GALAXY International Interdisciplinary Research Journal_______________________ ISSN 2347-6915
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THE SILK ROADS IN WORLD HISTORY PAST AND TODAY SURJEET SINGH WARWAL JUNIOR RESEARCH FELLOW DEPARTMENT OF HINDI DR. HARI SINGH GOUR CENTRAL UNIVERSITY, SAGAR, M.P. ABTRACT:
The Silk Roads have normally been treated as a system of exchanges linking the major regions of agrarian civilization in Afro-Eurasia, and as originating in the classical era. This paper focuses on the many transecological exchanges that occurred along the Silk Roads, which linked the agrarian worlds to the pastoralist world of the Inner Eurasian steppes and the woodland cultures to the north. It argues that these trans-ecological exchanges have been as important to the history of the Silk Roads as the more familiar trans-civilizational exchanges. The main aim of study is to exploring the trans-ecological as well as the trans-civilization exchanges that occurred along the Silk Roads are to show that the exchanges mediated by the Silk Roads were older and more extensive than is suggested in the conventional accounts. KEY WORDS: Silk roads, historic exhibition. Secrets Revealed….For the first time three well-preserved mummies from the Tarim Basin in western China are presented in the United States. Secrets of the Silk Road offers the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to come face to face with Yingpan Man, an actual Silk Road trader, who lived at the zenith of exchange between East and West - his lavish tomb goods and personal belongings included Roman glass, bow and arrows for protection, a satin perfumed sash and fine silk clothing. Encounter The Beauty of Xiaohe, a Bronze Age Caucasian mummy whose origin, culture and fate remains a mystery; but whose existence extends the history of the Silk Road back over 2000 years and redefines the ancient world.”1 This historic exhibition of over 150 objects comes from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum and the Xinjiang Institute of Archaeology in Urumqi, China and includes beautiful clothing and textiles, wooden and bone implements, coins, documents and jewel encrusted objects that reflect the full extent of Silk Road trade from China to the Mediterranean. Step back in time and experience the convergence of ancient civilizations.
The Silk Roads have normally been treated as a system of exchanges linking the major regions of agrarian civilization in Afro-Eurasia, and as originating in the classical era. This paper focuses on the many transecological exchanges that occurred along the Silk Roads, which linked the agrarian worlds to the pastoralist world of the Inner Eurasian steppes and the woodland cultures to the north. It argues that these trans-ecological exchanges have been as important to the history of the Silk Roads as the more familiar trans-civilizational exchanges. A clear understanding of these transecological exchanges suggests that the Silk Roads should be seen as a complex network of exchanges that linked different ecological zones of the Afro-Eurasian landmass into a single system. It also suggests that the Silk Roads were much older than is usually recognized, that their real origins lie in the emergence of Inner Eurasian pastoralism from the fourth millennium B.C.E. The paper explores the prehistory of the Silk Roads; reexamines their structure and history in the classical era; and
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explores shifts in their geography in the last thousand years. It concludes that a revised understanding of the role and history of the Silk Roads shows the extent to which the entire Afro-Eurasian landmass has been linked by complex Networks of exchange since at least the Bronze Age. It reminds us that Afro- Eurasia has a common history despite the ecological and cultural variety of its many different regions.”2 What was the Silk Road? The Silk Road was a huge network of trade routes that connected the many different civilizations of Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Europe. Today, people can easily go from countries as far apart as China and Italy, but for the people of the Silk Road period, nearly 2000 years ago, it was the only international road that existed. The Silk Road connected travelers, merchants, soldiers, missionaries, pilgrims, and traders from places as far apart as Ancient China, Persia, India, Arabia and even Rome! The Silk Road was one of the only ways for the people of these ancient regions to trade ideas, technology, religion, and goods. Where was the Silk Road? The Silk Road wasn’t just one straight road. It was actually made up of many different routes that were connected. Most of the Silk Road was on land, and people travelled on it by caravan using horses and camels. A few of the routes were maritime (ocean) routes, and the only way to travel those parts was by boat! While the majority of the Silk Road was located in Asia, the Middle East, and India, some of it did extend to parts of Africa, and some even went as far as Europe! A History of Silk Sericulture or silk production has a long history unknown to many people. For centuries, the West knew very little about silk and the people who made it. For more than 2,000 years the Chinese kept the secret of silk to themselves. Chinese legend gives the title Goddess of Silk to Lady Hsi-Ling-Shih, wife of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), who was said to have ruled China in about 3000 BC. She is credited with the introduction of silkworm rearing and the invention of the loom. Half a silkworm cocoon unearthed in 1927 from the loess soil near the Yellow River in Shanxi Province, in northern China, has been dated between 2600 and 2300 BC. There are many indigenous varieties of wild silk moths found in a number of different countries. The mystery and magic of silk, and China’s domination of its production and promotion, lies with one species: the blind, flightless moth Bombyx Mori. It lays 500 or more eggs in four to six days and dies soon after. The eggs are the size of pinpoints – 100 of them weigh only one gram. From one gram of eggs come about 10,000 worms, which after eating a ton of mulberry leaves, produce four kilograms of raw silk. Over the thousands of years that the Chinese have practiced sericulture utilising all the different types of silk moths known to them, Bombyx Mori has evolved into the specialised silk producer it is today: a moth that has lost its power to fly, only capable of mating and producing eggs for the next generation of silk producers. To produce high quality silk, there are two conditions that need to be fulfilled: preventing the moth from hatching out and perfecting the diet on which the silkworms should feed. The Chinese developed secret ways for both. The eggs must be kept at 18°C, increasing gradually to 25°C at which point they hatch. After the eggs hatch, the baby worms feed day and night every half hour on fresh, hand-picked and chopped, mulberry leaves until they are very fat; a fixed temperature has to be maintained throughout. Thousands of feeding worms are kept on trays that are stacked one on top of another. The newly-hatched silkworm multiplies its weight 10,000 times within a month, changing colour and shedding its whitish–gray skin several times.”3
