Exploring the Silk Road's Influence

Hello and welcome to another Students of History flipped classroom lesson on the Silk Road. The movement of goods and ideas of people and religion that spread across this famous trade route that connected East and West. As always, there's guided notes that you can use to follow along with this lesson. There's also an interactive notebook foldable which you can cut out, glue down the middle, and take notes underneath each of the little tabs. The thing with this one is the map is vertical where the notes are horizontal. Hopefully that doesn't throw you off. That map though, we'll do that first just to understand the geography of the Silk Road and the empires that it impacted. So of course it began in China, which is where silk was first developed. We'll look at that in a minute. And then the Han Dynasty and the various dynasties that came through over the thousands of years that the Silk Road was in existence. The Gupta Empire was the dominant empire in India. from a few hundred BCE until a few hundred or 500 or so CE, major years of the Silk Road. The Persian Empire, just a little bit further to the west, was the dominant force across the Middle East and Southwest Asia. You're also going to have the Aksum Empire in Africa who's going to be connected to this trade route and Europeans. As well, whether it's in ancient Greece or Rome or eventually during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance is going to develop in India in large part due to the wealth of merchants who got wealthy from the Silk Road. To draw in that trade route, you would have it beginning here in China and crossing all the way across through these empires to Europe. It's going to divide up. around the Tibetan Plateau. It's also going to have lots of different other networks around here to kind of avoid the Gobi Desert and to go through the Khyber Pass and across different deserts. And this is not to say this is one route and someone started in Europe and would trek all the way to the other end. These were interconnected trade routes and one person might go back and forth over a course of five miles or a hundred miles or a few dozen miles at different weigh stations along the way and then other people would take it up and bring things across throughout this. Some of the major cities and trade stops would have be Guangzhou, furthest to the east in China. Xi'an, some people consider that the starting point of the Silk Road in northern China. Antioch is one of the major stops in the Middle East, the Persian Empire. As you get close to Europe, it would be the Constantinople, center of the Eastern Roman Empire. After the fall of Rome, it carried on into the Byzantine Empire. That would later be renamed Istanbul and last long into the Middle Ages. And we'll look at kind of that city's impact towards the end of this presentation. But all of these empires and cities and people were connected. This would be 4,000 miles worth of trade routes. that crisscrossed these empires and people. However, goods were not just transported over land. Just so you understand, there were waterways and water trade that were going on as well that would connect these different areas as well. The Silk Road was dominantly a land trade route, and that's what we'll be looking at today. But there was lots of overseas trade going on. as well. Well, a lot of this came about through stability and the stability that came about from Classical civilizations, you know, going through long periods of great warfare and infighting until finally some stable governments are able to provide some unity, some strength, some safety, some law and order that are going to allow for greater trade. Of course, if you're terrified to go outside of your village for fear of, you know, bandits and marauders and Mongols who might be attacking and killing and plundering. Trade is not going to exist so much. That's going to happen after the fall of Rome in Europe. Barbarians are going to really disrupt trade and trade is going to come to a screeching halt across much of Europe during the early Middle Ages because of those sort of fears. But when you have a strong, powerful civilizations who can protect people like Rome did and these governments in China and India are going to do, you're going to have greater trade and greater increase in trade routes. improving economies. So that stability of government is going to allow increased trade between these different regions, you know, relatively safely, not of course, fully safely as you're going across thousands of miles, but it's going to increase that trade and trade is going to be increasing between these varied civilizations. And this trade is going to slowly develop into very specific trade routes that merchants and caravans would crisscross. And this network of trade routes is going to eventually take the name of the Silk Road. And it is going to begin in China during the Han Dynasty. Silk is going to be developed in China. There's a legend. of how silk first developed in 3000 or so BC when an empress was having a cup of tea and a silkworm in its cocoon dropped into her tea and she began unspooling this silk cocoon and found it very beautiful and decided to weave this silk cocoon and develop this tiny bit of fabric from it. that really amazed everyone with how with its beauty and it's how soft and shiny it was. And eventually though that silk that develops in China will reach the markets 4,000 miles away in Greece and Rome and will impress thousands and millions of people in between. But many many goods are going to be traded along the Silk Road, not just silk, and we'll look at some of those as well. But as I mentioned silk, yeah, so the legend goes that it was this girl who, you know, got the idea to spin this into silk during the days of the Yellow Emperor. However, historians and archaeologists have kind of come across objects that help them kind of know for a fact that the earliest silk fabric that has been discovered is from 3630 BCE. That's around the time... of the pyramids that are being built in ancient Egypt. And this was used to wrapping the body of a child. There's also been knives that have been found that lead for cutting silk from the 3000s BCE. And silk was developed around then in China, this luxurious fabric that was spun from the cocoons of these worms that eat mulberry trees. And for about a thousand years was incredibly well kept secret. Nobody else really knew about it. The upper classes, the royalty in China would be the only ones really wearing silk during, you know, the social class of the Tang Dynasty in China with all the nobles would wear silk. But eventually, of course, it's going to spread from there. But China will maintain a monopoly over silk production. No one else around the world knew how to produce silk for over a thousand years. It was closely guarded, Chinese secret, punishable under death should anyone be