Silk road I

The name Silk Road conjures up images of caravans trudging through some of the world's highest mountains and most god forsaken deserts. This was true for parts of the route but only tells part of the story. The Silk Road was not one well-established road, but a complex, constantly-changing network of land and sea routes between China, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Europe that was in operation roughly from the 1st century B.C. to the A.D. 15th century. The term Silk Road was coined in 1870 by German geographer Ferdinand van Richthofen, the uncle of the Red Baron.

The main all-land Silk Road route went from Xian in eastern China via Kashgar in Western China, Samarkand in Central Asia and Baghdad in the Middle East to coastal cities on the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean such as Alexandria, Allepo and Trabazon.

The main sea route went from China via the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean to Basra on the Persian Gulf or Suez on the Red Sea, where the goods were then carried overland across Persia and Syria or through Egypt to ports serviced by European merchants such as Alexandria.

Travelers could feed their animals off the land and find food and drink along the way. In the early stages, goods were often traded trough barter, only later was money used. Silk Road routes were often disrupted and always changing due the presence of bandits, political alliances, passes closed by snow, droughts, storms, seasonal changes, wars, plagues, horsemen raids, and natural disasters. Many Silk Road towns and caravanserais were located within fortresses for protection from bandits and marauding horsemen. Many also had security forces.

Books: The Silk Road (Odyssey Guides); Marco Polo: A Photographer's Journey by Mike Yamashita (White Star, 2002).

Television show: Silk Road 2005, a 10-episode production by China's CCTV and Japan's NHK, with music by Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, an international group of musicians from more that 20 countries. The original series was shown in 1980s.

Silk Road Route in China


Bezeklil Grottoes, near Turpan The overland Silk Road route to the west began in Xian, the capital of China during the Han, Qin and Tang dynasties. It stopped in the towns of Zhangye, Jiayuguan, Langzhou, Yumen, Anxi and Nanhu before dividing in three main routes at Dunhuang.

The three main routes between Dunhuang and Central Asia were: 1) the northern route, which went through northwest China through the towns of Hami and Turpan to Central Asia: 2) the central route, which veered southwest from Turpan and passed through Kucha, Aksu and Kashgar; and 3) the southern route, which passed through the heart of the Taklamakan Desert via the oasis towns of Miran, Khotan and Yarkand before joining with the central route in Kashgar.

On the southern route through western China the going began getting difficult near present-day Langzhou, where the "Gate of Demons," marked the approach to an area, which the writer Mildred Cable said featured "rushing rivers, cutting their way through sand...an unfathomable lake hidden among the dunes...sand-hills with a voice like thunder" and "water which could be clearly seen and yet was a deception."

The going started to get really rough around the Ravine of Baboons (Xingxing Xia), traditionally regarded as the frontier of Chinese Turkestan and entrance to the vast and inhospitable Taklamakan Desert. where Cable wrote, the desert "is a howling wilderness, and the first thing which strikes the wayfarer is the dismalness of its uniform, black, pebble strewn surface." After the Ravine of Baboons, the Silk Road followed a line of oases to Kashgar.

See Marco Polo.