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Learn about the geography of the Silk Road and the different goods that were traded across continents.
What if getting a new shirt or a tasty snack meant traveling across dangerous deserts and giant mountains for two whole years? Long before airplanes, the Silk Road connected the world like a giant spiderweb of adventure!
The Silk Road wasn't actually a single paved road. Instead, it was a massive network of trade routes stretching over 4,000 miles! It connected the powerful Han Dynasty in China to the Roman Empire in the West. Imagine a giant relay race where the 'baton' is a bag of gold or a roll of fabric, passed from merchant to merchant across an entire continent. This network allowed different cultures to share things they couldn't find at home, linking the East and the West for the first time in history.
Quick Check
If you started at the easternmost end of the Silk Road, which country would you be in?
Answer
China
While silk was the most famous export from China (and very expensive!), many other treasures moved along these paths. From the East, merchants brought spices, tea, ivory, and paper. From the West, they brought glassware, gold, wool, and even grapes. It wasn't just physical objects, either; ideas, religions, and inventions like the compass traveled along the road, changing the world forever.
If a merchant in China trades roll of high-quality silk for strong Central Asian horses, and he wants to get horses for his journey back, how many rolls of silk does he need?
1. Identify the ratio: . 2. Set up the calculation: . 3. Result: He needs rolls of silk.
Quick Check
Name three items besides silk that were traded along the Silk Road.
Answer
Any three of: Spices, tea, ivory, paper, glassware, gold, wool, or grapes.
Traveling the Silk Road was dangerous! Merchants faced bandits, extreme heat in the Gobi Desert, and freezing cold in the Pamir Mountains. To stay safe, they traveled in caravans—large groups of people and animals traveling together. Their animal of choice was the Bactrian camel. These 'ships of the desert' could carry up to pounds and had two humps to store fat, allowing them to travel for days without water.
A caravan needs to travel from one trading city to another that is miles away. If the camels can travel an average of miles per day, how long will the trip take?
1. Use the formula: 2. Calculate: 3. Result: The journey will take days.
Very few merchants traveled the entire 4,000-mile length of the Silk Road. Instead, they worked in a relay system. A merchant might travel from China to a central trading city like Samarkand, sell their goods to another merchant, and then head back home. The second merchant would then carry the goods further west. This made the journey more manageable and allowed cities along the route to become wealthy 'middlemen'.
Every time a good is traded to a new merchant, the price goes up to cover the merchant's travel costs. If a bag of pepper starts at gold coins in India and its price increases by gold coins at each of the major stops before reaching Rome, what is the final price?
1. Starting price: 2. Increase: 3. Final price: gold coins.
Which two regions were the main 'endpoints' of the Silk Road?
Why did merchants travel in caravans?
Silk was the only item ever traded on the Silk Road.
Review Tomorrow
In 24 hours, try to list four items traded on the Silk Road and explain why camels were the best animals for the trip.
Practice Activity
Draw a simple map showing a line from East Asia to Europe. Mark three 'stop' cities where a relay merchant might trade their goods.