The Silk Roads and the First

'World System'?What were the

Silk Roads?Where were the Silk Roads?

What is their importance to world history?

HST 203: Lecture 17Craig Benjamin

Part One: The Significance of Silk Roads ExchangesCultural Evolution

• Human history is characterized by periods of great change or cultural (rather than biological) evolution

• These have included:

a. The Upper Paleolithic (50,000 BP)

b. The appearance of agriculture (from 11,500 BP)

c. The emergence of cities and states (from 3,200 BCE)• Cultural evolution is thus one of the fundamental

features of all human history

Cultural Exchange as a ‘Prime Mover’

Inter-cultural contacts are in fact ‘the main drive wheel of history’ W.McNeill, The Rise of the West (Chicago 1963) p. xv

www.pitt.edu/classics/conf-main

• There are several causal factors (or prime movers) that have resulted in change and technological evolution• E.g. climate change and population pressure• But change also generally occurred in areas characterized by high levels of trade and exchange • So contacts between different groups and cultures are also an important prime mover in instigating change

Exchange Networks of the Late Agrarian Era • Cross-cultural

contacts between different peoples of the ancient world are thus of great importance to subsequent human history

• Most significant trade networks of the Late Agrarian Era were the Silk Roads

• They resulted in unparalleled levels of cultural exchange

Silk Roads Exchanges• The routes existed from

3000 BCE to 1500 CE• Today we focus on a

much shorter period: 50 BCE – 250 CE

• During this 300-year period cultural exchange took place between the Chinese, Indian, Iranian, Greco-Roman and pastoralist worlds

• This profoundly effected the shape and direction of human history

www.blogblogblog.com

The Silk Roads and Agrarian Civilizations

• These exchanges made possible because of the evolution of the huge agrarian civilizations: Han, Kushan, Parthian and Roman

• They established order and stability, coinage and extensive land and sea routes, creating conditions ripe for exchange.

History.binghampton.edu/hist130/maps

www.dailyrepublican.com

www.rbi.org.in/currency/museum

Intellectual Exchanges

Not only material goods were ‘traded’, but intellectual ‘property as well, including:

a. Greek and Hellenistic cultureb. Buddhism and other world

religionsc. Artd. Plagues

All were disseminated in a syncretic form throughout Afro-Eurasia

www.edepot.com/graphics/buddha

www.mala.bc.ca/mcneil

Questions

• What exactly were the Silk Roads?• Where and when did they exist and operate?• How did they evolve and develop?• Who were the key players in Silk Roads exchanges?

www.onlineworkshop.com

Die Seidenstrasse

• Die Seidenstrasse ( the ‘Silk Roads’) a relatively new term

• Coined in late 19th C by German geographer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen

• He used it to describe the trade routes linking India, China and the Mediterranean world through Central Asia Brilliant 19th Century German

Geographer, Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen

www.uni-leipzig.de

Part Two: Development of the Silk Roads

Expansion of Han China into Central Asia • You will remember that

Chinese history developed in relative isolation before the Han

• Han Empire established in 206 BCE and lasted for 400 years - a great era of internal Chinese unity and imperial expansion based on trade.

• 17-year old Emperor Wudi sent envoy Zhang Qian on a mission to the west in 139 BCE

• He returned after 12 years and told Wudi about the possibility of trade and conquest in Central Asia

Han Emperor Wudi – the ‘Martial Emperor’

www2s.biglobe.ne.jp

Wudi and the Han Empire• Wudi was enthusiastic :

The emperor thought that he could then extend his domain by 10,000 li … and his might would become known to all the lands within the four seas (Sima Qian, Shi Ji)

• Link between commerce and imperialism common motivation to all great empires

• Led to Chinese expansion into Central Asia, and dramatically increased levels of trade with the west.

