Chapter 7
Networks of
Communication and
Exchange
300 B.C.E. – 1100 C.E.
Part One:
The Silk Road
Part 1: The Silk Road
Map of Silk Road
Part 1: The Silk Road
Map of Silk Road
http://intranet.dalton.org/groups/rome/RMap2.html-
Part 1: The Silk Road
A. Origins and Operations
Overland route that linked China to
the Mediterranean world via
Mesopotamia, Iran, and Central Asia.
Two periods of heavy use:
150 B.C.E. – 907 C.E.
Thirteenth through seventeenth
centuries C.E.
Regular large-scale trade needed to
provide Chinese with western
products.
Part 1: The Silk Road
B. Imports and Exports
Chinese imported:
Alfalfa
Grapes
New crops
Medicinal products
Metals
Precious stones
Chinese exported:
Peaches
Apricots
Spices
Silk
Pottery
Paper
Part 1: The Silk Road
C. Impact of the Silk Road Trade
Turkic nomads benefited from the
trade
Their elites constructed houses, lived
in settled villages, and became
interested in foreign religions.
Part 1: The Silk Road
D. Military Technologies
Central Asian
military
technologies like
the stirrup were
exported east and
west.
This significantly
impacted the
conduct of war at
this time.
Part Two:
Indian Ocean
Maritime System
Part 2: Indian O. Maritime System
A. Introduction
Linked lands bordering the Indian
Ocean basin and the South China
Sea.
Trade took place in 3 distinct regions:
South China Sea
Southeast Asia to the east coast of India
West coast of India to the Persian Gulf
and East Africa
Part 2: Indian O. Maritime System
A. Introduction
Made possible by and followed the
patterns of seasonal changes in the
monsoon winds.
Sailing technology included lateen sail
and new shipbuilding techniques.
Because distances traveled were
longer than in the Mediterranean,
traders in these systems did not
maintain political ties to homelands.
Part 2: Indian O. Maritime System
Lateen Sail
Part 2: Indian O. Maritime System
B. Origins of Contact and Trade
Evidence of early trade between
ancient Mesopotamia and the Indus
Valley.
Trade appears to have broken off as
Mesopotamia turned more toward
trade with East Africa.
Two thousand years ago, Malay
sailors migrated to Madagascar.
Did not maintain ties to homeland.
Part 2: Indian O. Maritime System
C. Impact of Indian Ocean Trade
What we know about it comes from The
Periplus of the Erythrean Sea.
States goods traded included a wide variety of
spices, aromatic resins, pearls Chinese pottery,
and other luxury goods.
Volume of trade was not as high as in the
Mediterranean.
Culture of ports was different then culture
in their homelands, causing the
development of different customs.
TEA TRADE
THROUGHOUT THE INDIAN OCEAN
While tea has been consumed in China
for over 2000 years, it took many
centuries before Europeans were
introduced to this bitter beverage and
learned to enjoy it, thanks to the
addition of sugar. This lesson traces the
history of tea (and tea-drinking
accoutrements) within and beyond Asia,
beginning in the Classical Era up
through the 20th century.
The tea trade changed not only economies
but also social rituals. Even as Europeans
adopted their own tea-drinking habits, they
enjoyed drinking tea from imported Chinese
porcelain teacups and teapots typically
designed with cobalt blue patterns.
Eventually Europeans manufactured their
own chinaware with designs that looked
Chinese –– Chinoiserie–– but due to
differences in geography, Europeans could
never produce tea or sugar in Europe.
European dependence on imported tea had
world-wide consequences.
LETS GO TO THE
FOLLOWING WEB PAGE!
http://www.indianocean
history.org/
Part Three:
Routes Across the Sahara
Part 3: Routes Across the Sahara
A. Early Saharan Cultures
Evidence of an early Saharan hunting
culture that was later joined by cattle
breeders who looked like contemporary
West Africans.
Artwork indicates that the cattle breeders
were later succeeded by horse herders
who drove chariots.
Other artwork indicates that camel riders
came after charioteers.
Camel was probably related to development of
trans-Saharan trade.
South to north diffusion of camel riding.
Part 3: Routes Across the Sahara
Sahara Rock Wall Painting
Part 3: Routes Across the Sahara
Other Sahara Rock Wall Painting
Part 3: Routes Across the Sahara
B. Trade Across the Sahara
Developed slowly when 2 local trade
systems linked.
Southern Sahara had salt and
exported to sub-Saharan regions for
kola nuts and palm oil.
Traders in north exported agricultural
products and wild animals to Italy.
Part 3: Routes Across the Sahara
B.1. Invasion and Revolt
When Rome declined and the Arabs
invaded North Africa (mid-7th century
C.E.), trade of Algeria and Morocco
was cut off.
