Networks of Communication and Exchange

300 B.C.E. – 1100 C.E.

Chapter 7

Part One:The Silk Road

Map of Silk RoadPart 1: The Silk Road

Map of Silk RoadPart 1: The Silk Road

http://intranet.dalton.org/groups/rome/RMap2.html-

A. Origins and Operations

Overland route that linked China to the Mediterranean world via Mesopotamia, Iran, and Central Asia.

Two periods of heavy use:150 B.C.E. – 907 C.E.

Thirteenth through seventeenth centuries C.E.

Regular large-scale trade needed to provide Chinese with western products.

Part 1: The Silk Road

B. Imports and Exports

Chinese imported:Alfalfa

Grapes

New crops

Medicinal products

Metals

Precious stones

Chinese exported:Peaches

Apricots

Spices

Silk

Pottery

Paper

Part 1: The Silk Road

C. Impact of the Silk Road Trade

Turkic nomads benefited from the trade

Their elites constructed houses, lived in settled villages, and became interested in foreign religions.

Part 1: The Silk Road

D. Military Technologies

Central Asian military technologies like the stirrup were exported east and west.

This significantly impacted the conduct of war at this time.

Part 1: The Silk Road

Part Two:Indian Ocean Maritime System

A. Introduction

Linked lands bordering the Indian Ocean basin and the South China Sea.

Trade took place in 3 distinct regions:South China Sea

Southeast Asia to the east coast of India

West coast of India to the Persian Gulf and East Africa

Part 2: Indian O. Maritime System

Made possible by and followed the patterns of seasonal changes in the monsoon winds.Sailing technology included lateen sail and new shipbuilding techniques.Because distances traveled were longer than in the Mediterranean, traders in these systems did not maintain political ties to homelands.

Part 2: Indian O. Maritime System

A. Introduction

Lateen Sail

Part 2: Indian O. Maritime System

B. Origins of Contact and Trade

Evidence of early trade between ancient Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.Trade appears to have broken off as Mesopotamia turned more toward trade with East Africa.Two thousand years ago, Malay sailors migrated to Madagascar.

Did not maintain ties to homeland.

Part 2: Indian O. Maritime System

C. Impact of Indian Ocean Trade

What we know about it comes from The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea.

States goods traded included a wide variety of spices, aromatic resins, pearls Chinese pottery, and other luxury goods.

Volume of trade was not as high as in the Mediterranean.

Culture of ports was different then culture in their homelands, causing the development of different customs.

Part 2: Indian O. Maritime System

Part Three:Routes Across the Sahara

A. Early Saharan Cultures

Evidence of an early Saharan hunting culture that was later joined by cattle breeders who looked like contemporary West Africans.Artwork indicates that the cattle breeders were later succeeded by horse herders who drove chariots.Other artwork indicates that camel riders came after charioteers.

Camel was probably related to development of trans-Saharan trade.South to north diffusion of camel riding.

Part 3: Routes Across the Sahara

Sahara Rock Wall PaintingPart 3: Routes Across the Sahara

Other Sahara Rock Wall PaintingPart 3: Routes Across the Sahara

B. Trade Across the Sahara

Developed slowly when 2 local trade systems linked.

Southern Sahara had salt and exported to sub-Saharan regions for kola nuts and palm oil.

Traders in north exported agricultural products and wild animals to Italy.

Part 3: Routes Across the Sahara

B.1. Invasion and Revolt

When Rome declined and the Arabs invaded North Africa (mid-7th century C.E.), trade of Algeria and Morocco was cut off.

Berber people of these areas revolted against the Arabs in the 700s and established independent city-states including Sijilmasa and Tahert.

Part 3: Routes Across the Sahara

B.2. The Berbers

After 740 the Berbers found that the southern nomads were getting gold dust from the Niger and other areas of West Africa in exchange for their salt.A pattern of trade then developed in which the Berbers of North Africa traded copper and manufactured goods to the nomads of the southern desert in return for gold.

