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Essay on Mapping the Silk Road and Beyond
Silk Road was most important pre-modern trade route linking China, Central Asia, Persia and western Asia, and Europe. A 19th-century German scholar named the network of trails the Silk Road for the precious Chinese cloth that was originally the most valuable and abundant commodity transported on it. Although historians traditionally date the origin of the Silk Road to the 2nd century BC, a trickle of goods—principally jades, bronzes, and silks—was conveyed across Central Asia as early as about 1000 BC. Commerce persisted on the Silk Road until ocean-borne trade surpassed and superseded trade on the land route in the late 15th and early 16th centuries AD (Susan, 2001).
Development of Silk Road
The Silk Road originated in the 2nd century bc not from a desire for trade but from considerations of defense. Chinese Emperor Wudi (reigned 141-87 bc) of the Han dynasty sent a court official named Zhang Qian to Central Asia to seek allies against the Xiongnu, pastoral nomads from Mongolia who repeatedly raided Chinese settlements during this period. However, the Xiongnu captured Zhang while he was en route and detained him for ten years. Zhang finally escaped from his captors and completed his journey to Central Asia, only to have the local rulers rebuff his overtures for an alliance with China. Although Zhang’s mission failed in its original objectives, the information he conveyed to China about Central Asia, and vice versa, made people in each area desire goods produced in the other. The Central Asians, and later the Persians and the inhabitants of the Roman Empire, learned of and began to covet Chinese products, particularly silk, leading to the development of trade (Kenneth, 2004).
Political developments were vital in the operation of the Silk Road. As caravans traversed Eurasia (the combined landmass of Europe and Asia), they were vulnerable to wars, thieves, and other forms of economic and political turmoil....
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