The Han Empire (after western expansion under Wudi)Xenohistorian.faithweb.com/china/ch03

Ancient Routes• Trade took place along the

same routes followed by humans and migrating hominids for over a million years

• Limited trade had been taking place along the routes

• Once China became involved, the pace and scale intensified

www.bbc.co.uk/history/genes/asch

www.acrossthedivide.demon.co

The Route from China

• Route from China left Han capital at Xian and headed beside Great Walls to Dunhuang

• Then either side of the Taklamakan Dessert –’people go in but don’t come out’ – using oasis towns for supplies and rest

• Routes met at Kashgar, then across the Pamirs to Samarkand

• Or south along the Karakoram Highway to India

• Either route led directly into the Kushan Empire

www.goldenbridge.net/Xinjiang-the

www29.homepage.villanova.edu

A Caravan Crosses the Pamirs

Sunset in the Taklamakan

Dunhuang and the

Taklamakan

www.guxiang.com/zhuanti

Silk and Other Goods

• Silk was the main commodity traded – worn by the aristocrats of the Roman Empire

• Chinese guarded the secrets of silk production

• Other Chinese good included jade, lacquer and iron

• Imports were horses, Roman glass, and new agricultural produce and technology

www2.oneonta.edu

Roman Togasmade of silk

Silkwww.leeds.ac.uk/acom/cgi-bin

Cross-Fertilization• Result a two-way fertilization: China’s neighbors

were ‘Sinotized’, but Chinese culture ‘barbarized’ (Sima Qian, Ban Gu)

• Similar experience at the western end of the routes: Roman elites concerned about the ‘pollution’ of pure Greco-Roman culture (Horace, Ovid)

‘Barbarians’??www.hobbylinc.com/special

The Silk Roads

www.unesco.org/culture/dialogue/eastwest

Roman Trade with the East • Following establishment of Pax

Romanum under Augustus in 31 BCE demand for luxury goods increased greatly

• Led to expansion of both land and maritime trade routes with the east

• Land route departed from Palmyra in Syria, crossed the Euphrates and passed the Parthian capital at Ctesiphon

• Then climbed over the Iranian Plateau and entered Kushan territory at Merv and Bactra in ancient Afghanistan.

• From here the paths linked up with the route from India or China.

Roman ImperatorAugustus

libarts.wsu.edu/history

The Crossroads of Ancient Eurasia: Market in Yarkand Today

The very heart and centre of all commerce for the Old World, and the most ancient meeting place on the whole earth. Along the Yarkand Valley the way ran eastward to China … to the southeast another route lay open by Srinagar and Taxila to the Indus Valley; westwards there was a way to Europe by Samarkand, down the Oxus Valley and across the Caspian Sea, as well as the route through Parthia and Asia. At this lonely point three civilizations, those of China, of India, and of the Hellenized Orient, met and gave in exchange their products, their wares and their painting and art’ (Charlesworth, Trade Routes and Commerce of the Roman Empire, Cambridge, 1924, pp 103/4).

www.peres.biz/routed

Sea Routes• Land route from Palmyra to Merv

constantly threatened by conflict between Rome and Parthia

• A maritime route from Egypt to the Indus River (Pakistan today) became more important

• Periplus of the Erythrian Sea is a 1st Century CE sailors handbook showing how the trade winds were used to dramatically increase maritime trade between Roman Egypt and India

• Goods mentioned are precious stones, cotton, silk, wine, metals, pepper, glass and coins

Roman Ships – Muralwww.history forkids.org/learn/romans

Roman Coins – a mystery?

• Mention of coins significant – huge volumes of trade very expensive

• This trade drained 100 million sestercii (about 6 million gold denarii) per year from the Roman Empire (Pliny the Elder)

• Most of these coins have disappeared

– what happened to them?• Melted down by the Kushans

for their own coinage!

www.museum-london.org.uk

Kushan Coin of Kanishka the Great

Roman Coins

Part Three: The Kushan Empire• At the heart of the Silk Roads was the Kushan Empire –

one of the great ‘lost civilizations’ in history• Friendly relations with China, India, Parthia, the pastoralists

and the Greco-Roman traders. • Kushans the facilitators of Silk Roads exchanges

(‘middlemen’) – the ‘Great Unifiers of the Ancient World’• During the first two centuries CE Kushans controlled Pakistan,

Afghanistan, Tazhikistan, Kyrgyzstan, much of Uzbekistan and Xinjiang, and most of northern and central India.

•See C. Benjamin, ‘Introduction to Kushan Research’, in D. Christian and C. Benjamin eds., Worlds of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern (Brepols, Turnhout 1998) pp. 31 ff.

Kushan Empire: Map

depts.washington.edu/uwch

Early Kushan History

• Descended from a confederation of ancient Indo-Europeans (Yuezhi) who were forced to migrate from western China to Afghanistan between 162 and 130 BCE.