Part 3: Routes Across the Sahara

B.3. Kingdom of Ghana

One of the early sub-Saharan beneficiaries of this new trans-Saharan trade.

First description of kingdom is the eleventh century account by al-Bakri.

Described a city of two towns, Muslim merchant town and capital of animist king and his court.

After 1076, Ghana was weakened by invasion of Moroccan Almorovids.

Even after Almorovid retreat, Ghana never recovered.

Part 3: Routes Across the Sahara

Kingdom of Ghana Artwork

Part 3: Routes Across the Sahara

Part Four:Sub-Saharan Africa

A. Geography

Large area with many different environmental zone and many geographical obstacles to movement.

Significant geographical areas:Sahel

Tropical Savanna

Tropical Rainforest

Temperate highlands

Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa

B. Development of Cultural Unity

African cultures are highly diverse.

Estimated 2,000 languages spoken on continent.

Numerous food production systems.

Difficulty in communication and trade between groups.

No foreign power was able to conquer Africa and impose a unified culture.

Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa

C. African Cultural Characteristics

African cultures display certain common features that attest to an underlying cultural unity that some scholars have called “Africanity.”One concept was a kingship in which kings were isolated and oversee societies in which the people are arranged in age groups and kinship divisions.

Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa

C. More Characteristics

Other common features include:Cultivation with hoe and digging stick

Use of rhythms in African music

Functions of dancing and mask wearing in rituals

Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa

D. Advent of Iron

Sub-Saharan agriculture had its origins north of the equator and then spread southward.

Iron working also began north of the equator and spread to southern Africa by 800 C.E.

Caused by the Bantu Migrations.

Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan African Iron Work

Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa

E. Bantu Migrations

Original homeland of the Bantu people was in the area on the border of modern Nigeria and Cameroon.Suggests that Bantu people spread out toward the east and south through a series of migrations over the period of the first millennium C.E.By the eighth century, Bantu-speaking people had reached East Africa.

Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa

Bantu Migrations MapPart 4: Sub-Saharan Africa

Part Five:The Spread of Ideas

A. Ideas and Material Evidence

Very hard to trace dissemination of ideas in preliterate societies.

Invention of coins – created in Anatolia and spread to Europe, North Africa, and India.

China made cast copper coins – was this inspired by the Anatolian example?

Part 5: Spread of Ideas

B. Spread of Religion

Spread of ideas in a deliberate and organized fashion such that we can trace it is a phenomenon of the first millennium C.E.

Case with spread of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam

Part 5: Spread of Ideas

B.1. Spread of Buddhism

Facilitated both by royal sponsorship and by the travels of ordinary pilgrims and missionaries.In India, Mauryan king Ashoka and King Kanishka of the Kushans supported Buddhism.Buddhist missionaries from India traveled to a variety of destinations:

West to Syria, Egypt, and MesopotamiaAlso went to Sri Lanka, southeast Asia, and Tibet

Part 5: Spread of Ideas

B.1. Buddhism Continued

Buddhism changed and further developed as it spread.

Theraveda Buddhism became dominant in Sri Lanka

Mahayana Buddhism in Tibet

Chan (Zen) Buddhism in East Asia

Part 5: Spread of Ideas

Bodhieattva at BarnianPart 5: Spread of Ideas

Carved into the side of a cliff at Bamiam, this was one of two monumental Buddhist sculptures near the top of a high mountain pass connecting Kabul, Afghanistan, with the northern parts of the country. Carved in the sixth or seventh century, the sculptures were surrounded by cave dwellings of monks and rock sanctuaries, some dating to the first century B.C.E. (Ian

Griffiths/Robert Harding Picture Library)

B.2. Spread of Christianity

Armenia was an important trading center for the Silk Road.

Mediterranean states spread Christianity to Armenia in order to bring that kingdom over to its side and thus deprive Iran of control of this area.

The transmission of Christianity to Ethiopia was similarly linked to a Mediterranean Christian attempt to deprive Iran of trade.

Part 5: Spread of Ideas