The Silk Road

A Silk Road has this name due to the fact that silk was a fabric manufactured only by the Chinese, during the Antique.

As a result, this product became intensely coveted by people in the West who were willing to pay high prices for the yarn.

The Silk Road involved several routes that connected South Asia to the East and Europe. Used to trade various products, it enabled an intense cultural exchange.

What was the Silk Road?

The Silk Road was one of the most famous religious and trade routes in the world. This route was already known by merchants, monarchs, adventurers, soldiers and clerics who traveled it on the back of animals or on foot.

With more than seven thousand kilometers, the Silk Road linked the Syrian portion of the Mediterranean Sea to Xiang, in China.

This path was fundamental during the Prehistory, in the process of spreading the first human groups of Africa to other regions of the world, mainly Asia It is Oceania.

Thousands of years later, this same path was used by Indo-Europeans to access the Middle East. This migration originated the Semitic peoples (Arabs and Jews).

The unification of the territory, commanded by the Persian Empire in the 6th century BC. C., marked the beginning of commercial activities undertaken thanks to this access route.

With that, merchants of the time transported the most varied goods that would be sold to different peoples.

Some merchants did not cross the entire Silk Road, so there were cities that housed these people in parts of the route.

The intense movement of people caused by trade made such activity influence the economic, social and political scenario of this extensive territory.

The invasion of Huns in the 3rd and 4th centuries marked the least secure phase for the movement of merchants.

During the 8th century, the Silk Road came under the control of the Arabs who dominated Persia.

Mongol military rule largely contributed to maintaining the circulation of merchants in the route, based on the collection of taxes that allowed merchants to circulate freely through the path.

The closure of the Silk Road boosted, in addition to Great Navigations, the formation of new maritime trade routes that broke the oceans It is continents.

Learn more at:

• Portuguese maritime expansion
• Spanish maritime expansion
• European maritime expansion