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CHAPTER 7: NETWORKS OF
COMMUNICATION AND
EXCHANGE
300 B.C.E. – 1100 C.E.
The Beginning of the Silk Road
The Parthians located in central Asia and
possibly helped foster the Silk Road
 Zhang Jian (jahng jee-en), a Chinese general
made a journey across the mountains of Inner
Asia and finally reached Ferghana…brought
back better horses and plants

Silk Roads
As classical empires reduced the costs of longdistance trade, merchants began establishing
an extensive network of trade routes that
linked much of Eurasia and northern Africa
 Collectively, these routes are known as the “Silk
Roads” because high-quality silk from China
was one of the principal commodities
exchanged over the roads

Part 1: The Silk Road
Map of Silk Road
Map of Silk Road
http://intranet.dalton.org/groups/rome/RMap2.html-
Route of the Overland Silk Road
Linked China and the Holy Roman Empire
 The two extreme ends of Eurasia
 Started in the Han capital of Chang’an and went
west to the Taklamakan Desert
 There the road split into two main branches that
skirted the desert to the north and south


China exported peaches, apricots, cinnamon,
ad ginger
Answer:

Chinese imported:

Chinese exported:
 Alfalfa
 Peaches
 Grapes
 Apricots
 New
 Spices
crops
 Medicinal products
 Metals
 Precious stones
 Silk
 Pottery
 Paper
 Stirrups
The Sasanids (suh-sah-nid) and the
Silk Road
They intensified trade on the Silk Road
 Defeated the Parthians around 224 C.E.
 They had great silver works and silk fabrics
 They exported cotton, sugar, rice, citrus trees,
eggplants

Taklamakan Desert:
“The Desert of Death”
The Silk Roads avoided the Taklamakan Desert and passed
through the oasis towns on its outskirts
Route of the Overland Silk Road

In northern Iran, the route joined with roads to ports
on the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf and
proceeded to Palmyra (modern Syria)

There it met roads coming from Arabia and ports on the Red
Sea
Silk Road Trade to the West

Silk and spices traveled west from
southeast Asia, China, and India
 China was the only country in
classical times where cultivators
and weavers had developed
techniques for producing highquality silk fabrics
 Spices served not just to season
food but also as drugs,
anesthetics, aphrodisiacs,
perfumes, aromatics, and
magical potions
Chinese silk making
Silk Road Trade to the East
Central Asia produced large, strong horses and jade
that was highly prized by Chinese stone carvers
 The Roman empire traded glassware, jewelry, works
of art, decorative items, perfumes, bronze goods,
wool and linen textiles, pottery, iron tools, olive oil,
wine, and gold and silver bullion
 Mediterranean merchants and manufacturers often
imported raw materials such as uncut gemstones
which they exported as finished products in the
form of expensive jewelry and decorative items

Spread of Buddhism and Hinduism
Merchants carried Buddhism along the Silk Roads
where it first established a presence in the oasis towns
where merchants and their caravans stopped for
food, rest, lodging, and markets
 Dunhuang was one such spot where the Silk Road splits
into two paths
 By the 4th Century A.D., a sizeable Buddhist
community had emerged there
 Hinduism also spread along the Silk Roads, primarily
along the sea lanes

Spread of Christianity



Antioch, the western terminus
of the overland Silk Roads, was
an important center in early
Christianity
Like other religions, Christianity
followed the trade routes and
expanded east throughout
Mesopotamia, Iran, and as far
away as India
However, its greatest
concentration was in the
Mediterranean basin, where
the Roman Roads, like the Silk
Roads, provided ready
transportation
St. Peter’s cave church in
Antioch
Spread of Disease


The Antonine Plague (165-180 A. D.) was a plague of
either smallpox or measles brought back to the Roman
Empire by troops returning from campaigns in the Near
East
 Total deaths have been estimated at five million
Bubonic Plague
 During the 1340s, Mongols, merchants, and other
travelers helped to spread the disease along trade
routes to points west of China
 It thrived in the trading cities of central Asia where
domestic animals and rodents provided abundant
breeding grounds for fleas and the plague bacteria
Influences of Long-distance Trade
Brought wealth and access to foreign products
and enabled people to concentrate their
efforts on economic activities best suited to
their regions
 Facilitated the spread of religious traditions
beyond their original homelands
 Facilitated the transmission of disease

Indian Ocean
Maritime System
Introduction
Linked lands bordering the Indian Ocean basin
and the South China Sea.
 Trade took place in 3 distinct regions:
 South China Sea
 Southeast Asia to the east coast of India
 West coast of India to the Persian Gulf and
East Africa

Made possible by and followed the patterns of
seasonal changes in the monsoon winds.
 Sailing technology included lateen sail and
new shipbuilding techniques.
 Because distances traveled were longer than in
the Mediterranean, traders in these systems
did not maintain political ties to homelands.

