Mali And The Silk Road Research Paper

The Ancient Empire of Mali and the Silk Road

Mali had something everyone wanted. People from all over Africa,China, and Europe came to Mali for this one thing. These days it costs lots and lots of money but in 1000 A.D it was worth a pound of salt. The king kept bars of it while traders had tokens of it. It was used for currency, decoration, and clothing for the rich. But now it is hard to find and is worth a lot of money. This was one of the reasons Mali was one of the most important trading empire in West Africa. Mali was a very important part of African history. At the same time Mali existed there was the Silk Road, which was also a very important part of history. Both Mali and the Silk Road were similar. First of all, Mali was a trading empire that lasted through the 13th and 16th century, that was believed to been founded before 1000 A.D. One of its famous ruler was Mansa Musa who brought many ideas to Mali after his pilgrimage. He brought ideas like, scholars,

The Silk Road was a very dangerous road. Sometimes when travelers and traders went to trade and sell goods, the sometimes did not come back from their journey. Most of the traders who went did not travel the whole Silk Road. The Silk Road had deserts and mountains that were very difficult and challenging to get across. There was also extremely harsh snow and the dangerous waters of rivers. The Silk Road had many routes that went from China to the middle East to Europe. It was really long and super dangerous. On the road there would be dead animals and bandits along with the disease called “Black Death”. It was very hot but it was also cold when passing through the mountains. Since camels didn’t sink in the desert sand, traders and travelers used camels to travel across the desert. Meanwhile in the mountains, yaks were used as transportation since they were good on slopes, snow, and