Traveling The Silk Road

It seems like everyone today is talking about the global economy, and how we are all connected by the products that we consume. When did this global economy come about though? The first roots of it can be traced back over 2,000 years, to the silk road. 2,000 years ago there weren't things such as email, telephone, and large commercial cargo ships. Then how could it be possible to transport good from Asia across Europe and vise versa? Well, first of all merchants didn't travel the whole length of the road. They had their small trade routes and through trading with other merchants goods would eventually end up across the continent.

Traveling along the silk road could be difficult and take a lot of time without vehicles. There were three main modes of transportation back then: by foot, by horse, and by wagon. By wagon was the slowest of all three modes. A wagon could only go about 20 miles in a day but could carry by far the largest amounts of goods. The next fastest was by horse, but it was only fast if the horses were switched every few hours because the horses would be come tired and need to be fed. The fastest mode of transportation was walking; a fast walker could easily cover 25 miles in a day.

To me it seems unimaginable that goods could travel so far back then with the limited transportation and communication technologies. Although these goods were traveling much further than their makers realized, even before the silk road. The silk road just enhanced the capabilities and speed of this travel. The silk road was just the first of many economic advancements to a world economy.

Links:

http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/38697701/Modes-of-Travel

Photo Credits:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/activity/silkroad/silkroad1.gif&imgrefurl=http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/activity/silkroad/&usg=__0HK5FaJqwazOLqe6blmA5O0sduQ=&h=302&w=350&sz=52&hl=en&start=11&um=1&tbnid=3OzLNGdEdosHFM:&tbnh=104&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsilk%2Broad%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

Commodity Branding

Commodity branding is widely viewed as a historically distinctive feature of the modern global economy, identifying such things as kinship and class. Commodity branding has been dated back to the Urban Revolution in Mesopotamia during the fourth millennium BC bringing uniqueness and a brand name to cross culturally traded goods. This article, written by David Wengrow looks at commodity branding across time, from ancient history to the present. He talks about how brands signal products and tap into the emotions and desires of the consumer to answer personal needs. I feel that this is true of the present branding methods, when people see a brand symbol, such as golden arches or a swoosh they are reminded of a need or a want. Branding can be seen with the emergence of hieroglyphic writing in Egypt. The growth of long distance trade in history brought about the need for branding products to make the product more individualized. Stone seals were used as a form of setting one product apart from another during the Halaf Period and were discovered across northern Mesopotamia. These distinguishing seals were applied to the clay sealing of mobile containers such as pots, baskets, and sacks. The shapes of the seals vary by region but many of them resemble animal bones and teeth or human body parts. These old forms of sealing and branding can be seen in present forms of advertising and gift-wrapping, take for example current methods of standardizing goods and labors.

The article goes on to talk about the beginning of the fourth millennium and the lowland societies acting as a port of labor and capital. This region drew on other surrounding regions new productive settings of packaging products in an original way. These processes led to the emergence of competing cultural networks across northern and eastern Mesopotamia to be the most productive and original. Production and packaging grew throughout the region and clay stoppers were used as a marking in a distinctive way to distinguish local stamp seals.

Specialization in production can be seen throughout history, such as on the ancient silk road where many cultures set themselves apart by offering unique to their region products and by packaging them in distinct manners that make them distinguishable and for the finer products, highly south after.

This can be seen today as I had mentioned above all across the industrialized world, what makes name brand products better then non-name brand, and what makes one product good and another poor, and did the people of ancient civilizations base their buying and trading practices the same way we do today? Is it just part of being human to want to have the best of the best? And from the most distant land?

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/523676?cookieSet=1

Islam Reaches the East

Buddhism and Islam were the two main religions that spread to China as a result of the Silk Road. The Silk Road, as suggested by its name, was a trade route primarily for silk. However, many other items and ideas were traded along this pathway including items such as metals, spices, tools, and animals. In order for this trading to occur, merchants moved from city to city bringing their items and ideas. Most merchants did not travel great distances because of security purposes which means the items and ideas that traveled great distances must have been passed on through several merchants and travelers.

One of the ideas that traveled great distances was the Islamic faith. Islam, founded by Muhammad, came from Mecca which is located in current day Saudi Arabia. Islam’s fundamental teaching is following God’s word. The five important aspects of this religion include faith, prayer, fasting, sharing, and pilgrimage.

Visit http://gallery.sjsu.edu/silkroad/religion.htm or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_china to read more on the Islamic faith and its influence on China. The distance traveled by this religion is great in magnitude and has become great in importance. Today, Islam dominates many parts of China and is one the major religions besides Buddhism.

It is without a doubt that the creation of The Silk Road was an important aspect in history because of its influence on today’s society. Islam and Buddhism might have never reached China without The Silk Road. Without Buddhism and Islam, China might not be the country that it is today.

