DBQ Essay: The Silk Road

The Silk Road was a colossal interconnected networked generated by established trade routes that spanned the whole Eurasian continent as told by religious travelers, historians, and merchants.

The vast Silk road had people of different ethnicities travel itself, and even document it. Faxian was a Chinese Buddhist monk that had traveled the Silk Road. (Source 3) According to Faxian, their were “ a multitude of monks and a succession of very many monasteries”, this indicates that Buddhism spread across the Silk Road. Faxian even told us that “when stranger monks arrive at any monastery”, then older monks meet and receive them. Additionally Friar John of Montecorvino, a wealthy italian priest who wrote about his travels on the Silk Road. (doc 5) It is documented that the “wherein stands the church of St. Thomas the Apostle, for thirteen months”, this proves that catholicism traveled from italy all the way to India through the Silk Road. While in the excerpts the Mongols (led by the

As told by the roman historian Cassius Dio, Silk was used in Caesar’s celebration. (doc. 1). When Dio talks about the silk he calls it a “device of barbarian luxury.” This proves that a well educated roman was oblivious to the advancements that the Chinese had made, including The Great Wall and Grand Canal. Not to mention that the Chinese have existed thousands of years prior to the Roman civilization. Secondly Sima Qian who wrote The Records Of the Grand Historian clearly hints that Zhang Qian may have started the Silk Road. According to the document, Zhang Qian travels several thousand li (1 Li is equivalent to a bit more than one third of a mile.) Zhang brings back crops such as wheat and rice, and even find out about wine and grapes. Zhang was the first person to bring a clear account of present day Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, claiming it was people settled on the