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The silkworms feed until they have stored up enough energy to enter the cocoon stage. While they are growing they have to be protected from loud noises, drafts and strong smells. When it is time to build their cocoons, the worms produce a jelly-like substance in their silk glands, which hardens when it comes into contact with air. Silkworms spend three or four days spinning a cocoon around them until they look like puffy white balls. After eight or nine days in a warm, dry place the cocoons are ready to be unwound. First, they are steamed or baked to kill the worms, or pupas. The cocoons are then dipped into hot water to loosen the tightly woven filaments. These filaments are unwound onto a spool. Each cocoon is made up of a filament between 600 and 900
The battle of Carrhae 53BC Within decades, Chinese silks became widely worn by the rich and noble families of Rome, soon spreading to other classes. The craving for silk continued to increase over the centuries, keeping its price very high. At one stage the best Chinese silk cost as much as 300 denarii (a Roman soldier’s salary for an entire year!). Silk reached the West through a number of different channels. Shortly after 300 AD, sericulture travelled westward and the cultivation of the silkworm was established in India. Then, around AD 550, two Nestorian Christian monks appeared at the Byzantine Emperor Justinian’s court with silkworm eggs hidden in their hollow bamboo staves. Under their supervision, the eggs hatched into worms, and the worms spun cocoons. The Byzantine silk industry undercut the market for ordinary-grade Chinese silk. By the 6th century the Persians, too, had mastered the art of silk weaving, developing their own rich patterns and techniques. It was only in the 13th century that Italy began silk production, with the introduction of 2,000 skilled silk weavers from Constantinople. Eventually, silk production became widespread in Europe and in the 18th century Lyon in France was known as the silk capital of the world.”4 The Silk Roads in World History
Modern historiography has not fully appreciated the ecological complexity of the Silk Roads. As a result, it has failed to understand their antiquity, or to grasp their full importance in Eurasian history. The role played by the Silk Roads in exchanging goods, technologies, and ideas between regions of agrarian civilization is well understood. Less well understood is the
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transecological role of the Silk Roads—the fact that they also exchanged goods and ideas between the pastoralist and agrarian worlds. The second of these systems of exchange, though less well known, predated the more familiar ―transcivilizational‖ exchanges, and was equally integral to the functioning of the entire system. A clear awareness of this system of trans-ecological exchanges should force us to revise our understanding of the age, the significance, and the geography of the Silk Roads. Further, an appreciation of the double role of the Silk Roads affects our understanding of the history of the entire Afro-Eurasian region. The many trans-ecological exchanges mediated by the Silk Roads linked all regions of the Afro-Eurasian landmass, from its agrarian civilizations to its many stateless communities of woodland foragers and steppe pastoralists, into a single system of exchanges that is several millennia old. As a result, despite its great diversity, the history of Afro-Eurasia has always preserved an underlying unity, which was expressed in common technologies, styles, cultures, and religions, even disease patterns. The extent of this unity can best be appreciated by contrasting the history of Afro-Eurasia with that of pre- Columbian America. World historians are becoming increasingly aware of the underlying unity of Afro-Eurasian history. Andre Gunder Frank and Barry Gills have argued that the entire Afro-Eurasian region belonged to a single ―world-system‖ from perhaps as early as 2000 B.C.E.1 And William McNeill and Jerry Bentley have recently restated the case for a unified Afro-Eurasian history.But Marshall Hodgson had made the same point as early as the 1950s, when he argued that ―historical life, from early times at least till two or three centuries ago, was continuous across the Afro-Eurasian zone of civilization; that zone was ultimately indivisible… The whole of the Afro-Eurasian zone is the only context large enough to provide a framework for answering the more general and more basic historical questions that can arise.‖ This paper argues that the Silk Roads played a fundamental role in creating and sustaining the unity of Afro-Eurasian history. It counts as one more attempt by a historian interested in ―world history‖ to tease out the larger historical significance of the Silk Roads.”5 The Great Silk Exchange: How the World was Connected and Developed The history of the silk trade evokes images of another well-known historical entity: the Silk Road, the famous overland route that traversed the heartland of the Eurasian continent. The term Silk Road (die Seidenstrasse) was a term coined by the 19th century German explorer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen. Although silk was perhaps the most important commodity that traveled along the Road, others such as precious metals and stones, spices, porcelain and textiles also passed through. However, the Silk Road was perhaps more significantly an avenue for the exchange of ideas. Some of the most fundamental ideas and technologies in the world – the technology of making paper, printing, and manufacturing gunpowder, among many others – made their way across Asia via this highway. Migrants, merchants, explorers, pilgrims, refugees, and soldiers brought along with them religious and cultural ideas, domesticated animals, plants, flowers, vegetables, fruit, plagues and disease, as they joined this gigantic cross-continental exchange. The Silk Road, as so rightfully claimed, was the melting pot, the lifeline of the Eurasian Continent (Franck and Brownstone 1986: 2; Werblowsky 1988). In East Asia, Silk Road has long been enshrined as a symbol of cross-cultural exchanges of religions, commodities and technology.”6 Religions and Belief Systems
