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https://asiasociety.org/religions-silk-road

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Lingua Franca[common language] : Soghdian an Iranian language that is still relevant in Tajikistan

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Most of Silk Road economy in hands of Buddhist traders UNTIL the mongol period, after which the buddhists completely disappeared.

Muslims competed with the     Buddhists : Why? due to difference In beliefs, where the Muslims "condemned idol-worshippers", in other words disapproved the buddhist way of worshipping an idol.

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1. Rise of Muslims along the Silk Road

Muslim Activites under the guidance of favored muslim leader

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John Major, description of impact, “Silk Road: Spreading Ideas and Innovations” [excerpt], Asia Society, 2015.

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The Silk Road was a network of trade paths, and these trade paths acted like a multi-way street filled with diverse commodities. Some of them were:

1.  Paper

2. Irrigation Water Wheel

3. Food Stuff Like Orange and Apples

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Invented in China and highly recommend by the Buddhist
Spread quickly throughout Europe: why?

It was better than Silk for writing

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1. Ingenious as it helped get water without human or animal input

2. Invented in Roman Syria

3. Spread through Silk Road and its tributaries

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When people move from one place to the other, they bring about many things with them that are not specifically positive. Plague is an example of such.

The 14th century Black Death plague that devastated Europe was said to be brought from Asia through the Silk Road

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Richard Kurin, description of the role, value, and uses of silk, “Silk Road: Connecting People and Cultures” (excerpts), Smithsonian Institute, 2002.

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Silk = Widely accepted and open to diverse uses (vikings to cowboys)
Everyone liked silk and wanted it, so they decided to trade with countries like china for silk.
This "stimulated and characterized other types of exchanges":
When trade started, not only did only commodities be exchanged, but so did traditions, cultures, and religions.

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Creation of "third Silk Road" by Marco Polo and his uncles led to The decline of Silk

1. the Europeans wanted gems, spices, precious metals, warfare equipment like weapons.

2. Silk production became known to those who wanted silk, therefore trade for silk was not necessary

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China's court official was sent on a journey towards East, starting from the Shangdong Peninsula Bohai Gulf and across the Yellow Sea, which was where they were introduced to the silkworm farming, filature, and silking spinning into Korea.

Many Chinese fled to Korea and took the silkworm and technology with them when the Chinese emperor united the country. Skills and technology were also introduced to Japan during the Han Dynasty period, since then, the silk were directly shipped to Japan, while many Japanese were also able to travel to China through the route.

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Source J: Alfred Andrea, historian’s essay on the Silk Road, “The Silk Road in World History: A Review Essay” (excerpts), Asian Review of World Histories, 2014

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Source J: Alfred Andrea, historian’s essay on the Silk Road, “The Silk Road in World History: A Review Essay” (excerpts), Asian Review of World Histories, 2014

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Silk road is a misleading name for the transport route(s).

Many historians prefer the term "Silk Routes" - it doesn't suggest that it's only one road and that it's actually a physical road.

Ideas and culture was one of the "most historically important 'commodities' carried along these  routes.

It is better to keep the name "Silk Road" to keep up with tradition.

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Eurasia was criss-crossed with communication routes and paths of trade, which linked up to what are known today as the Silk Roads. Routes were built across both land and sea, along which silk and many other goods were exchanged between people from across the world. Travellers along the Silk Roads were attracted not only by trade but also by the cultural exchange that was taking place in cities along the Silk Roads.

Source:
http://en.unesco.org/silkroad/network-silk-road-cities-map-app/en

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The Silk Road is also known as the Silk Route. This linked China with the West and "carried goods and ideas between the two great civilisations of Rome and China"

There were many commodities transported like silk, wool, gold and silver. In terms of beliefs, Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism in China came via the silk road.

"Goods were handled in a staggered progression by middlemen"

The Silk Road became more and more unsafe over time because Roman lost territory and the rise of Arabian power in the Levant.

