An Age of Cross-Cultural
Interaction: The Mongols,
Arabs, and The Turks
The Road to Revision
By: Daniel Levin, Edward Nirenberg, and Russell
Huang
The Mongols
•
Mongols were conquerors scattered
throughout the Central Asian
steppe.
•
They were very war-bound and at
one point assembled the largest
empire in history.
•
They lived in tribes, in tents called
yurts.
•
The Mongol tribes were united by
Genghis Khan.
•
They were split up into 4 khanates
after the death of Genghis Khan.
The Arabs
•
The Arabs were unlike their
Mongol neighbors. Rather than
being war-bound they had a
predisposition to the commercial
side of interaction.
•
During this time, it would be odd
to see a merchant that was not
Muslim.
•
They spread their religion to
almost everyone that they
visited.
•
Practiced Islam.
The Turks
•
The Turks were a varied group of
tribes, and each had significant
roles in history.
•
Some important groups include: the
Saljuqs, the Ottomans, and the
Uighurs.
•
Many of the tribes were Muslim.
•
Uighurs could be found in East
Asia, near China, Saljuqs in the
Middle East, and the Ottomans in
Anatolia.
The Silk Road
•
The Silk Road was used by all of the aforementioned civilizations.
•
It wasn’t an actual road, per say, but rather a network of trade routes.
•
It is called the Silk road because of all the Silk leaving China being
redistributed throughout the regions who relied upon it.
•
Although China once monopolized the silk industry, the Byzantines, by way
of monks who had come to China, soon also gained access to the silk.
•
Though the primary function of the road was commerce, it was often used
for battle by, specifically, the Seljuq Turks and the Mongols.
INVASIONS
By nature, these 3 groups, the Mongols in particular, got into many altercations.
The Mongolian Territory
The Mongols amassed a territory so great that it was one of the
largest in all of history, second to the British Empire, even more
gargantuan than that of Alexander the Great’s.
Battle of Manzikert
The Saljuq Turks attacked and conquered Anatolia in the Battle of Manzikert in the
year 1071. They kidnapped the Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes.
The Conquering of
Constantinople
The Ottoman Turks sacked Constantinople in 1453 and took over the Byzantine
empire.
QUIZ!
1) What year was the sacking of Constantinople?
a)1354
b)1450
c)1453
d)1353
e)2005
2) Who participated in the Battle of Manzikert? Who was taken?
a) The Mongols took Justinian from the Byzantines because they wanted
to.
b)The Ottoman Turks took Theodora from the Western Europeans
because she was causing political unrest.
c)The Uighurs attacked China and took several monks.
d)The Saljuq Turks attacked Anatolia and took emperor Romanos IV
Diogenes.
e)The Chinese attacked because they tainted the land with Buddhism.
Quiz
3) When was the Battle of Manzikert?
a)1053
b)1052
c)1501
d)1450
e)1010
4) Which Empire amassed the largest territory in 1279? (Hint: their expansion
stopped at Egypt)
a)The Uighurs
b)The Mongols
c)The Arabs
d)The Ottomans
e)The British
Quiz
5) What abstract thing did the Arabs distribute to almost everywhere that they
visited?
a) territory
b) math
c) turbans
d) religion
e) philosophy
6) Why is the Silk Road named so?
a) It’s smooth.
b) It was the Chinese’s way of reflecting their ethnocentric nationalism of
their
monopoly of the silk industry.
c)The Arabs liked silk.
d) There is no reason for the name.
e) Silk was among the main exports.
Quiz
7) Name all of the Mongolian Khanates, state the location of each, and at least
o
thing that they did for the people.