The religious beliefs of the peoples of the Silk Road changed radically over time, largely due to the effects of travel and trade on the Silk Road. When China defeated the nomadic Xiong’nu confederation and pushed Chinese military control north-west as far as the Tarim Basin (in the 2nd century BC), Buddhism was known in Central Asia but was not yet
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widespread in China and had not reached elsewhere in East Asia. The founding of Christianity was still more than a century away and Islam more than 7 centuries in the future. the Silk Road in its early decades followed many different religions, mostly pagan. Jewish merchants and other settlers had spread beyond the borders of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judea and had established their own places of worship in towns and cities throughout the region. In Persia and Central Asia, many people were adherents of Zoroastrianism, a religion founded by the Persian sage Zoroaster in the 6th century BC. It posited a struggle between good and evil, light and darkness; its use of fire as the symbol of the purifying power of good was probably borrowed from the Brahmanism of ancient India. By the 1st century BC, the Greek colonies of Central Asia that had been left behind after the collapse of the empire of Alexander the Great had largely converted from Greco-Roman paganism to Buddhism, a religion that would soon use the Silk Road to spread far and wide. In India, on side routes of the Silk Road that crossed the passes to the Indus Valley and beyond, the older religion of Brahmanism had given way to Hinduism and Buddhism; the former never spread far beyond India and Southeast Asia, while the latter eventually extended worldwide. In China, there was, as yet, no official state cult of Confucius, no Buddhism, and no organised religious Daoism. For 2,000 years the Silk Road was a network of roads for the travel and dissemination of religious beliefs across Eurasia. Religious belief is often one of the most important and deeply held aspects of personal identity, and people are reluctant to go where they cannot practice their own faith. Therefore, traders who used the Silk Road regularly built shrines and temples of their own faiths in their travels, to maintain their own beliefs and practices of worship while they were far from home. Missionaries of many faiths accompanied caravans on the Silk Road, consciously trying to expand the reach of their own religious persuasion and make converts to their faith. The dynamics of the spread of beliefs along the Silk Road involves a crucial, difference: generally speaking, religions are either proselytising or non-proselytising. In the former case, ethnicity, language, colour, and other physical and cultural differences are taken to be of relatively small importance compared with the common humanity of all believers, and the availability of the faith (and its particular canons of belief, forms of worship and promises of salvation) to all humans everywhere.”7 The Silk Road Today
The Silk Road today is a rich tapestry of tourism destinations and products based on the unique and outstandingly rich heritage, nature, and traditions of dozens of distinct histories, peoples and cultures all along the timeless route now extending a warm welcome to visitors. A modern-day silk worm farm in the small Greek town of Soufli; Egypt’s Red Sea coast where ships from India once unloaded their cargoes of silk and that now boasts some of the finest scuba diving in the world; the Muslim call to prayer from a mosque in the agesold caravan city of Bukhara in Uzbekistan and the still bustling bazaar in the western Chinese city of Xian where Silk Road merchants have haggled for centuries. All these experiences and many, many more await the visitor seeking to capture the magic of the old Silk Road, for adventure travellers who want an active holiday among the stunning natural scenery and tourists eager to witness at first hand the fascinating and exotic local customs. In 1993 the UNWTO initiated a long-term project to organize and promote the Silk Road as a tourism concept. In 1994 representatives from 19 participating nations came together and adopted the historic Samarkand Declaration on the Silk Road Tourism and approved a special logo to be used by all governments, organizations and private sector entities involved. Since then forums and meetings were held and in 2002 the participants adopted the Bukhara Declaration on Silk Road Tourism which stressed the benefits of sustainable tourism and outlined specific steps to stimulate cultural and ecological tourism to Silk Road destinations. A Silk Road
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Tourism Office, hosted by the Uzbek government and with support of UNWTO was opened in Samarkand in 2004. The World Tourism Organization published a Silk Road Tourism brochure in 1997, which was highly appreciated by the countries participating in the UNWTO Silk Road Project. This new brochure presents a mosaic of tourism products, sites and attractions of the Silk Road region as a whole, with the objective of contributing to a better knowledge of its tourism potential.”8 Heritage Cities Xian (CHINA) During 11 dynasties the city of Xian (formerly known as Changán) was the capital of China and is considered by many scholars as the true starting point for the Silk Road on the Asian mainland. From Xian, the route divided into two separate roads so travellers could avoid the often times fatal Taklamakan Desert. According to historians, the first person to travel the Silk Road was Chinese – Zhang Qian – who trekked West in the 2nd century BC to search for military allies against the Huns and returned home 13 years later full of fascinating tales, making him a kind of Marco Polo in reverse. Monuments from the golden days of the great trade route can still be visited today such as the well-preserved ancient city wall and gate towers, as well as the impressive Great Wild Goose Pagoda. Xian’s Shaanxi Provincial Historical Museum boasts a special Silk Road exhibit and the city frequently hosts international Silk Road conferences and meetings. Mashad (IRAN) Religious sites were also destinations for those traversing the Silk Road and the Iranian city of Mashad has long been an important pilgrimage centre for Shiite Muslims from around the world. Long before they reach the city, the devotees can see the golden dome of