When the Mongols were in control in the 13th and 14th century, the Silk Road was "revived". Marco Polo used the Silk Road to get to China.

It is believed that the Silk Road brought plague from Asia to Europe which caused the Black Death.

Some of the Silk Road is still here, "in the form of a paved highway connecting Pakistan and the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, China"

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- The concept of "Silk Roads" was first invented by German geologist and explorer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877
- The Silk Road was considered a metaphor of Asian and and European cultural interchange
- The Ancient Chinese guarded the secret of silk production for centuries
- Silk caused a war between the Ottoman Turks and Persians
- Silk moved across the planet with remarkable ease and was a vehicle of cultural creativity
- As cultures began to adopt silk, it began to add to its adornment of humanity
-  Silk was really predominant back then; it was aboard medieval Viking ships sailing out of Constantinople

Chinese Silk Cultivation:
-  Silk cultivations and processes were so extraordinary and legendary that it it easily explains why silk was so remarkable
-  Silk was considered special because is strong enough to be used for surgical structures, and it was used to clothe the emperor in Chinese history
- Silk became a great trade item for royal gifts and tribute in the Han dynasty

Silk on the Road:

-  The growth of silk as a trade item stimulated and characterized other types of exchanges during that era
- Curative herbs, ideas of astronomy, and religion moved across that network
- Martial arts, sacred arts like calligraphy, tile making and paintings moved across the Silk Road
- The Tang capital city of Chang'an, present day Xi'an became a cosmopilitan city filled with traders that moved across the Silk Road, such a monks, missionaries and emissaries

The Mongol Silk Road and Marco Polo:

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Source I: Warwick Ball, historian’s essay on the Silk Road, “Following the Mythical Road”(excerpts), Geographical (Campion Interactive Publishing), 1998

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Source I: Warwick Ball, historian’s essay on the Silk Road, “Following the Mythical Road”(excerpts), Geographical (Campion Interactive Publishing), 1998

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German geographer of Central Asia, Baron von Richtofen created the name Silk road (die Seindenstrasse).

The Silk road is not actually an accurate representation of Asian geography.

No one actually used the term Silk road in any of the ancient documents.

Spices were main import from India to the East.

"There were never any transcontinental routes."

Silk arrived to the West from sea routes, not overland.

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As time goes by, boundaries shift, people migrate, countries and kingdoms come into being and then vanish eventually, and countries develop their names.

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Silk Road Cultural Exchanges: Science and Technology

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Xi’an - The Secret of Silk:

The secret of silk was carefully guarded for centuries, which brought wealth to Chinese empires. Legend has it that almost 5,000 years ago, Xi Ling was drinking tea in her garden when a cocoon dropped from a tree into her cup. As she fished it out, the cocoon unwound into a silk strand. The empress gathered more cocoons, put them in hot water, unraveled the strands and wove the world's first silk cloth.

Turfan:
After months spent under the sun, the caravan has reached Turfan. Irrigation systems bring cool water from nearby mountains, offering you and your thirsty camels a refreshing drink. More important, the water allows farmers here to grow an incredible fruits and vegetables. What's not eaten by residents or hungry travelers will be traded along the Silk Road.

Samarkand - City of Merchants:

As the caravan approaches Samarkand, the gates open. Whatever you desire, chances are a Sogdian merchant from Samarkand can deliver it. These traders have built up a fortune buying and selling in distant countries. The Sogdians are controlling a network of commerce that extends to India, China and Persia. And the heart of their trading empire is here, deep in Central Asia.

House of Wisdom - The Golden Age:

Great minds from many lands gathered at a library called the House of Wisdom, one of many centers of learning in an era known as the Islamic Golden Age. Long ago, brilliant scholars in this city studied geography, astronomy and mathematics, and the advances that are still relevant today.

