Silk Road

The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the East and West. The name "Silk Road", first coined in the late 19th century, has fallen into disuse among some modern historians in favor of Silk Routes, on the grounds that it more accurately describes the intricate web of land and sea routes connecting East and Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, the Middle East, East Africa and Europe.

The Silk Road derives its name from the highly lucrative trade of silk textiles that were produced almost exclusively in China. The network began with the Han dynasty's expansion into Central Asia around 114 BCE, which largely pacified the once untamed region. Imperial envoy Zhang Qian was commissioned to explore the unknown lands beyond the region in search of potential trading partners and allies. The information and goods gathered by these expeditions piqued Chinese interest and prompted formal diplomatic and commercial dispatches, as well as efforts to protect the routes with soldiers and an extension of the Great Wall.

The expansion of the Parthian Empire, which stretched from eastern Anatolia to Afghanistan, provided a bridge to East Africa and the Mediterranean, particularly the nascent Roman Empire. By the early first 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 altered the trajectory of various realms, if not world history.

During its roughly 1,500 years of existence, the Silk Road endured the rise and fall of numerous empires and major calamities such as the Black Death and the Mongol conquests; after almost every disruption, the network reemerged stronger than before, most notably under the Mongol Empire and its offshoot the Yuan Dynasty. As a highly decentralized network, security was sparse. Travelers faced constant threats of banditry and nomadic raiders, and long expanses of inhospitable terrain. Few individuals crossed the entirety of the Silk Road, instead relying on a succession of middlemen based at various stopping points along the way.

The Silk Road trade played a significant role in opening political and economic relations between China, Korea, Japan, India, Iran, Europe, the Horn of Africa and Arabia.Jerry Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 32. In addition to goods, the network facilitated an unprecedented exchange of ideas, religions ( especially Buddhism), philosophies, and scientific discoveries, many of which were syncretised or reshaped by the societies that encountered them. Likewise, a wide variety of people used the routes, including migrants, refugees, missionaries, artisans, diplomats, and soldiers. Diseases such as plague also spread along the Silk Road, possibly contributing to the Black Death.

Despite repeatedly surviving many geopolitical changes and disruptions, the Silk Road abruptly ended with the rise of the Ottoman Empire in 1453, which almost immediately severed trade between East and West. This prompted European efforts to seek alternative routes to Eastern riches, thereby ushering the Age of Discovery, European colonialism, and a more intensified process of globalization, which had arguably begun with the Silk Road. The network's influence survives into the 21st century. One of the world's best known historical figures, Marco Polo, was a Medieval Venetian merchant who was among the earliest Westerners to visit and describe the East. The name "New Silk Road" is used to describe several large infrastructure projects seeking to expand transportation through many of the historic trade routes; among the best known include the Eurasian Land Bridge and the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In June 2014, UNESCO designated the Chang'an-Tianshan corridor of the Silk Road as a World Heritage Site, while the Indian portion remains on the tentative site list.

Name

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.Waugh (2007), p. 4., . It derives from the German term (literally "Silk Road") and was first popularized in 1877 by Ferdinand von Richthofen, who made seven expeditions to China from 1868 to 1872.Warwick Ball (2016), ''Rome in the East: Transformation of an Empire'', 2nd edition, London & New York: Routledge, , p. 156 However, the term itself has been in use in decades prior. The alternative translation "Silk Route" is also used occasionally. 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 first book entitled ''The Silk Road'' was by Swedish geographer Sven Hedin in 1938.

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 the West until the period of the Mongol Empire. He notes that traditional authors discussing east–west trade such as Marco Polo and Edward Gibbon never labelled any route a "silk" one in particular.

The southern stretches of the Silk Road, from Khotan (Xinjiang) to Eastern China, were first used for jade and not silk, as long as 5000 BCE, and is still in use for this purpose. The term "Jade Road" would have been more appropriate than "Silk Road" had it not been for the far larger and geographically wider nature of the silk trade; the term is in current use in China.

Precursors

Chinese and Central Asian contacts (2nd millennium BCE)

Central Eurasia has been known from ancient times for its horse riding and horse breeding communities, and the overland Steppe Route across the northern steppes of Central Eurasia was in use long before that of the Silk Road. Archeological sites such as the Berel burial ground in Kazakhstan, confirmed that the nomadic Arimaspians were not only breeding horses for trade but also produced great craftsmen able to propagate exquisite art pieces along the Silk Road. From the 2nd millennium BCE, nephrite jade was being traded from mines in the region of Yarkand and Khotan to China. Significantly, these mines were not very far from the lapis lazuli and spinel ("Balas Ruby") mines in Badakhshan, and, although separated by the formidable Pamir Mountains, routes across them were apparently in use from very early times.

The Tarim mummies, mummies of non-Mongoloid, apparently Caucasoid, individuals, have been found in the Tarim Basin, in the area of Loulan