the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth imam they have come to honour and who was buried here after his death by suspected poisoning in the 9th century. Dazzling mirror work, chased gold and silver designs, marble and intricate tile work decorate the mosque which is visited by an estimated one million pilgrims a year from around the world. Another important site is the turquoise-domed Gowhar Shad Mosque, built by the wife of a Timurid shah in the 15th century. Many visitors to Mashad make the short journey to Toos to visit the tomb of Persia’s finest epic poet, Ferdowsi, or to Neishapur where Omar Khayyam is buried, before visiting the bazaar to purchase one of the fine, locally-made carpets.”9 Nara (JAPAN) Widely recognized as the final eastern terminus of the Silk Road, Nara was the ancient capital of Japan and where the country’s primary sites from that era are located. One of the highlights is the Shosoin Treasure Repository of the Emperor where many valuable pieces such as jewels, silverware, glass work, writing instruments and other artefacts linked to the Silk Road are housed. Another attraction is the Todaiji Temple built in the 8th century and famous for its Great Buddha, the largest bronze statue in the world. Horuji Temple in Nara is one of the oldest temples in Japan and also the oldest wooden structure in the world. Chinese Buddhist priests founded Toshodaiji Temple to introduce Ritsu doctrines to local believers.Nara is also home of the highly-acclaimed Samarkand (UZBEKISTAN)
Samarkand, almost alone among the Silk Road cities, symbolized the mystery and magnificence of the exotic East and Central Asia. Over the centuries it has been the sole inspiration for many travellers to make the dangerous trek along the route and spawned many fascinating tales. Once known as Afrasiab, this city of magnificent turquoise and buff-
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coloured mosques and mausoleums is still one of the treasures of the Silk Road. One of those mausoleums is that of the great and feared conqueror Tamerlane whose capital was Samarkand and from where he and his descendents set out to subdue surrounding lands and peoples to create a true trans-Asian empire. On any must-see list in Samarkand is Registan Square, the Bibi Khanum Mosque, the Shah-I-Zinda mausoleum complex and the Imam Al-Bulahari Mausoleum shrine located just outside the city. Visitors today also throng Samarkand’s famous bazaars to buy handicrafts and other traditional mitems from the region. The city was the site of the Samarkand Declaration on Silk Road Tourism in 1994. Peshawar (PAKISTAN Silk Road travellers arriving from the West and from Central Asia passed through the fabled Khyber Pass and nearby Peshawar on their way to South Asia. In those days the city’s bazaars were fascinating hubs of commercial activity and remain so today with shops offering silk, samovars, priceless rugs, spices, leather, gold and silver, just as they have for centuries. Housed in a building dating from the British Raj, Peshawar Museum contains some of the finest works of the Ghandara civilization which flourished centuries before Christ, including sculptures, terracotta figurines and everyday objects, as well as a mammoth standing Buddha. There are also fine displays of Islamic and tribal artifacts. One of the city’s most impressive sights for generations of visitors is the Bala Hisaar Fort at the eastern approach to Peshawar. The fortress’ origins are lost in the mists of time but it was described by the early Chinese voyager Hsuan Tsang and is today a military headquarters. harem; the stunning Blue Mosque, decorated with the famous Iznik tiles, and a host of palaces, baths and churches. The glory days of the Silk Road are recalled in the Covered Bazaar, considered the largest such market in the world‖10 Conclusion The Silk Roads or even of the many different societies through which they passed. The main result of exploring the trans-ecological as well as the trans-civilization exchanges that occurred along the Silk Roads is to show that the exchanges mediated by the Silk Roads were older and more extensive than is suggested in the conventional accounts. If this argument is accepted, it has immense significance for our understanding of the history of the entire Afro-Eurasian landmass. For it suggests that the different regions of Afro Eurasia—the regions of agrarian civilization, as well as those of pastoralism or woodland foraging cultures—exchanged ideas, languages, goods, cultural motifs, and perhaps also disease vectors, much more vigorously and for a much longer period than is usually appreciated. This conclusion reinforces the claim of Frank and Gills that the entire Afro-Eurasian world belonged to a single world-system, perhaps since early in the second millennium B.C.E. And this suggests, as Hodgson argued long ago and Frank has recently argued in ReOrient, that it may be a profound mistake to focus primarily—as does the traditional historiography of Eurasia—on the various component regions or ―civilizations‖ of Eurasia. Instead, to understand the history of each of these parts, it is necessary to see that there is, underlying them, a single Afro- Eurasian history, which is distinct from the history of other major world zones, such as the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, or Oceania. For Afro- Eurasian societies shared many important things as a result of the exchanges that occurred along the Silk Roads
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Not and References
1. David Christian, ―Silk Roads or Steppe Roads? The Silk Roads in World History.‖ Journal of World History 11, no. 1 (2000): 1–26.
2. Life Along the Silk Road by Susan Whitfield
3. The Mummies of Urumchi by Elizabeth Wayland Barber
4. Christian, David, Silk Roads or Steppe Roads? The Silk Roads in World History, Journal of World History, Vol. 11, 2000.
5. Falconer, Colin, Silk Road, Corvus, 2011
6. Hopkirk, Peter, Foreign Devils on The Silk Road, OUP, 1980
7. UNESCO Mission to The Chinese Silk Road as World Cultural Heritage Route, 2003
8. See A. G. Frank, and B. K. Gills, eds., The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand? (New York: Routledge, 1992); Frank has extended this argument to the modern era in ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
9. William H. McNeill, “World History and the Rise and Fall of the West,” Journal of World History 9 (1998): 215–36; Jerry H. Bentley, ―Hemispheric Integration, 500–1500 B.C.E.,‖ Journal of World History (1998): 237–54.
10. Peter Hopkirk, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Treasures of Central Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980).
