The Silk Road (or the Silk Routes ) are a network of ancient overland trade routes that extended across the Asian continent and connected China to the Mediterranean Sea.
The "Silk Routes" are collectively known as the "Silk Road." For almost 3,000 years, the Silk Routes were important paths for commercial, cultural, and technological exchange between traders, merchants, pilgrims, missionaries, soldiers, rulers, nomads and urban dwellers from Ancient China, India, Persia, Asia Minor, and countries of the Mediterranean. Extending over 6,000 miles, the routes enabled people to transport goods, especially luxuries such as silk, slaves, satin and other fine fabrics, musk, perfumes, spices, medicines, jewels, glassware and porcelain. The routes served as a conduit for the spread of knowledge, ideas, religions, cultures, and disease between different parts of the world (along with maritime routes from China, India, Asia Minor, Europe, Arabia, North Africa, and the Mediterranean).
Trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the great civilizations of China, India, Egypt, Persia, Arabia and Rome, and in several respects helped lay the foundations for the modern world. Although the term the Silk Road implies a continuous journey, very few who traveled the route traversed it from end to end. For the most part, goods were transported by a series of agents on varying routes, and were traded in the bustling mercantile markets of the oasis towns. During the Han Dynasty (206BC—220AD) the central Asian sections of the trade routes were expanded, largely through the missions and explorations of Zhang Qian who traveled upon the Silk Routes between 138 BC to 139 BC. In the late Middle Ages, transcontinental trade over the land routes of the Silk Road declined as sea routes increased and maritime trade developed. Though silk was certainly a valued trade item from China, many other products were traded, and various inventions, religions and philosophies traveled along the Silk Routes.
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