- "Every culture that touched silk added it to its adornment of humanity
- Kimonos in Japan
- Wedding Saris in India
- Religious rituals
- Burial shrouds in China
- Lay on graves of Sufis in much of Muslim world
- "Silk a special type of cloth
- Cool in summer
- Warm in winter
- It shimmers, it drapes upon the body particularly well
- Strong enough to be used for surgical sutures

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- Nathan Schlicht

The Eurasian Silk Roads was a transmitter of, goods, ideas, beliefs, and inventions.

One of the greatest inventions transported around the Silk Road was paper. The Chinese discovered an invention that changed the world, paper. Paper was invented during the Han dynasty around the 2nd century CE. During the 13th and 14th centuries, a group of Chinese workmen set up a paper-making establishment. Paper quickly spread by trade and imitation. Paper soon became the writing material in most of western Eurasia.

Another invention that was spread across the Silk Road was the noria or irrigation waterwheel. The waterwheel was invented in Roman Syria. The noria could lift 40 feet of water without the help of human or animal. This invention was easily noticed and rapidly spread along the silk road and its tributaries.

The inventions in ancient civilizations that spread across the silk road influenced the today world. Paper now is a product used around the world today to write, draw, even communicate. The waterwheel was an invention the inspired the creations of dams today. The silk road directly helped different ancient civilizations thrive, but also indirectly inspired many modern day inventions today.

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by John Major

Good ideas and innovation travel easily-and far. Historically, these ideas spread along trade routes. This essay looks at the great Eurasian Silk Roads as a transmitter of people, goods, ideas, beliefs and inventions.

Good ideas travel easilyand far along trade routes, and the Silk Road was no exception to that rule. A famous example of a Chinese invention that helped to transform the world is paper. Paper was invented during the Han dynasty, probably just at the time the Silk Road trade was beginning to flourish. (Many accounts ascribe the invention of paper to a Latter Han official at the beginning of the 2nd century CE, but actual paper at least two centuries older than that has been archaeologically excavated from Han tombs.) Far superior to the narrow wooden strips or hard-to-handle rolls of silk that the Chinese had previously used for writing, paper soon became the writing material of choice throughout China and East Asia. It was found also in the Buddhist temples of China's northwest, but seemed not to make inroads beyond that for a long time, perhaps in part because the Chinese tried to protect the secret of its manufacture, and perhaps in part also because other writing materials, such as parchment and papyrus, were well established in the west.

But under the Mongols in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a group of Chinese workmen set up a papermaking establishment in Samarkand. Their product quickly spread by trade and imitation, and paper soon supplanted other writing materials in most of western Eurasia.

In China, the invention of paper stimulated the invention of printing, sometime during the 6th century CE-a development energetically supported by Buddhism, according to which the duplication of sacred texts was an act of religious merit. The re-invention of printing in Europe centuries later did not employ East Asian-style printing technology, but it may have been stimulated by accounts of Chinese printing that could have circulated in the Middle East.

Another invention that spread entirely across Eurasia was the noria, or irrigation waterwheel. This simple, ingenious device, invented in Roman Syria, consists of a vertical waterwheel to the rim of which are attached a series of pots or tubes. As the current of a river rotates the wheel, the pots fill with water at the bottom of the cycle and empty into a chute at the top; a large noria can lift water as much as forty feet with no input of human or animal energy. This inspired invention was obviously a good idea, and rapidly spread along the Silk Road and its tributaries. There is a famous example in Toledo, Spain, others along the upper reaches of the Yellow River in China, and many more in between.

Foodstuffs also count in this category of the travel of ideas and techniques Apples spread, in prehistoric times via the steppe belt, in both directions from the region of modern-day Kazakhstan; oranges went (via the maritime route) from China to the Mediterranean world; grapes went from the western reaches of the Silk Road to China.