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THE SILK ROADS IN WORLD HISTORY PAST AND TODAY SURJEET SINGH WARWAL JUNIOR RESEARCH FELLOW DEPARTMENT OF HINDI DR. HARI SINGH GOUR CENTRAL UNIVERSITY, SAGAR, M.P. ABTRACT:
The Silk Roads have normally been treated as a system of exchanges linking the major regions of agrarian civilization in Afro-Eurasia, and as originating in the classical era. This paper focuses on the many transecological exchanges that occurred along the Silk Roads, which linked the agrarian worlds to the pastoralist world of the Inner Eurasian steppes and the woodland cultures to the north. It argues that these trans-ecological exchanges have been as important to the history of the Silk Roads as the more familiar trans-civilizational exchanges. The main aim of study is to exploring the trans-ecological as well as the trans-civilization exchanges that occurred along the Silk Roads are to show that the exchanges mediated by the Silk Roads were older and more extensive than is suggested in the conventional accounts. KEY WORDS: Silk roads, historic exhibition. Secrets Revealed….For the first time three well-preserved mummies from the Tarim Basin in western China are presented in the United States. Secrets of the Silk Road offers the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to come face to face with Yingpan Man, an actual Silk Road trader, who lived at the zenith of exchange between East and West - his lavish tomb goods and personal belongings included Roman glass, bow and arrows for protection, a satin perfumed sash and fine silk clothing. Encounter The Beauty of Xiaohe, a Bronze Age Caucasian mummy whose origin, culture and fate remains a mystery; but whose existence extends the history of the Silk Road back over 2000 years and redefines the ancient world.”1 This historic exhibition of over 150 objects comes from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum and the Xinjiang Institute of Archaeology in Urumqi, China and includes beautiful clothing and textiles, wooden and bone implements, coins, documents and jewel encrusted objects that reflect the full extent of Silk Road trade from China to the Mediterranean. Step back in time and experience the convergence of ancient civilizations.
The Silk Roads have normally been treated as a system of exchanges linking the major regions of agrarian civilization in Afro-Eurasia, and as originating in the classical era. This paper focuses on the many transecological exchanges that occurred along the Silk Roads, which linked the agrarian worlds to the pastoralist world of the Inner Eurasian steppes and the woodland cultures to the north. It argues that these trans-ecological exchanges have been as important to the history of the Silk Roads as the more familiar trans-civilizational exchanges. A clear understanding of these transecological exchanges suggests that the Silk Roads should be seen as a complex network of exchanges that linked different ecological zones of the Afro-Eurasian landmass into a single system. It also suggests that the Silk Roads were much older than is usually recognized, that their real origins lie in the emergence of Inner Eurasian pastoralism from the fourth millennium B.C.E. The paper explores the prehistory of the Silk Roads; reexamines their structure and history in the classical era; and
GALAXY International Interdisciplinary Research Journal_______________________ ISSN 2347-6915
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explores shifts in their geography in the last thousand years. It concludes that a revised understanding of the role and history of the Silk Roads shows the extent to which the entire Afro-Eurasian landmass has been linked by complex Networks of exchange since at least the Bronze Age. It reminds us that Afro- Eurasia has a common history despite the ecological and cultural variety of its many different regions.”2 What was the Silk Road? The Silk Road was a huge network of trade routes that connected the many different civilizations of Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Europe. Today, people can easily go from countries as far apart as China and Italy, but for the people of the Silk Road period, nearly 2000 years ago, it was the only international road that existed. The Silk Road connected travelers, merchants, soldiers, missionaries, pilgrims, and traders from places as far apart as Ancient China, Persia, India, Arabia and even Rome! The Silk Road was one of the only ways for the people of these ancient regions to trade ideas, technology, religion, and goods. Where was the Silk Road? The Silk Road wasn’t just one straight road. It was actually made up of many different routes that were connected. Most of the Silk Road was on land, and people travelled on it by caravan using horses and camels. A few of the routes were maritime (ocean) routes, and the only way to travel those parts was by boat! While the majority of the Silk Road was located in Asia, the Middle East, and India, some of it did extend to parts of Africa, and some even went as far as Europe! A History of Silk Sericulture or silk production has a long history unknown to many people. For centuries, the West knew very little about silk and the people who made it. For more than 2,000 years the Chinese kept the secret of silk to themselves. Chinese legend gives the title Goddess of Silk to Lady Hsi-Ling-Shih, wife of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), who was said to have ruled China in about 3000 BC. She is credited with the introduction of silkworm rearing and the invention of the loom. Half a silkworm cocoon unearthed in 1927 from the loess soil near the Yellow River in Shanxi Province, in northern China, has been dated between 2600 and 2300 BC. There are many indigenous varieties of wild silk moths found in a number of different countries. The mystery and magic of silk, and China’s domination of its production and promotion, lies with one species: the blind, flightless moth Bombyx Mori. It lays 500 or more eggs in four to six days and dies soon after. The eggs are the size of pinpoints – 100 of them weigh only one gram. From one gram of eggs come about 10,000 worms, which after eating a ton of mulberry leaves, produce four kilograms of raw silk. Over the thousands of years that the Chinese have practiced sericulture utilising all the different types of silk moths known to them, Bombyx Mori has evolved into the specialised silk producer it is today: a moth that has lost its power to fly, only capable of mating and producing eggs for the next generation of silk producers. To produce high quality silk, there are two conditions that need to be fulfilled: preventing the moth from hatching out and perfecting the diet on which the silkworms should feed. The Chinese developed secret ways for both. The eggs must be kept at 18°C, increasing gradually to 25°C at which point they hatch. After the eggs hatch, the baby worms feed day and night every half hour on fresh, hand-picked and chopped, mulberry leaves until they are very fat; a fixed temperature has to be maintained throughout. Thousands of feeding worms are kept on trays that are stacked one on top of another. The newly-hatched silkworm multiplies its weight 10,000 times within a month, changing colour and shedding its whitish–gray skin several times.”3
