Teaching about the Silk Roads

Myth, Mystery, and Mayhem

Map of the Ancient Silk Roads

Map of China

Conduit between East and West

• Commercial trade goods

• Travelers of all kinds

• Migrations of peoples

• Armies and conquests

• Inventions and discoveries

• Ideas and religions

• Art, culture, and music

Central Asian Oud

The Chinese Pipa

Japanese Satsuma Biwa, played with Plectrum

Renaissance Lute

Geography

• Multiple environments on the silk roads

• Relation of environment to life style

• Population constraints and problems

Steppelands: what kind of life do they allow?

Nomads and their portable home, the yurt

Bactrian camels: The workhorses of the Silk Roads

A camel can carry 1,000lbs and go 15 days without water

Sheep are the basis of life in the desert and steppe

Horses: transport, trade and war

What kind of life is there in the desert?

Entrance to a karez: underground water system

Karez system: lifeblood of the Silk Roads

What kind of life does one have in the mountains?

Yaks: Carrying loads in the mountains

Inventions on the Silk Roads:The stirrup and the cross bow

The Mystery of Silk

From worm to cocoon

Unreeling the thread

And finally, cloth

Chinese inventions that changed the world

Chinese porcelain

Inventions the Chinese Borrowed: Glassware and the Chair

Travelers on the Silk Roads

• Zhang Qian• Fa Xian• Xuan Zang• Genghis Khan• Marco Polo• Ibn Battuta• Aurel Stein• Mildred French

Zhang Qian’s Route

Buddhist Pilgrim Fa Xian

• Description of the Taklamakan desert• In this desert there are great many evil

spirits and hot winds; those who encounter them perish to a man. There are neither birds above nor beasts below. Gazing on all sides as far as the eye can reach in order to mark the track, no guidance is to be obtained save from the rotting bones of dead men, which point the way."

Buddhist Pilgrim Xuan Zang

World conqueror Genghis Khan

Marco Polo

Muslim Traveler Ibn Battuta

“Foreign Devils” on the Silk RoadAurel Stein and others

Foreign Devil on the Silk Road

• Aurel Stein

Mildred Cable

• Missionaries on the Silk Road

Migrations of peoples

• Mummies of Loulan

Groups traveled East to West and West to East

• Yuezhi• Xiong Nu• Kitan• Turkish groups • (Uyghurs, Kazaks, • Usbeks, Turks, etc)• Mongols• Chinese

• Persians• Arabs• Russians

Conquerors on the Silk Road

• Xiong Nu (Huns)• Mongols• Alexander the Great• Tibetans• Arabs• Turkic Tribes• Russians• Chinese

Xiong Nu or Huns

Genghis and the Mongol Conquests

Alexander the Great

Tibetan Armies

Arab Islamic armies conquer silk road nations

The Great Game: Russians, Chinese and British struggle over

“Chinese Turkistan”

Religions on the Silk Road

• Zoroastrianism

• Nestorian Christianity

• Manichaeism

• Buddhism

• Islam

Zoroastriaism

Nestorian Christianity

Manichaeism

Buddhism

Dunhuang oasis

Cave temple front

Temple entrance

Buddha and Attendants

Dunhuang wall painting

Heavenly musicians

Boddhisattva playing the Harp

Apsara with Harp

Heavenly kings of the North and South

Heavenly Kings of the West and East

Buddhist chanting

Monk and Lay Person

Islam

• Emin Minaret

Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar

Great Mosque of Xi’an

Dongguan mosque in Xining

Dongguan mosque #2

Niujie (Ox Street) Mosque

Islamic Recitations

• . TRANSLATION OF THE

CALL TO PRAYER• God is most great. God is most great.

God is most great. God is most great.I testify that there is no God except God.I testify that there is no God except God.I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God.I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God.Come to prayer! Come to prayer!Come to success! Come to success!God is most great. God is most great.There is none worthy of worship except God.

Mosque in Herat

Calligraphy

Non-representational art of Islam