The Silk Road

[Lucius Galerius Falconius]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... CE_gr2.png

How long would it take a normal traveller to travel from Rome to Chang'an? hock:

[Timotheus]

I am thinking the better part of a year and I am also betting that it happened very rarely.

For most of its history the Silk Road was more theoretical. No one merchant travelled it. Instead if I undersand it right it was a series of middle men who sold merchandise along the way til it went from East to West.


What has always made me wonder is other than money what went West on the Silk Road? Or did Western Civ have nothing that really interested the Eastern world?

[Komet]

The Romans purchased far more in eastern goods than the Chinese consumed of western (sound familiar?). But Roman glassware has found its way into various parts of eastern Asia. I can think of some being found in Korea, to be specific. Also, Hellenistic textiles have been found in Mongolia. The theory behind that involves the textiles arriving in Mongolia via the Chinese themselves. Roman coins have been unearthed quite a number of places. Precious metals, after all, are the most ubiquitous form of currency on earth. Nearly every society places value on silver and gold.

[Jona Lendering]

Only a couple of people made the entire trip, even in later times. It seems that Maffeo and Nicolo Polo took about a year and a half to travel from the Crimea to Khanbaliq. Willem van Rubroeck's trip back home from Karakourum started on 10 July 1254 and ended on 15 August 1255 in Tripoli.

[Timotheus]

The Romans purchased far more in eastern goods than the Chinese consumed of western (sound familiar?). But Roman glassware has found its way into various parts of eastern Asia. I can think of some being found in Korea, to be specific. Also, Hellenistic textiles have been found in Mongolia. The theory behind that involves the textiles arriving in Mongolia via the Chinese themselves. Roman coins have been unearthed quite a number of places. Precious metals, after all, are the most ubiquitous form of currency on earth. Nearly every society places value on silver and gold.

I know the primary item was silk. Was anything else sent in large amounts? I can see the Chinese having an advantage. Silk travels much better than glass which obviously can break.

Has anyone ever done a study to see how much of an economic boost it was to the Chinese state to be exporting such large amounts of silk to the West?

Would be interesting to see then how this declined after silkworms were sucessfully smuggled out of China by the two Christian monks.

[Paullus Scipio]

"The Silk Road" ( only named so by a German geographer in the 19th century) was not a single road, but a network of inter-connected roads, some 6,500 km aprox long. It probably began to take shape around 300 BC as a series of caravan routes from China to Central Asia, later linking to the Middle-eastern traditional trade routes and ultimately all the way to the Mediterranean.
Along it the East sent silk, jade, spices, ginger, tea, peaches, paper, and eventually printing methods and gunpowder.....
From the West came glass, grapes and wine, cotton, wool, precious gems, ivory, and larger breeds of horses....
As a trade route, it reached it's peak under the Mongols who improved the roads for much of their length, but it began to decline in the 14th century, mainly due to the fall of the Mongol Empire, and the rise of sea routes.
The first person we know of to traverse the whole route, ( from West to East) was a Nestorian sect Christian priest called Olopun in 635 AD, whose name is to be found inscribed on a stela at Sian-Fu ( now called Xian) in north-west China, and who apparently brought with him (according to the inscription) "true sacred books".
The first recorded traverse from East to West is that of Rabban Sauma, also a Nestorian priest, in 1279 or 1280 AD, sent by Kublai Khan ( of Marco Polo fame) and the Il-Khan of Persia, Arghun, on a diplomatic mission. He delivered letters to the Pope in 1287,(but unfortunately Honorius IV had died, and the cardinals went into conclave for a long time!)He went on to Paris to meet King Philip the Fair, and England to meet King Edward I, returning to Rome in 1288 where Pope Nicholas IV had finally been elected.Rabban returned to Persia in the summer of 1288. The Kings had agreed to an alliance with the Mongols to Crusade against the Islamic states......which never occurred for a variety of reasons..........

[Komet]

There's a probable account of a westerner reaching China earlier than 635. According to the annals of the Han dynasty, people claiming to be from the court of Marcus Aurelius arrived in the in 166. We don't know their names, but they were more likely merchants claiming a royal connection to boost their credibility with the Han emperor rather than emissaries from Rome.

On the note on how much Roman consumption of silk boosted the Chinese economy, it's difficult to say. Pliny said that it drained the Romans of 100 million sesterces every year, which is perhaps an overstatement, but who can be sure? In any case, much of that money went into the middlemen. I'd be surprised if the Chinese saw half of that. The Parthians charged a 20-25% tariff on all silk, and they were just one of many middlemen in the journey.

[Jona Lendering]

There's a probable account of a westerner reaching China earlier than 635. According to the annals of the Han dynasty, people claiming to be from the court of Marcus Aurelius arrived in the in 166.

I've seen that note too; it's in the Hou Han Shu (Chronicle of the Later Han Dynasty), section 88. However, it says that the embassadors of king An-Tun (Antoninus) ariived from Jih-Nan, more or less Hue in what we call Vietnam. In other words, those Romans arrived by boat, and did not travel along the Silk Road. Still: what a voyage!!

[Komet]

I wonder how many interpreters he needed. He probably needed a Parthian that could talk to the Bactrian that could talk to the Indian that could talk to the Vietnamese that could talk to the Chinese.

[Julilla]

I highly recommend picking up the book, "Foreign Devils on the Silk Road" by Peter Hopkirk, detailing the exploration of lost cities in the Taklamakan Desert. While the archaeological finds tend to be Serindian rather than Roman, the book is a wonderful chronicle of 19th and early 20th century archaeological exploration in the region (and the fury of the Chinese at the plundering of their precious scrolls and frescoes.