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The silkworms feed until they have stored up enough energy to enter the cocoon stage. While they are growing they have to be protected from loud noises, drafts and strong smells. When it is time to build their cocoons, the worms produce a jelly-like substance in their silk glands, which hardens when it comes into contact with air. Silkworms spend three or four days spinning a cocoon around them until they look like puffy white balls. After eight or nine days in a warm, dry place the cocoons are ready to be unwound. First, they are steamed or baked to kill the worms, or pupas. The cocoons are then dipped into hot water to loosen the tightly woven filaments. These filaments are unwound onto a spool. Each cocoon is made up of a filament between 600 and 900
The battle of Carrhae 53BC Within decades, Chinese silks became widely worn by the rich and noble families of Rome, soon spreading to other classes. The craving for silk continued to increase over the centuries, keeping its price very high. At one stage the best Chinese silk cost as much as 300 denarii (a Roman soldier’s salary for an entire year!). Silk reached the West through a number of different channels. Shortly after 300 AD, sericulture travelled westward and the cultivation of the silkworm was established in India. Then, around AD 550, two Nestorian Christian monks appeared at the Byzantine Emperor Justinian’s court with silkworm eggs hidden in their hollow bamboo staves. Under their supervision, the eggs hatched into worms, and the worms spun cocoons. The Byzantine silk industry undercut the market for ordinary-grade Chinese silk. By the 6th century the Persians, too, had mastered the art of silk weaving, developing their own rich patterns and techniques. It was only in the 13th century that Italy began silk production, with the introduction of 2,000 skilled silk weavers from Constantinople. Eventually, silk production became widespread in Europe and in the 18th century Lyon in France was known as the silk capital of the world.”4 The Silk Roads in World History
Modern historiography has not fully appreciated the ecological complexity of the Silk Roads. As a result, it has failed to understand their antiquity, or to grasp their full importance in Eurasian history. The role played by the Silk Roads in exchanging goods, technologies, and ideas between regions of agrarian civilization is well understood. Less well understood is the
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transecological role of the Silk Roads—the fact that they also exchanged goods and ideas between the pastoralist and agrarian worlds. The second of these systems of exchange, though less well known, predated the more familiar ―transcivilizational‖ exchanges, and was equally integral to the functioning of the entire system. A clear awareness of this system of trans-ecological exchanges should force us to revise our understanding of the age, the significance, and the geography of the Silk Roads. Further, an appreciation of the double role of the Silk Roads affects our understanding of the history of the entire Afro-Eurasian region. The many trans-ecological exchanges mediated by the Silk Roads linked all regions of the Afro-Eurasian landmass, from its agrarian civilizations to its many stateless communities of woodland foragers and steppe pastoralists, into a single system of exchanges that is several millennia old. As a result, despite its great diversity, the history of Afro-Eurasia has always preserved an underlying unity, which was expressed in common technologies, styles, cultures, and religions, even disease patterns. The extent of this unity can best be appreciated by contrasting the history of Afro-Eurasia with that of pre- Columbian America. World historians are becoming increasingly aware of the underlying unity of Afro-Eurasian history. Andre Gunder Frank and Barry Gills have argued that the entire Afro-Eurasian region belonged to a single ―world-system‖ from perhaps as early as 2000 B.C.E.1 And William McNeill and Jerry Bentley have recently restated the case for a unified Afro-Eurasian history.But Marshall Hodgson had made the same point as early as the 1950s, when he argued that ―historical life, from early times at least till two or three centuries ago, was continuous across the Afro-Eurasian zone of civilization; that zone was ultimately indivisible… The whole of the Afro-Eurasian zone is the only context large enough to provide a framework for answering the more general and more basic historical questions that can arise.‖ This paper argues that the Silk Roads played a fundamental role in creating and sustaining the unity of Afro-Eurasian history. It counts as one more attempt by a historian interested in ―world history‖ to tease out the larger historical significance of the Silk Roads.”5 The Great Silk Exchange: How the World was Connected and Developed The history of the silk trade evokes images of another well-known historical entity: the Silk Road, the famous overland route that traversed the heartland of the Eurasian continent. The term Silk Road (die Seidenstrasse) was a term coined by the 19th century German explorer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen. Although silk was perhaps the most important commodity that traveled along the Road, others such as precious metals and stones, spices, porcelain and textiles also passed through. However, the Silk Road was perhaps more significantly an avenue for the exchange of ideas. Some of the most fundamental ideas and technologies in the world – the technology of making paper, printing, and manufacturing gunpowder, among many others – made their way across Asia via this highway. Migrants, merchants, explorers, pilgrims, refugees, and soldiers brought along with them religious and cultural ideas, domesticated animals, plants, flowers, vegetables, fruit, plagues and disease, as they joined this gigantic cross-continental exchange. The Silk Road, as so rightfully claimed, was the melting pot, the lifeline of the Eurasian Continent (Franck and Brownstone 1986: 2; Werblowsky 1988). In East Asia, Silk Road has long been enshrined as a symbol of cross-cultural exchanges of religions, commodities and technology.”6 Religions and Belief Systems
