Merchants carried silk from China to Europe, where it dressed royalty and wealthy patrons. Few people traveled the entire route, giving rise to a host of middlemen and trading posts along the way.Īn abundance of goods traveled along the Silk Road. Over time, large inns called caravanseraiscropped up to house travelling merchants. To protect themselves, traders joined together in caravans with camels or other pack animals. With no one government to provide upkeep, the roads were typically in poor condition. The Silk Road extended approximately 6,437 kilometers (4,000 miles) across some of the world’s most formidable landscapes, including the Gobi Desert and the Pamir Mountains. Although the trade network is commonly referred to as the Silk Road, some historians favor the term Silk Routes because it better reflects the many paths taken by traders. The term also serves as a metaphor for the exchange of goods and ideas between diverse cultures. to describe the well-traveled pathway of goods between Europe and East Asia. German geographer and traveler Ferdinand von Richthofen first used the term “silk road” in 1877 C.E. until 1453 C.E., when the Ottoman Empire closed off trade with the West. The term instead refers to a network of routes used by traders for more than 1,500 years, from when the Han dynasty of China opened trade in 130 B.C.E. The Silk Road is neither an actual road nor a single route.
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