These examples and dozens more that could be mentioned make the point clear: ideas, inventions, devices and techniques spread readily and far along the Silk Road, and the traffic was very much a two way, or perhaps one should say a multi-way, street. In the process the Silk Road enriched not just the merchants who carried and exchanged goods, but the people of countries and cultures all across Eurasia.

It is perhaps worth noting, however, that long-distance trade can have unexpectedly bad side effects as well as direct beneficial effects. For example, the Black Death plague that devastated Europe in the 14th century is believed to have come via the Silk Road from Central Asia, where plague is endemic among local rodents. One theory holds that a load of marmot pelts (destined to be used on fur-trimmed garments), contaminated with plague-bearing flea eggs, was brought from somewhere in Central Asia to a Middle Eastern port. There the eggs hatched into fleas that infested some local rats; some of the rats eventually went on shipboard and were carried to port cities in Italy. There the plague spread, via fleas, to other rats, and then to people; and a disaster was in the making.

Additional Background Reading on Asia

Why were there so many Chinese fans in the bleachers at this year's FIFA World Cup, when the Chinese team wasn't even on the field? Student Jerry Tian gives us his perspective.

by John Major
Good ideas and innovation travel easily-and far. Historically, these ideas spread along trade routes. This essay looks at the great Eurasian Silk Roads as a transmitter of people, goods, ideas, beliefs and inventions.

Good ideas travel easilyand far along trade routes, and the Silk Road was no exception to that rule. A famous example of a Chinese invention that helped to transform the world is paper. Paper was invented during the Han dynasty, probably just at the time the Silk Road trade was beginning to flourish. (Many accounts ascribe the invention of paper to a Latter Han official at the beginning of the 2nd century CE, but actual paper at least two centuries older than that has been archaeologically excavated from Han tombs.) Far superior to the narrow wooden strips or hard-to-handle rolls of silk that the Chinese had previously used for writing, paper soon became the writing material of choice throughout China and East Asia. It was found also in the Buddhist temples of China's northwest, but seemed not to make inroads beyond that for a long time, perhaps in part because the Chinese tried to protect the secret of its manufacture, and perhaps in part also because other writing materials, such as parchment and papyrus, were well established in the west.

But under the Mongols in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a group of Chinese workmen set up a papermaking establishment in Samarkand. Their product quickly spread by trade and imitation, and paper soon supplanted other writing materials in most of western Eurasia.

In China, the invention of paper stimulated the invention of printing, sometime during the 6th century CE-a development energetically supported by Buddhism, according to which the duplication of sacred texts was an act of religious merit. The re-invention of printing in Europe centuries later did not employ East Asian-style printing technology, but it may have been stimulated by accounts of Chinese printing that could have circulated in the Middle East.

Another invention that spread entirely across Eurasia was the noria, or irrigation waterwheel. This simple, ingenious device, invented in Roman Syria, consists of a vertical waterwheel to the rim of which are attached a series of pots or tubes. As the current of a river rotates the wheel, the pots fill with water at the bottom of the cycle and empty into a chute at the top; a large noria can lift water as much as forty feet with no input of human or animal energy. This inspired invention was obviously a good idea, and rapidly spread along the Silk Road and its tributaries. There is a famous example in Toledo, Spain, others along the upper reaches of the Yellow River in China, and many more in between.

Foodstuffs also count in this category of the travel of ideas and techniques Apples spread, in prehistoric times via the steppe belt, in both directions from the region of modern-day Kazakhstan; oranges went (via the maritime route) from China to the Mediterranean world; grapes went from the western reaches of the Silk Road to China.

These examples and dozens more that could be mentioned make the point clear: ideas, inventions, devices and techniques spread readily and far along the Silk Road, and the traffic was very much a two way, or perhaps one should say a multi-way, street. In the process the Silk Road enriched not just the merchants who carried and exchanged goods, but the people of countries and cultures all across Eurasia.

