8 RoutesThat Shaped World History Project by Sasha Fliderman

What goods were traded along this route? - Silk Road

sf1889 — 2024-09-16 15:48:37 UTC

There were many goods traded along the Silk Road. Some of these goods include: silk, horses, paper, spices, jade, glassware, furs, slaves, and much more. Something such as silk was traded because it was used to make clothes, ritual banners, and canvases, and was even used as a currency in the Tang Dynasty and was collected as a form of tax. Many other goods and luxuries were traded along the silk roads for many different reasons. Also, different goods were traded in certain parts of the Silk Road. For example, Turfan and Kashgar traded grapes, raisins, wine, cotton, dyes, pack animals, tea, dried fruit, and medicinal herbs, while Bahgdad traded things such as dates, nuts, dyes, and lapis lazuli.

Sources:

https://www.history.com/news/silk-road-trade-goods

https://asiasociety.org/trade-along-silk-roads#:~:text=Chang'an%20%2D%20silk%2C%20chrysanthemums,%E2%80%A2

What ideas were traded along this route? - Silk Road

sf1889 — 2024-09-17 15:45:51 UTC

Many ideas were traded along the Silk Road, including religion, culture, philosophy, and language. For example, "Buddhism spread from India into northern Asia, Mongolia, and China, whilst Christianity and Islam emerged and were disseminated by trade, pilgrims, and military conquest." Part of religion is the culture that comes with it that also automatically spreads with the religion. Not only that, but as people from empires traveled along the Silk Road to other empires, they spread their language, ideas (philosiphies), and innovations (such as paper, gunpowder, and the magnetic compass.)

Sources:

https://asiasociety.org/education/silk-road#:~:text=Writing%20and%20Technology%20in%20China,internet%20continues%20to%20change%20China.

https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/themes/religion-and-spirituality?page=7#:~:text=Buddhism%20spread%20from%20India%20into,civilizations%20along%20the%20Silk%20Routes.

Who benefited from this trade? - Silk Road

sf1889 — 2024-09-19 13:53:04 UTC

Many people and places benefited from trading on the Silk Road. Some of these people/places include merchants, cities, the Roman Empire, the Kushan Empire, and China. It benefited merchants because it made them gain more wealth when they sold goods for more than the value that they bought/traded them for. Cities along the Silk Road not only benefited economically but also culturally. "Towns along the route grew into multicultural cities. The exchange of information gave rise to new technologies and innovations that would change the world." The Roman Empire benefited from the Silk Road because when silk got introduced to the Roman Empire in the 1st century BCE, it became an extremely popular luxury that was desired by many. The Silk Road allowed citizens of the Roman Empire to acquire silk, as well as other goods and luxuries. The Silk Road benefited the Kushan Empirein many ways. One of the ways is that it allowed them to trade for goods such as painted glass, bronze, and ivory from other regions. It also benefited them because the Silk Road provided a valuable source of tax revenue for the Kushan Empire. It also benefited them in many other ways in religion, maritime trade, and peace. Finally, the Silk Road benefited China because "the Silk Road linked China with the West, that carried goods and ideas between the two great civilizations of Rome and China. Silk went westward, and wools, gold, and silver went east. China also received Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism (from India) via the Silk Road." Obviously, more people and places benefited from trading in the Silk Road, but these are some of the main ones.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfe-eNq-Qyg&t=460s

https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/about-silk-roads#:~:text=This%20process%20enriched%20not%20only,place%20along%20the%20Silk%20Roads.

https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/sites/default/files/knowledge-bank-article/the%20opening%20of%20the%20silk%20route.pdf

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Silk-Road-trade-route

Who was harmed by this trade? - Silk Road

sf1889 — 2024-09-19 15:38:50 UTC

The Silk Road harmed many people. This is because "it enabled one of the first great pandemics, the plague known as the Black Death, to spread along its route and eventually reach the edge of Europe, where it killed more than 50 million people between 1346 and 1352." One of the most believed reasons for how the Silk Road spread the Black Death is that there were flea-ridden rats on boats and fleas on the bodies and clothes of travelers. The bacteria that was in the fleas, Yersinia pestis, could be very deadly if left untreated. Obviously, it was untreated for many as the concept of quarantining didn't exist. The Black Death started decreasing when people started to realize if they iscolated people with the disease, they couldn't spread it to others.