Lateen Sail
Origins of Contact and Trade
Evidence of early trade between ancient
Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.
 Trade appears to have broken off as
Mesopotamia turned more toward trade with
East Africa.
 Two thousand years ago, Malay sailors
migrated to Madagascar.
 Did not maintain ties to homeland.

Impact of Indian Ocean Trade
What we know about it comes from The
Periplus of the Erythrean Sea.
 States goods traded included a wide variety
of spices, aromatic resins, pearls Chinese
pottery, and other luxury goods.
 Volume of trade was not as high as in the
Mediterranean.
 Culture of ports was different then culture in
their homelands, causing the development of
different customs.

ROUTES ACROSS AFRICA
A. Early Saharan Cultures
Evidence of an early Saharan hunting culture
that was later joined by cattle breeders who
looked like contemporary West Africans.
 Artwork indicates that the cattle breeders were
later succeeded by horse herders who drove
chariots.
 Other artwork indicates that camel riders came
after charioteers.
 Camel was probably related to development
of trans-Saharan trade.
 South to north diffusion of camel riding.

Sahara Rock Wall Painting
Other Sahara Rock Wall Painting
Trade Across the Sahara
Developed slowly when 2 local trade systems
linked.
 Southern Sahara had salt and exported to
sub-Saharan regions for kola nuts and palm oil.
 Traders in north exported agricultural products
and wild animals to Italy.

Invasion and Revolt
When Rome declined and the Arabs invaded
North Africa (mid-7th century C.E.), trade of
Algeria and Morocco was cut off.
 Berber people of these areas revolted against
the Arabs in the 700s and established
independent city-states including Sijilmasa and
Tahert.

The Berbers
After 740 the Berbers found that the southern
nomads were getting gold dust from the Niger
and other areas of West Africa in exchange
for their salt.
 A pattern of trade then developed in which the
Berbers of North Africa traded copper and
manufactured goods to the nomads of the
southern desert in return for gold.

Kingdom of Ghana
One of the early sub-Saharan beneficiaries of
this new trans-Saharan trade.
 First description of kingdom is the eleventh
century account by al-Bakri.
 Described a city of two towns, Muslim merchant
town and capital of animist king and his court.
 After 1076, Ghana was weakened by invasion of
Moroccan Almorovids.
 Even after Almorovid retreat, Ghana never
recovered.

Geography of Sub Saharan Africa

Large area with
many different
environmental zone
and many
geographical
obstacles to
movement.

Significant
geographical areas:
 Sahel
 Tropical Savanna
 Tropical Rainforest
 Temperate
highlands
Development of Cultural Unity
African cultures are highly diverse.
 Estimated 2,000 languages spoken on
continent.
 Numerous food production systems.
 Difficulty in communication and trade between
groups.
 No foreign power was able to conquer Africa
and impose a unified culture.

African Cultural Characteristics
African cultures display certain common features that
attest to an underlying cultural unity that some
scholars have called “Africanity.”
 One concept was a kingship in which kings were
isolated and oversee societies in which the people
are arranged in age groups and kinship divisions.
 Other common features include:
 Cultivation with hoe and digging stick
 Use of rhythms in African music
 Functions of dancing and mask wearing in rituals

Advent of Iron
Sub-Saharan agriculture had its origins
north of the equator and then spread
southward.
 Iron working also began north of the
equator and spread to southern Africa by
800 C.E.
 Caused by the Bantu Migrations.

Sub-Saharan African Iron Work
Bantu Migrations
Original homeland of the Bantu people was in
the area on the border of modern Nigeria and
Cameroon.
 Suggests that Bantu people spread out toward
the east and south through a series of
migrations over the period of the first
millennium C.E.
 By the eighth century, Bantu-speaking people
had reached East Africa.

Bantu Migrations Map
THE SPREAD OF IDEAS AND
RELIGION
Ideas and Material Evidence
Very hard to trace dissemination of ideas in
preliterate societies.
 Invention of coins – created in Anatolia and
spread to Europe, North Africa, and India.
 China made cast copper coins – was this
inspired by the Anatolian example?

Spread of Religion

Spread of ideas in a deliberate and
organized fashion such that we can trace it is a
phenomenon of the first millennium C.E.
 Case with spread of Buddhism, Christianity,
and Islam
Spread of Buddhism
Facilitated both by royal sponsorship and by the
travels of ordinary pilgrims and missionaries.
 In India, Mauryan king Ashoka and King Kanishka
of the Kushans supported Buddhism.
 Buddhist missionaries from India traveled to a
variety of destinations:
 West to Syria, Egypt, and Mesopotamia
 Also went to Sri Lanka, southeast Asia, and Tibet
 Buddhism changed and further developed as it
spread.

Spread of Christianity
Armenia was an important trading center for
the Silk Road.
 Mediterranean states spread Christianity to
Armenia in order to bring that kingdom over to
its side and thus deprive Iran of control of this
area.
 The transmission of Christianity to Ethiopia was
similarly linked to a Mediterranean Christian
attempt to deprive Iran of trade.