The religious beliefs of the peoples of the Silk Road changed radically over time, largely due to the effects of travel and trade on the Silk Road. When China defeated the nomadic Xiong’nu confederation and pushed Chinese military control north-west as far as the Tarim Basin (in the 2nd century BC), Buddhism was known in Central Asia but was not yet
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widespread in China and had not reached elsewhere in East Asia. The founding of Christianity was still more than a century away and Islam more than 7 centuries in the future. the Silk Road in its early decades followed many different religions, mostly pagan. Jewish merchants and other settlers had spread beyond the borders of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judea and had established their own places of worship in towns and cities throughout the region. In Persia and Central Asia, many people were adherents of Zoroastrianism, a religion founded by the Persian sage Zoroaster in the 6th century BC. It posited a struggle between good and evil, light and darkness; its use of fire as the symbol of the purifying power of good was probably borrowed from the Brahmanism of ancient India. By the 1st century BC, the Greek colonies of Central Asia that had been left behind after the collapse of the empire of Alexander the Great had largely converted from Greco-Roman paganism to Buddhism, a religion that would soon use the Silk Road to spread far and wide. In India, on side routes of the Silk Road that crossed the passes to the Indus Valley and beyond, the older religion of Brahmanism had given way to Hinduism and Buddhism; the former never spread far beyond India and Southeast Asia, while the latter eventually extended worldwide. In China, there was, as yet, no official state cult of Confucius, no Buddhism, and no organised religious Daoism. For 2,000 years the Silk Road was a network of roads for the travel and dissemination of religious beliefs across Eurasia. Religious belief is often one of the most important and deeply held aspects of personal identity, and people are reluctant to go where they cannot practice their own faith. Therefore, traders who used the Silk Road regularly built shrines and temples of their own faiths in their travels, to maintain their own beliefs and practices of worship while they were far from home. Missionaries of many faiths accompanied caravans on the Silk Road, consciously trying to expand the reach of their own religious persuasion and make converts to their faith. The dynamics of the spread of beliefs along the Silk Road involves a crucial, difference: generally speaking, religions are either proselytising or non-proselytising. In the former case, ethnicity, language, colour, and other physical and cultural differences are taken to be of relatively small importance compared with the common humanity of all believers, and the availability of the faith (and its particular canons of belief, forms of worship and promises of salvation) to all humans everywhere.”7 The Silk Road Today
The Silk Road today is a rich tapestry of tourism destinations and products based on the unique and outstandingly rich heritage, nature, and traditions of dozens of distinct histories, peoples and cultures all along the timeless route now extending a warm welcome to visitors. A modern-day silk worm farm in the small Greek town of Soufli; Egypt’s Red Sea coast where ships from India once unloaded their cargoes of silk and that now boasts some of the finest scuba diving in the world; the Muslim call to prayer from a mosque in the agesold caravan city of Bukhara in Uzbekistan and the still bustling bazaar in the western Chinese city of Xian where Silk Road merchants have haggled for centuries. All these experiences and many, many more await the visitor seeking to capture the magic of the old Silk Road, for adventure travellers who want an active holiday among the stunning natural scenery and tourists eager to witness at first hand the fascinating and exotic local customs. In 1993 the UNWTO initiated a long-term project to organize and promote the Silk Road as a tourism concept. In 1994 representatives from 19 participating nations came together and adopted the historic Samarkand Declaration on the Silk Road Tourism and approved a special logo to be used by all governments, organizations and private sector entities involved. Since then forums and meetings were held and in 2002 the participants adopted the Bukhara Declaration on Silk Road Tourism which stressed the benefits of sustainable tourism and outlined specific steps to stimulate cultural and ecological tourism to Silk Road destinations. A Silk Road
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Tourism Office, hosted by the Uzbek government and with support of UNWTO was opened in Samarkand in 2004. The World Tourism Organization published a Silk Road Tourism brochure in 1997, which was highly appreciated by the countries participating in the UNWTO Silk Road Project. This new brochure presents a mosaic of tourism products, sites and attractions of the Silk Road region as a whole, with the objective of contributing to a better knowledge of its tourism potential.”8 Heritage Cities Xian (CHINA) During 11 dynasties the city of Xian (formerly known as Changán) was the capital of China and is considered by many scholars as the true starting point for the Silk Road on the Asian mainland. From Xian, the route divided into two separate roads so travellers could avoid the often times fatal Taklamakan Desert. According to historians, the first person to travel the Silk Road was Chinese – Zhang Qian – who trekked West in the 2nd century BC to search for military allies against the Huns and returned home 13 years later full of fascinating tales, making him a kind of Marco Polo in reverse. Monuments from the golden days of the great trade route can still be visited today such as the well-preserved ancient city wall and gate towers, as well as the impressive Great Wild Goose Pagoda. Xian’s Shaanxi Provincial Historical Museum boasts a special Silk Road exhibit and the city frequently hosts international Silk Road conferences and meetings. Mashad (IRAN) Religious sites were also destinations for those traversing the Silk Road and the Iranian city of Mashad has long been an important pilgrimage centre for Shiite Muslims from around the world. Long before they reach the city, the devotees can see the golden dome of the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth imam