Berber people of these areas revolted
against the Arabs in the 700s and
established independent city-states
including Sijilmasa and Tahert.
Part 3: Routes Across the Sahara
B.2. The Berbers
After 740 the Berbers found that the
southern nomads were getting gold
dust from the Niger and other areas of
West Africa in exchange for their salt.
A pattern of trade then developed in
which the Berbers of North Africa
traded copper and manufactured
goods to the nomads of the southern
desert in return for gold.
Part 3: Routes Across the Sahara
B.3. Kingdom of Ghana
One of the early sub-Saharan beneficiaries
of this new trans-Saharan trade.
First description of kingdom is the eleventh
century account by al-Bakri.
Described a city of two towns, Muslim merchant
town and capital of animist king and his court.
After 1076, Ghana was weakened by
invasion of Moroccan Almorovids.
Even after Almorovid retreat, Ghana never
recovered.
Part 3: Routes Across the Sahara
Kingdom of Ghana Artwork
Part Four:
Sub-Saharan Africa
Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa
A. Geography
Large area with
many different
environmental
zone and many
geographical
obstacles to
movement.
Significant
geographical
areas:
Sahel
Tropical Savanna
Tropical Rainforest
Temperate
highlands
Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa
B. Development of Cultural Unity
African cultures are highly diverse.
Estimated 2,000 languages spoken
on continent.
Numerous food production systems.
Difficulty in communication and trade
between groups.
No foreign power was able to conquer
Africa and impose a unified culture.
Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa
C. African Cultural Characteristics
African cultures display certain
common features that attest to an
underlying cultural unity that some
scholars have called “Africanity.”
One concept was a kingship in which
kings were isolated and oversee
societies in which the people are
arranged in age groups and kinship
divisions.
Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa
C. More Characteristics
Other common features include:
Cultivation with hoe and digging stick
Use of rhythms in African music
Functions of dancing and mask wearing
in rituals
Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa
D. Advent of Iron
Sub-Saharan agriculture had its
origins north of the equator and then
spread southward.
Iron working also began north of the
equator and spread to southern Africa
by 800 C.E.
Caused by the Bantu Migrations.
Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan African Iron Work
Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa
E. Bantu Migrations
Original homeland of the Bantu
people was in the area on the border
of modern Nigeria and Cameroon.
Suggests that Bantu people spread
out toward the east and south through
a series of migrations over the period
of the first millennium C.E.
By the eighth century, Bantu-speaking
people had reached East Africa.
Part 4: Sub-Saharan Africa
Bantu Migrations Map
Part Five:
The Spread of Ideas
Part 5: Spread of Ideas
A. Ideas and Material Evidence
Very hard to trace dissemination of
ideas in preliterate societies.
Invention of coins – created in
Anatolia and spread to Europe, North
Africa, and India.
China made cast copper coins – was
this inspired by the Anatolian example?
Part 5: Spread of Ideas
B. Spread of Religion
Spread of ideas in a deliberate and
organized fashion such that we can
trace it is a phenomenon of the first
millennium C.E.
Case with spread of Buddhism,
Christianity, and Islam
Part 5: Spread of Ideas
B.1. Spread of Buddhism
Facilitated both by royal sponsorship and
by the travels of ordinary pilgrims and
missionaries.
In India, Mauryan king Ashoka and King
Kanishka of the Kushans supported
Buddhism.
Buddhist missionaries from India traveled
to a variety of destinations:
West to Syria, Egypt, and Mesopotamia
Also went to Sri Lanka, southeast Asia, and
Tibet
Part 5: Spread of Ideas
B.1. Buddhism Continued
Buddhism changed and further
developed as it spread.
Theraveda Buddhism became dominant
in Sri Lanka
Mahayana Buddhism in Tibet
Chan (Zen) Buddhism in East Asia
Part 5: Spread of Ideas
Bodhieattva at Barnian
Carved into the side of a cliff
at Bamiam, this was one of
two monumental Buddhist
sculptures near the top of a
high mountain pass
connecting Kabul,
Afghanistan, with the northern
parts of the country. Carved in
the sixth or seventh century,
the sculptures were
surrounded by cave dwellings
of monks and rock
sanctuaries, some dating to
the first century B.C.E. (Ian
Griffiths/Robert Harding Picture Library)
Part 5: Spread of Ideas
B.2. Spread of Christianity
Armenia was an important trading center
for the Silk Road.
Mediterranean states spread Christianity to
Armenia in order to bring that kingdom over
to its side and thus deprive Iran of control
of this area.
The transmission of Christianity to Ethiopia
was similarly linked to a Mediterranean
Christian attempt to deprive Iran of trade.