Assignment: Imagine you are a traveler on the Silk Road. Tell Your Story.
While Doing This: You will Seek to answer two open-ended overarching questions ; Analyze sources and apply information ; evaluate and analyze historical sources; research, and tell a story.
Background on Silk Road
The “Silk Road” is the name often given for the vast network of land and maritime trade routes between the Mediterranean Sea and East Asia. The Silk Road covered more than 4,600 miles and was in use from about the 2nd century BCE to the 15th and 16th centuries CE.
Story Behind the Name
Scholars say that the Romans first encountered silk in one of their campaigns against the Parthians (modern day Northern Iran) in 53 BC. They realized that it could not have been produced by the relatively unsophisticated Parthians and allegedly learned from prisoners that it came from the east. The Romans obtained samples of the silk, which became very popular in Rome for its soft texture and beauty. The Romans sent their own agents out to explore the route east and try to obtain silk at a lower price than the one set by the Parthians. For this reason, the trade route to the East was used by the Romans chiefly to obtain silk, although they also prized other goods.
Did You Know?
The Romans did not know how silk was obtained or made. Pliny wrote that the Chinese were ‘famous for the wool of their forests. They remove the down from leaves with the help of water’; and Virgil thought that the Chinese combed off special leaves to get silk. However, as you may know, silk does not grow on trees, but is obtained from silkworms.
Commodities
As mentioned earlier, the name “Silk Road” is a misnomer because it is not one road, but rather a network of roads passing through different regions. Furthermore, the “Silk Road” was not a trade route that only traded silk. Many other commodities were traded, from gold and ivory to exotic animals and plants. Caravans heading towards China carried gold and other precious metals, ivory, gems, and glass (which was not manufactured in China until the fifth century). Caravans from China headed west carried furs, ceramics, jade, bronze, lacquer, and iron. Many of the goods were bartered for others along the way, and objects often changed hands several times. There were not Roman traders in China, or Chinese merchants in Rome, although their goods were appreciated in both places. Merchants did not lead their caravans across the whole route; they would transport their goods between two commercial centers and would then sell them to other merchants. Along with trade goods came new ideas, religions, medical knowledge, scientific and technological innovations.
Before Beginning the Project
Summary of Trade Goods From East and West Carried by Land and Sea
Commodities from the East
From India
- Household slaves
- Pets and arena animals
- Exotic furs
- Cashmere wool
- Raw and finished cotton (cotton plants have been cultivated in India for 4,000 years)
- Spinach (mainly from Nepal)
- Sandalwood and other exotic woods
- Palm-oil
- Cane-sugar
- Perfumes and aromatics
- Gems (rubies, sapphires and emeralds; diamonds, surprisingly, were not prized by the Chinese)
- Silk
- Skins
- Iron
- Mirrors
- Weapons
- Porcelain (first manufactured around the 8th century)
- Lacquerware
- Jade (from Khotan)
- Rhubarb
- Tea
- Paper (traditionally thought to have been invented in 105 CE)
- Gunpowder (invented in China around the 7th century and first used by them for military purposes around the 12th century. It reached Europe during the fourteenth century.)
- Medicines – Ephedra (Chinese: Mahuang – used for millennia in China to treat respiratory diseases. Ephedrine was originally made from ephedra.)
- Epsom salts
- Elixirs for immortality (which often shortened, rather than extended, life)
- Ginseng (the best was from Korea)
- Snake bile (collected in Southern China and Indochina; used for whooping cough, rheumatic pain, high fever, infantile convulsion, hemiplegia, hemorrhoids, gum bleeding, and skin infections)
- Seaweed
- Precious and semi-precious stones (including lapis lazuli mined in Afghanistan, jadeite from Burma, rock crystal, carnelians and other quartzes, rubies from Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia and sapphires from India, Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka)
- Jewelry, ivory, tortoiseshell, rhinoceros horn, seashells and pearls
- Ornamental woods, gum resins and aromatics (camphor from China, Japan, Borneo and Indochina was highly coveted)
- Silver and gold (especially from Southern China, Tibet and Indochina, but also imported from many other parts of the world)
- Spices (especially pepper, ginger, cardamom, turmeric, nutmeg and cloves and cinnamon)
- Indigo used for dyeing fabrics and cosmetics
- Minerals (sulphur and realgar)
- Ceramics
- Horses (Central Asian breeds were especially prized in China) and camels
- Flowers (including peonies, roses, camellias, chrysanthemums and tulips (tulips from Central Asia and Turkey first arrived in Europe in the 1550s and were so coveted in seventeenth-century Holland that a single bulb could sell for 5,000 guilders, more than the price of a house!)
