Cross Cultural Exchanges on the Silk Road Networks

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Recommended: Chapter 7 ap world history silk roads

Silk was an important item that was traded and began during the Han Dynasty. The Silk Road was a network of trade routes and the first marketplace that allowed people to spread beliefs and cultural ideas across Europe and Asia. Merchants and traders of many countries traveled technologies, diseases and religion on the Silk Road; connecting the West and East. They also imported horses, grapes, medicine products, stones, etc. and deported apricots, pottery and spices. The interaction of these different cultures created a cultural diffusion. The road consisted of vast and numerous trade routes that went between China and Europe. Long distance trade came to action when rulers invested in making roads and bridges. “During the 1870s, silk was brought to the west coast of the United States via the Pacific Ocean, then rerouted to the east coast by the transcontinental railway.” Although long distance trade was effective it was risky and was liable to only pirates. Classical societies soothed a large expansion of Eurasia and North Africa. As a result, merchants did not face such great risk as in previous eras and the costs of long-distance trade dropped.
The Hellenistic years was an international and diverse period. Marketable interactions were common and people of many ethnic and religious backgrounds merged in populated urban areas. A key component behind the development of the Silk Road is cross-cultural trade. Sea trade was linked from the Mediterranean, Black Sea, Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. The Monsoon system enabled sailors to know where the wind blows in the summer and in the winter.
Religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism traveled throughout the silk roads. “The Chinese empire had extended its frontier into central ...

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Behera, Subhakanta. "India's Encounter with the Silk Road." Economic and Political Weekly, December 21, 2002.

Heather, Peter. "The Huns and the End of the Roman Empire in Western Europe." In The English Historical Review. : Oxford University Press, 1995.

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