• See C. Benjamin, ‘Origins of the Yuezhi’, in C. Benjamin and S. Lieu, eds, Walls and Frontiers in Inner Asian History (Brepols, Turnhout 2002)

• Under the first Kushan king Kujula Kadphises and his son Vima, they expanded into India and China and established their vast empire in the 1st Century CE

Heraus of the Yuezhiwww.grifterrec.com/coins/heraus

Vima Kadphises

© Asian Art 2002http://www.asianart.com

Headless Statue of King Vima KadphisesMathura

The Great Kushans

• Under Kanishka the Great (c.129-152 CE) Kushans were one of the four ‘Great Powers’ of Eurasia

• Described by Narain as the ‘Golden Age of Central Asia’

• Kushan hereditary kings provided stable rule for about two centuries

Headless Statue of Kanishkawww.hp.uab.edu/image_archive/uck

Kushan Royal

Palaces• Kushan royal palaces discovered

early in the 20th C at Begram in Afghanistan, and Taxila in Pakistan

• Excavations reveal a pre-occupation with art and religions

• The collection included glass from Syria and Egypt, gold jewelry, carved bone and ivory from the steppes and India, bronze owls from Rome, and Chinese lacquer bowls

• A Kushan Royal Art Museum?

Views of Taxila, Pakistanwww.piac.com.pk/pia_tour/tour_6a

Central Asian Art Under the Kushans

• Kushan kings were great patrons of art schools at Gandhara (Pakistan) and Mathura (N. India)

• Output of both schools profoundly influenced the subsequent development of Asian art

• Sculpture a perfect example of cultural syncretism through exchange

• Workshops brought together the talents of Bactrian Indian and Greek artists in the service of Buddhism

• Before this the Buddha had only ever been represented by symbols – footprint, umbrella etc

Gandharan Art

• At Gandhara the first ever image of the Buddha was created through a synthesis of Indian spirituality and western art techniques, all under the patronage of Central Asian kings

• The first ever Buddhas were modeled on Greco-Roman gods

• This representation then spread into East Asia along the Silk Roads

Ancient Gandharawww.columbia.edu/fp7

Mathuran Art• Mathura located on a tributary

of the Ganges in N. India• Renowned for the royal

portrait gallery • Classic headless statue of

Kanishka may have been destroyed by the Taliban

• Also developed a humanistic and realistic style that profoundly influenced later Indian art

• Both schools an excellent example of the coming together of different cultural traditions along the Silk Roads, and the creation of a whole new synthesized tradition

www.humnet.ucla.edu/echo/volume3-issue1

www.indiatravelite.com/holyplaces/mathura

Gandharan and Mathuran Buddhas

© San Antonio Museum of Art, 2001http://www.samuseum.org

© Metropolitan Museum of Art 2002http://www.metmuseum.org

Buddhism and the Kushans

•Kushan coins minted in their thousands; depict a range of gods indicating a broad-minded attitude towards religion by the kings – an all-inclusive ideology?• Several world religions spread along the Silk Roads – Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Mancihaeism, Buddhism and later Islam• Kanishka personally devoted to Zoroastrianism, but also convened the great Buddhist synod in Kashmir where the scriptures were rewritten in a popular accessible language – led to the emergence of the popular Mahayana (Great Vehicle) school of Buddhism

The Spread of Buddhism along the Silk Roads

• As we have seen, Buddhism was founded in India in the 6th C BCE as a reaction against the caste system• Like Christianity it offered the hope for salvation and the attainment of heaven (Nirvana)• Following Kanishka’s support, it spread along the Silk Roads carried by Chinese traders and Indian monks• By 166 CE the Chinese Emperor was a Buddhist • By late-4th Century 90% of the population of N. China had converted to Buddhism• By 6th Century most of Korea, Tibet, Mongolia and S.E. Asia had also converted to Buddhism• Buddhism one of the great civilizing influences in Eurasian history, and a great cultural bond that unites the peoples of Asia

Conclusion – Significance?

• Silk Roads thus of fundamental importance in human history – linked all of the regions and peoples of Afro-Eurasia into a single system of exchanges

• The first ‘world system’?• This has led to an

underlying unity in Eurasia, expressed in common technologies, religions, cultures and diseases

• All profoundly influenced the subsequent evolution of human history

History at Both Scales

• Silk Roads as an historical ‘subject’also offers the opportunity to study history on both the micro and macro level

• Need a big history view to appreciate the long-term and global significance

• But large perspective only possible because of the work of specialists in languages, art, coins and archaeology

• Silk Roads Era the springboard to our understanding of modernity!

www.galafilm.com/1812/e