they have come to honour and who was buried here after his death by suspected poisoning in the 9th century. Dazzling mirror work, chased gold and silver designs, marble and intricate tile work decorate the mosque which is visited by an estimated one million pilgrims a year from around the world. Another important site is the turquoise-domed Gowhar Shad Mosque, built by the wife of a Timurid shah in the 15th century. Many visitors to Mashad make the short journey to Toos to visit the tomb of Persia’s finest epic poet, Ferdowsi, or to Neishapur where Omar Khayyam is buried, before visiting the bazaar to purchase one of the fine, locally-made carpets.”9 Nara (JAPAN) Widely recognized as the final eastern terminus of the Silk Road, Nara was the ancient capital of Japan and where the country’s primary sites from that era are located. One of the highlights is the Shosoin Treasure Repository of the Emperor where many valuable pieces such as jewels, silverware, glass work, writing instruments and other artefacts linked to the Silk Road are housed. Another attraction is the Todaiji Temple built in the 8th century and famous for its Great Buddha, the largest bronze statue in the world. Horuji Temple in Nara is one of the oldest temples in Japan and also the oldest wooden structure in the world. Chinese Buddhist priests founded Toshodaiji Temple to introduce Ritsu doctrines to local believers.Nara is also home of the highly-acclaimed Samarkand (UZBEKISTAN)
Samarkand, almost alone among the Silk Road cities, symbolized the mystery and magnificence of the exotic East and Central Asia. Over the centuries it has been the sole inspiration for many travellers to make the dangerous trek along the route and spawned many fascinating tales. Once known as Afrasiab, this city of magnificent turquoise and buff-
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coloured mosques and mausoleums is still one of the treasures of the Silk Road. One of those mausoleums is that of the great and feared conqueror Tamerlane whose capital was Samarkand and from where he and his descendents set out to subdue surrounding lands and peoples to create a true trans-Asian empire. On any must-see list in Samarkand is Registan Square, the Bibi Khanum Mosque, the Shah-I-Zinda mausoleum complex and the Imam Al-Bulahari Mausoleum shrine located just outside the city. Visitors today also throng Samarkand’s famous bazaars to buy handicrafts and other traditional mitems from the region. The city was the site of the Samarkand Declaration on Silk Road Tourism in 1994. Peshawar (PAKISTAN Silk Road travellers arriving from the West and from Central Asia passed through the fabled Khyber Pass and nearby Peshawar on their way to South Asia. In those days the city’s bazaars were fascinating hubs of commercial activity and remain so today with shops offering silk, samovars, priceless rugs, spices, leather, gold and silver, just as they have for centuries. Housed in a building dating from the British Raj, Peshawar Museum contains some of the finest works of the Ghandara civilization which flourished centuries before Christ, including sculptures, terracotta figurines and everyday objects, as well as a mammoth standing Buddha. There are also fine displays of Islamic and tribal artifacts. One of the city’s most impressive sights for generations of visitors is the Bala Hisaar Fort at the eastern approach to Peshawar. The fortress’ origins are lost in the mists of time but it was described by the early Chinese voyager Hsuan Tsang and is today a military headquarters. harem; the stunning Blue Mosque, decorated with the famous Iznik tiles, and a host of palaces, baths and churches. The glory days of the Silk Road are recalled in the Covered Bazaar, considered the largest such market in the world‖10 Conclusion The Silk Roads or even of the many different societies through which they passed. The main result of exploring the trans-ecological as well as the trans-civilization exchanges that occurred along the Silk Roads is to show that the exchanges mediated by the Silk Roads were older and more extensive than is suggested in the conventional accounts. If this argument is accepted, it has immense significance for our understanding of the history of the entire Afro-Eurasian landmass. For it suggests that the different regions of Afro Eurasia—the regions of agrarian civilization, as well as those of pastoralism or woodland foraging cultures—exchanged ideas, languages, goods, cultural motifs, and perhaps also disease vectors, much more vigorously and for a much longer period than is usually appreciated. This conclusion reinforces the claim of Frank and Gills that the entire Afro-Eurasian world belonged to a single world-system, perhaps since early in the second millennium B.C.E. And this suggests, as Hodgson argued long ago and Frank has recently argued in ReOrient, that it may be a profound mistake to focus primarily—as does the traditional historiography of Eurasia—on the various component regions or ―civilizations‖ of Eurasia. Instead, to understand the history of each of these parts, it is necessary to see that there is, underlying them, a single Afro- Eurasian history, which is distinct from the history of other major world zones, such as the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, or Oceania. For Afro- Eurasian societies shared many important things as a result of the exchanges that occurred along the Silk Roads
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Not and References
1. David Christian, ―Silk Roads or Steppe Roads? The Silk Roads in World History.‖ Journal of World History 11, no. 1 (2000): 1–26.
2. Life Along the Silk Road by Susan Whitfield
3. The Mummies of Urumchi by Elizabeth Wayland Barber
4. Christian, David, Silk Roads or Steppe Roads? The Silk Roads in World History, Journal of World History, Vol. 11, 2000.
5. Falconer, Colin, Silk Road, Corvus, 2011
6. Hopkirk, Peter, Foreign Devils on The Silk Road, OUP, 1980
7. UNESCO Mission to The Chinese Silk Road as World Cultural Heritage Route, 2003
8. See A. G. Frank, and B. K. Gills, eds., The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand? (New York: Routledge, 1992); Frank has extended this argument to the modern era in ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
9. William H. McNeill, “World History and the Rise and Fall of the West,” Journal of World History 9 (1998): 215–36; Jerry H. Bentley, ―Hemispheric Integration, 500–1500 B.C.E.,‖ Journal of World History (1998): 237–54.
10. Peter Hopkirk, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Treasures of Central Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980).
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