It is perhaps worth noting, however, that long-distance trade can have unexpectedly bad side effects as well as direct beneficial effects. For example, the Black Death plague that devastated Europe in the 14th century is believed to have come via the Silk Road from Central Asia, where plague is endemic among local rodents. One theory holds that a load of marmot pelts (destined to be used on fur-trimmed garments), contaminated with plague-bearing flea eggs, was brought from somewhere in Central Asia to a Middle Eastern port. There the eggs hatched into fleas that infested some local rats; some of the rats eventually went on shipboard and were carried to port cities in Italy. There the plague spread, via fleas, to other rats, and then to people; and a disaster was in the making.

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by John Major Good ideas and innovation travel easily-and far. Historically, these ideas spread along trade routes. This essay looks at the great Eurasian Silk Roads as a transmitter of people, goods, ideas, beliefs and inventions. Good ideas travel easilyand far along trade routes, and the Silk Road was no exception to that rule.

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The Silk Road must be thought of in the broadest possible terms, including sea routes linking Japan and Southeast Asia to the continental trade routes. It stretches all the way across the continent of Asia, letting the Chinese take trade with Europe for desired goods and prosper economically.

The Silk Road had different routes coming from north and south China, and they used land transport to travel from the north and by riverboat in the south.

The Mediterranean is where the  the overland and the maritime trans-Eurasian trade routes met. The Chinese traded silk to them, and sometimes they resold it for a profit.

People in the Middle East had to transport goods by caravan, over the hot deserts to Northern Europe.

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The geo-political settings of one of the greatest trade and exchange conduits in human history.

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Chinese created the Compass, Dynamite, Paper-Making and Printing Techniques, Water well drilling, cast iron technologies, alchemy, sericulture, Chinese medicine

Chinese traded silk, porcelain, lacquer ware, ironware, gold & silver ware

Countries traded new vegetables to  inland China and new cuisine was available to the Chinese

Foods that were traded into China are the walnut, cucumber, allium porrum, pepper, carrots, horse bean, tomato, spinach, grape, potato, papaya, pomegranate, fig, and sesame.

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The lingua franca, or common language was Soghdian (Iranian language later adopted by the Persians).

Buddhism spread across the silk road to Afghanistan, but Muslims conquered that area causing Buddhism to die out almost completely. The buddhist traders were important for the economy, making them direct competitors of the muslim traders.

The activities of the muslim merchants and the Sufi preachers (in the rural areas especially) aided the rise of Islam in the western half of the silk road.

The movement of travelers from west to east made an influence on eastern civilizations. Buddhism, Zoroastriansim, Judaism, and Islam (later) were religions that spread from east to west.

No Ruz, also known as the Iranian New Year, is a festival celebrated by many Central Asian Muslims who believe it is an Islamic festival.

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An Interview with author Richard C. Foltz.

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Why was silk important?

Source:  Suleiman, description of Suleiman’s 851 C.E. travel through India and China, translated into English by Jerry H. Bentley (excerpts), 1922

"Young and old Chinese all wear silk..."

Worn in winter and summer, most high quality silk is for the king

Silk protects from high humidity

Source: Richard Kurin, Smithsonian Institute, 2002

Ancient China guarded the secret of how to produce silk

Ottomans and Persians fought a war over it

Exported to many places around the world  and became an important part in every culture that found it

Keeps warm in winter and cool in summer, more absorbant for color dyes, strong and flexible

Made it important part of culture: "kimonos in Japan and wedding saris in India, for religious rituals, for burial shrouds in China and to lay on the graves of Sufis in much of the Muslim world"

Chinese farmers paid tax in silk and civil workers recieved a salary in silk

Source: Valerie Hansen, "The Legacy of the Silk Road"

"planted their cultures like seeds of exotic spices carried to distant lands"

Religion, technologies, art, languages

Glass making from China to the Islamic world

Paper making also transported towards the west

Buddhism spread from India to China

Over 35,000 words in the Chinese language came from buddhist terms and everyday Sanskrit words