Srouces:

https://www.history.com/news/silk-road-black-death

https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/content/spread-disease-along-silk-roads#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20most%20often,with%20infected%20merchants%20and%20travellers.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21590-bubonic-plague

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3559034/

Who benefited from this trade? -Spice Trade

2024-09-19 15:52:44 UTC

The spice trade was a key component of economic and political change from the 15th to around the 18th century, it connected Asia, the Middle East, and Europe in a large trade. European countries such as Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and England wanted to control spice routes inorder to gain money and influence through regions and trade routes. Portugal was the first to stop Arab and Venetian "monopoly" on the spice trade and established a way by sea India, which was later followed by European countries who wanted territories in Southeast Asia. While, Asian merchants, mainly Indian and Arab traders, were key in the trade's early stages, controlling spice production and distribution. Middle Eastern traders were middlemen, making money from their control over land and sea routes that connected Asia to Europe. The European countries redid the trade by bypassing them middlemen, but the wealth from spices contributed lots to the rise of both European and Asian prosperity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spice_trade

https://www.bbc.com/future/bespoke/made-on-earth/the-flavours-that-shaped-the-world/

What goods were traded along this route? -Spice Trade

2024-09-19 22:04:16 UTC

o The spice trade route traded valuable goods like cinnamon, cassia, ginger, pepper, clove, and turmeric. These spices were highly valuable for how they were used which were food preservation, flavoring, and medical reasons. Which made them a extremely important in the trade network between many regions such as Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Southeast Asia which had the Spice Islands was the main source of many of these spices, that were traded across land and sea to be traded or sold into the European and Middle Eastern markets.

What ideas were traded along this route? -Spice Trade

2024-09-19 22:11:30 UTC

Something more than goods that were traded on the spice trade was a place to show different ideas such as religion, science, and agricultural knowledge. Traders and travelers moved in between different regions, they spread religion, which helped the spread of Islam, Christianity, and other religions. In addition to advancements in science and tech, navigation and medicine were shared on the spice trade. Agricultural techniques and knowledge about crops were traded and they influenced the farming in regions involved in the trade. This trade of knowledge played a great role in cultural and tech advancements of countries that were connected by the spice trade.

Who was harmed by this trade? -Spice Trade

2024-09-19 22:12:42 UTC

Indigenous people were harmed this was because the people controlling the area where the indigenous people were farming the spices. The Asian colonies were also harmed because they had competed control of the spice until the silk road was created then the European colonies dominated the spice route and almost all the spice trades, so they lost part of the economies.

What maritime or land-based empires influenced or contributed to this trade? How did they impact the trade? - Spice Trade

2024-09-19 22:14:10 UTC

Some empires that influenced the spice route was the European colonies like Portugal, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Spain. Also, some of the kingdoms of south/southeast Asia had effect because of the control they had on the farmers that farmed the spice. The European colonies had more impact because they used / threatened to use military powers to gain more control of the spice.

What maritime or land-based empires influenced or contributed to this trade? How did they impact the trade? - Silk Road

sf1889 — 2024-09-20 01:08:56 UTC

Many maritime or land-based empires influenced and contributed to the Silk Road. Some of these empires included China, the Roman Empire, the Kushan Empire, and more. China contributed to/influenced the silk road because they were a main producer of silk. They also protected merchants and caravans traveling on the Silk Road due to their strong government and invented things such as paper and gun powder, which were main things traded on the Silk Road. The Silk Road also originated in China during the Han Dynasty. Finally, a main thing they did to contribute to/influence the Silk Road was that they helped spread many religious and scientific ideas around the globe. The Roman Empire contributed to/influenced the Silk Road because they were in high demand for silk and were a large consumer of many different goods. This created a huge market for goods that came from the East to the Silk Road. The Kushan Empire contributed to/influenced the Silk Road because they were one of the middlemen for the Silk Road as they "moved goods between Rome and China and unified the overland Silk Road between the Oxus and Ganges rivers."

Sources: https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/we-know-very-little-of-the-kushans-middlemen-of-silk-road-empire-that-gave-india-kanishka/858784/

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative#:~:text=The%20original%20Silk%20Road%20arose,four%20thousand%20miles%20to%20Europe.

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/ancient-medieval/silk-road/a/the-silk-road

https://silk-r oad.com/artl/romanenvoy.shtml

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Scythian