The Silk Road: Part I

1 6 Historically Speaking · June 2003 The Silk Road: Part I Alfred J. Andrea Recentevents, particularlyUnited States military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, have drawnAmericans' attention to Inner Asia. A token of America's recent "discovery" ofthe lands and peoples ofCentral Asia was evident on the Mall of Washington , D.C. in late June-earlyJuly 2002 when the Smithsonian's annual Folklife Festivalwas devoted exclusivelyto the manycultures ofthe ancient Silk Road. Simplyput, die SilkRoad (more correctly, the Silk Roads) was a complex network of connected land routes stretching across Asia and connecting the capital cities ofChina to the trading emporta ofIndia and the Eastern Mediterranean from about 100 B.C.E. to approximately 1500 CE. That said, we must acknowledge that these are extremely imprecise dates. Longdistance travel and exchange across Inner Asia existed for thousands ofyears before the classic era of the Silk Road, and even todaymany ofthe traditional routes of the Silk Road continue to bear commercial traffic . In like manner, the geographic definition —a network of land routes across Asia, connecting China with India and the Middle East—is equally misleading and imprecise. In fact, the Silk Road did not stop at water's edge. Beyond China and the Levant layJapan in the Far East and NorthAfrica and Europe in the Far West. Thanks to ships and shipping lanes, Japan and the far western regions ofNorth Africa and Europe sharedinthe goods, ideas, and other items transmitted across the Silk Road and may be thought of as part of a Greater Silk Road. The same can be said of the lands and islands ofthe South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. In short, goods and ideas transported across the Silk Road reached cultures that had no terrestrial connection with Inner Asia. At its height in the 7th and 8th centuries CE., the main overland portion ofthe Silk Road stretched for more than 4,000 miles from east to west, from Chang'an (modern Xi'an), the western capital ofthe Han and Tang dynasties in north central China, to Antioch, Tyre, Constantinople, and similar cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. Along dieway, itpassed throughsuch fabled cities as Samarkand (in modern Uzbekistan), Kabul inAfghanistan, Susa inIran, Baghdad inIraq, and Palmyra in Syria. It traversed deserts, steppes, rivers, and mountain ranges, all of which.presented dangers to those who braved its routes. Additionally, bandits preyed on travelers, and strange food, drink, and microorganisms threatened a traveler's internal organs. There were also psychic dangers. Several Silk Road travelers, including Marco Polo, recorded first-hand accounts of the frightening nocturnal sounds ofthe Salt Desert ofLop Nor that disoriented the unwary. The dangers of Silk Road travel were ameliorated and the journey was made possible byoasis caravanserais andurbancenters thatallowed travelers to progress fromrefuge point to refuge point at the pace of about twenty to twenty-five miles a day—absolute top speed—with a variety ofpack animals: Bactrian camels, oxen, yaks, horses, Arabian camels, donkeys, and even elephants. Of these, the slow but strong Bactrian, or double -humped, camel, which could bearloads of up to 300 pounds, did the bulk ofthe carrying across the paths ofInnerAsia. To further insure the safety oftravelers, shrines and pilgrimage sites sprangup where dieycould find spiritual solace and physical refuge. Themostfamous ofthese todayis a Buddhist complex known as the Mogao Caves, located not far from the oasis town of Dunhuang , itself situated at a point of convergence for the main northern and southern routes that skirt die Tarim Basin and its essentially impassable Taklamakan Desert ("The Place from which No Living Thing Returns"). TheMogao Caves, dug out ofthe soft stone ofa cliffface, number around 500 and extend for about a mile. According to available records, the first cave dates to 366 CE. The caves are shrines and cumulatively contain about 3,000 statues and murals, all laboriously created by resident monks. Were all this art laid end to end, it would measure sixteen miles long by fifteen feetinheight. And diis is only one of many Buddhist cave complexes along the Silk Road. Along the Silk Road's routes merchants moved goods, pilgrimsvisitedholysites, missionaries sought out converts, armies marched on expeditions of conquest and missions of pacification, colonists set out...