The Spread of Buddhism Through the Silk Road

As the name suggests, the Silk Road was instrumental in the trade of silk but it was also instrumental in the expansion of trade to many different countries and cultures in Asia. This was a revolutionary system that provided people with goods that they never could have encountered without traveling thousands of miles. People used the the Silk Road to trade many goods but it also facilitated the trade of cultural ideas, practices and religions. In particular the Silk Road was a major factor in the spread of Buddhism throughout Asia.


The Silk Road was instrumental in opening the world to new and different cultures as well as goods. During this time Buddhism spread like wildfire among merchants who traveled the Silk Road. Beginning in India, Buddhism made its way throughout Central and Eastern Asia and eventually Northern China. With Buddhism originating in India it shows just how far the Silk Road stretched and how the spread of ideas worked during this period in history. The spread of Buddhism throughout Asia shows how appealing it was to the many merchants who came into contact with it. Buddhism was an entirely new religion that appealed to merchants because it was a form of Brahmin-dominated Hinduism. Eventually the spread of Buddhism moved away from the Silk Road and was taken over by Buddhist monks who wanted to spread the message to those who were not reached by the Silk Road.

There is no question that Buddhism would have spread and become available to different cultures at some point, but without the Silk Road Buddhism never would have been cemented into world history. No one could have predicted that the Silk Road would be such a huge part of world history, but it forever changed the way goods and cultural messages moved throughout the world.

Connecting Worlds: The Silk Road

Before such an element of cross-cultural contact came about, trade was quite different for the most part. The majority of exchange only consisted of limited networks within a culture. However, through specific instances, bridges and connections developed, creating a vast network of trade, by land and by sea, reaching the corners of the Asian continent. This is known as the Silk Road.

Let us examine what contributed to its development. Basically, the land routes were opened by the Chinese. At the time, China was constantly struggling in conflict with the Xiongnu nomads of Mongolia. The emperor Han Wudi therefore sent an ambassador by the name of Zhang Qian on a mission to find allies to assist in the struggle. Zhang Qian was not entirely successful in his assignment, as he was away for several years, being captured by the Xiongnu on more than one occasion. Nevertheless, his travels brought important knowledge back to the emporer. Zahng Qian realized that there were Chinese products in the far away markets of the West. Han Wudi was very intrigued by this. Around 100 BCE, he basically invaded and pacified a large area of central Asia which allowed direct trade connections to be formed over the land.

The large states of the time supported these routes, building roads, promoting communication, and patrolling the routes. But what kinds of items traveled these connections? From the name, it is clear that Silk very significant. Some cultures used it to wrap their dead in for burial. Others considered it very fine material for important religious occasions. Along with silk, spices were a popular commodity for trade. This included cloves, nutmeg from southeast Asia, and peppers from India. Cotton textiles, pearls, choral, and ivory also came from India. From the West, items such as horses were traded. The Romans sent things like glass, jewelery, pottery, wine, gold, and silver.

The Silk road did not function as you might imagine. What I mean is, people did not literally travel the road with various items to trade. Rather, the items were traded from merchant to merchant, over and over again. This is how they made it over the large area that the routes included. But it was not limited to just goods that were spread throughout the land. Even more impacting, ideas, cultures, and religion traveled it as well. Examples of the this are Christianity and Mahayana Buddhism. Imagine how significant this activity was in the development of the entire world of the day. What kinds of elements of your own life can you relate to this idea? Perhaps your religion? Or even the food you eat?

Religion in Africa

In modern society, Africa is considered one of the poorest nations. Much of the nations lives in absolute poverty as well as somehow being affected by the AIDS pandemic. With the lack of food and clean water, the modern day plague, and the ever present fear of natural disasters, why would Africans even want to get out of bed?

I believe that much of what influences the Africans to continue on with life is their religion. Although the greatest population of Africa calls themselves Christian, other religions include Islam, Hinduism, Baha'i, Judaism, Buddhism, as well as other African traditional religions.

Africans look to the church as a rescue from the terrors they deal with in their daily lives. The church is what brings them help in the form of schools and hospitals as well as through helping provide food and clean drinking water. Through the hospitals, many Africans receive prescriptions for common illnesses as well as ones to help with AIDS. The church provides a way of global communication as well as general improvement for the people. Without the church, religious help in general, the Africans would be left to fend for themselves and just live in the place and in the way they have. Individual religions bring hope for something more and something better to the people who suffer in Africa.

Much of the history of religion has been lost or misinterpreted due to the fact that it was recorded by racist Europeans, but we have to look at what was recorded and what there is now in order to understand how it is that the Africans still have a positive outlook on life despite what downfalls they have been dealt.