Source:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y4t9AvuTBI_WZxEW_OfnYNATptWC4XoIP22EkuhtT2A/edit

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A lot of Chinese inventions have helped the world like paper. This was better than "narrow wooden strips" and "hard-to-handle rolls of silk", and gradually became the primary used material in China and East Asia. It was also in some parts of the northwest in China in Buddhist temples, but wasn't there for a long time. In addition, they had parchment and papyrus which were "well established"

Some Chinese men started producing paper in Samarkand when they were under the Mongols.

The use of paper grew to other places like western Eurasia because of trade and imitation. (this was during the thirteenth and fourteenth century)

Paper was then used in many ways other than writing like printing (around 500-600 CE). Buddhist people supported this because "the duplication of sacred texts was an act of religious merit".

Later on, when printing was started in Europe, it wasn't like what was done in China; however, Chinese printing could have been an influence in the Middle East.

The noria, or the irrigation waterwheel, is another invention that went around Eurasia. This was invented in Roman Syria.

This invention spread really quickly along the Silk Road and its "tributaries". This went to Toledo, Spain, Yellow River in China, and many other places.

A lot of other things were transported and spread around through the Silk Road.

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Guangzhou was the starting point of the South China Route, then extended to the Indian Ocean and also many other country around the Persian Gulf afterwards. The main goods that were being traded, were silk, China tea, and also other merchandises like spices, flowers, and grasses, this was commonly referred to as China's "Flavour Road"

The route was first used in te Qin and Han Dynasties, and then the popularity increased from the different periods, like Sui Dynasty and until the Tang Dynasty.

The technology that they had became even more advanced as the shipbuilding was more convenient, which led to more new sea lanes to South East Asia and also other areas in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf.

The Naval Expedition to the West by Zheng He expressed the importance of the Silk Road and got a lot more popular over time. The government of Ming and Qing Dynasty issued a maritime trade, creating a decline on the use. As starting from 1840, the Silk Round on the China Sea disappeared.

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My Source: https://asiasociety.org/geographical-setting-silk-roads

The term, "silk road": A network of trails and trading posts, oases, and emporia connecting East Asia to the Mediterranean.

The Silk Road network is usually thought of as stretching from an eastern terminal to westward end-points at Constantinople, Antioch, Damascus, and other Middle - Eastern cities. This is why when we think about the Silk Road, we need to think of Eurasia as a whole. The trade of the Silk Road functioned based on the conditions in China, Constantinople, Persia, and other religions and countries along the way.

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https://www.travelchinaguide.com/silk-road/maritime-silk-route.htm

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China's contributions - compass, dynamite, paper-making, printing techniques, water drilling, cast iron, technologies, alchemy, sericulture, Chinese medicine (particularly acupuncture).

Chinese also received treatments from India's ophthalmology doctors.
West influenced China to be more interested in astronomy, mathematics, mechanics, shipbuilding, technologies, etc...
West eventually became better than China in natural sciences and engineering.

More China exports - silk, porcelain, lacquer ware, ironware, gold and silver ware, and other luxuries.

4th century - silk ware was fashionable for an aristocratic man.
Porcelain was a commodity for the west.
All things that came TO China, became commodities to the Chinese people. - such as clothes, tent, bed, stools, konghou (harp like musical instrument), flute, dancing, etc...
Lifestyle of Chinese was influenced significantly be imports.

Upper class had lots of western clocks, glasses, tobacco bottles, and satin.

Silk road allowed for more vegetables to be introduced into the Chinese cuisine.

The character 胡 (hu) is used in Chinese food characters that were initially brought from elsewhere.

China's major contribution to world's food is tea. Currently, Europe is most important market for tea.

Spices came to China and made an Emperor (Wudi) be addicted to it.

Some of the Herbal Medicines are still used today.

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Silk Road is a

1.  metaphor representation of European and Asian cultural interchange

2. Symbolises sharing and exchange just like Silk that led to the sharing and exchange

Note: "Silk" in "Silk Road" is not surface meaning of commodity, but instead the deeper meaning of sharing and exchange.