- Alfalfa and millet for animal feed
- Human beings: acrobats, Central Asian jugglers and musicians, Central Asian grooms, dwarves, household slaves, South Sea Island pearl divers, Southeast Asian dancers, foreign guards
- Incense (from southern Arabia)
- Dates, pistachios, peaches, walnuts
- Tyrian purple and indigo for dyeing
- Frankincense and myrrh
- Storax (an aromatic resin)
- Muslin cloth
- Wines
- Glassware
- Olive oil
- Silver vessels (especially the work of the Sasanian craftsmen of Persia)
Commodities from the West
- Merchants on the land routes and Roman ships
- Wool and linen textiles
- Carpets
- Baltic amber
- Mediterranean coral
- Bronze vessels
- Lamps
- Glass vessels and glass beads
- Wines
- Papyrus
- Huge quantities of coins
- Ambergris (from the sperm whale, used in the manufacture of perfume and collected along the African coast)
- Entertainers
- Exotic animals
- Opium (opium poppies probably originated in the eastern Mediterranean and reached China in about the 7th century)
- Religions
Spread Along the Trade Routes in All Directions
- Buddhism (arose in India and spread in both directions as far east as Japan and as far west as modern day Turkmenistan)
- Islam (founded in the 7th century, it spread in all directions and now attracts a worldwide following of more than one billion devotees)
- Christianity (arose in the Eastern Mediterranean and spread throughout the Roman world. It reached China by 635)
- Manichaeism (developed in the Middle East during the 3rd century and reached China by the 7th or 8th century)
- Zoroastrianism (the state religion of Persia until the arrival of Islam in the 7th century, it had spread eastwards to China and India by the 7th or 8th century)
Technology and Innovations Acquired by China from the lands to the west
- Harnesses, saddles and stirrups (from the steppe nomads)
- Construction-methods for bridges and mountain roads
- Knowledge of medicinal plants and poisons
- Cultivation of cotton
- Seafaring techniques
Acquired by the West from Asia
- Chinese inventions- The Big 4- Papermaking, printing, gunpowder and the compass (printing and gunpowder didn't get to Europe until the 15th century)
- Medical techniques (especially from Arab scholars such as Ibn Sina)
- Science and mathematics (algebra, astronomy, and the Arab numerals that we use in the West today; the zero came from India)
- The use of passports (a Mongol innovation)
- Military techniques and strategies
- Architectural styles and devices
Did you know?
Sadly, there was considerable traffic in enslaved people in both directions along the Silk Road and there were also many instances of mass migration of entire communities.
Technological Beginnings
The westward flow of Chinese technology occurred throughout the existence of the Silk Road. Joseph Needham summarized the plethora of new inventions that reached Europe between the first and eighteenth centuries, often after a time lapse of several hundred years. There are many other examples not listed in the chart below, such as the use of paper money, the abacus and the use of coal for fuel, but the table gives a good illustration of how technologically advanced the Chinese were from the Europeans.
Directions
Option 1:
Working with your group or by yourself, develop a personality for yourself. Are you a Buddhist monk? A Mongol? A trader from India in search of highly prized, top secret silk? Together, write a travel log- and use Google Earth to show your journey. Storyboard the project in Google Docs or Google Slides. There should be 6-9 entries (multiply the number entries by the number of people in a group); each person in the group should write three entries. The entries should be two to four paragraphs in length and each entry should contain at least five facts. Remember that very few people traveled the entire route. This should be demonstrated in your story.
Create an Annotated Bibliography. You should use at least four sources. Wikipedia can be one of them. At least one needs to be printed.
.....as you Travel Across Asia, From China across the Steppes to India and Beyond?
What Adventures Will You Have?
What items will you trade?
Make sure to include research, but also try to tell a good story!
You Can tell your story in the form of a journal if you want. It can be first person.
Set the story sometime between 400 bce to 600 ce.
Central Ideas:
What role did the physical geography of Eurasia play in the establishment of Silk Road trade routes? (So think about mountains, rivers, and why the trade centers were where they were.)
How did Silk Road trade lead to global exchange and cultural blending to create new cultural elements?
include: accurate dates, real places, and researched details. (Example: “I am traveling through the GOBI Desert now, which is just north of my homeland.”) You should also specify what city you are in or traveling to in each entry.
Your StoryMap should include pictures and maps of the Silk Roads, including the location of your entry stops. Use other visuals (drawn or printed up pictures, etc.) to help illustrate your journey. Be creative with your StoryMaps.