caught spreading how to make silk outside of China. It was highly coveted, highly valuable. You know, it's not just this beautiful, comfortable fabric for clothing or sheets. It was also used as armor for soldiers in battle because even a sharp arrow cannot pierce silk. You know, you could be hit with it and go into your skin, but you could pull the silk taut and pop it out. And it was an incredibly, incredibly valuable resource. So the Chinese first started trading silk for horses. They needed horses and these nomads who moved across the Central Asian steppe. And Central Asia had many horses and traded them for silk. And then they would crisscross and trade routes began to develop from there. And of course, silk spread from there. The duties of women in ancient China, much of them involved reeling silk, spinning silk, and these eventual, like almost factual, like rooms where silk would be developed from these cocoons because it was so valuable and so many people across the whole world wanted it and China maintained this monopoly over its production for a long time. But as I mentioned there were many goods that were traded along the Silk Road not just silk of course. From China and from the East you'd have spices, beautiful jade, this beautiful green plates and bowls and and glassware made out of jade porcelain came from china as well this fine white um plates and bowls and items used for dinnerware and things like that and other goods from the east traveled west to europe from the west you had olive oil that was grown across italy and greece wine as well there'll be grown and bottled from grapes in Europe, spun cloth, horses, various food items would be developed across the west and brought towards China that would go east to China. And then all along the road you'd have different precious metals like gold and silver, ivory that might come from Africa, timber for the building of houses, tortoise shells were used for ornamental objects and jewelry. Even eyeglasses were made from tortoiseshells for a long time. These would also cross many of the trade routes and these would be all trading hands from different merchants all along these trade routes, all 4,000 miles. Different goods would be spreading out from each stop along the way. And the Central Asians, you know, across the Middle East of Turkmenistan and the Persian Empire and between India and and Europe many of these Central Asians played roles as middlemen and merchants and grew quite wealthy from that time as goods were traded eventually the the knowledge of how to make silk spread along this route you know you can't keep anything a total secret for that long when it especially can bring such great wealth so eventually the Arabs began to manufacture silk as they learned how to do it and Chinese silk exports became less important or they still had lots of goods that they traded and maintained dominance over you know other markets as well it wasn't really until the crusades you know it as you're getting close to the middle ages around the 1200s 1300s that silk production really made its way finally to Europe thousands of years after it had been in existence in China But looking at these trade routes of the Silk Road, it's an incredibly, incredibly long journey across treacherous lands, incredibly dry deserts, high, vast mountains like the Himalayas, dangerous valleys and harsh winters or brutal summers and heat and cold and really difficult travel. that these merchants had to endure even if they're going a short distance along a portion of the trade route or you know a longer distance along that trade route but of course camels became the dominant form of transport along the silk road they could uh drink some water and they would be good for a number of days before they might need to drink again of course they could store that water in their humps famously and they were could carry a lot of weight and they could walk long distances and they were really good for these trade routes and that's why they became the dominant form of transport and they would stop at these various stations along the silk road these merchants that would trade along it usually they would just trade along a small portion you know a few dozen miles maybe a little more you know the most that a merchant might be able to go in a single day might be 20 or 30 miles max They might travel for a few days before heading back in the other direction. They would have to cross deserts and mountains. Bandits might be a danger along the different trade routes. And as I mentioned, camels, whether they were the more traditional one or hairier ones like these from the east, were the dominant method of transportation along the Silk Road. But you need to stop along the way, you know, for your own safety and for replenishing supplies. And along that route, different stops along the way would develop known as caravansaris. A caravansari is sort of like a roadside inn where caravaners, those in a caravan, a caravansari, could stop and replenish. And the horses or the camels could drink. They could get some food. They could meet up with others. You could trade right here in the courtyard where many people would, you know, hang out and relax after a long day on the road, provide some food and some safety. And these would develop into some of the first towns along these routes. Here is an incredible image of a caravansari today. This is from modern day Iran. So this would be in the old Persian empire. This is known as the Izqadast caravansari. This is in Fars province. And really this does not look much different than it would have looked thousands of years ago with the stone walls, the single entrance for safety, and then the booths that people could rent out and stay for the night if they needed to at this caravansar that the merchants would use along these trade routes. Here's an ancient image of, you know, merchants stopping off, coming through the gate, they tie up their horses and their camels, they get a break, they lie down, they relax. And these would be all along the Silk Road. And these would eventually develop into, you know, villages that would grow up around some of these caravansaries that would turn into settlements and wealthy villages. Much like in the United States when the Transcontinental Railroad was built in the 1800s, many towns and cities developed along stops on the Transcontinental Railroad. This photograph showing some of those early merchants. This is from 1914. This picture from Iraq in Fallujah, Karabansari. But this really could have looked the same as it did when we're talking about the Silk Road, whether it's in, you know, 500 CE or a couple hundred BCE, you still would have the camels and the horses and the merchants stopped off there trading. And some of these early merchants developed who would settle down in one area and welcome, you know, travelers. from the east and from the west and trade goods and some of these rulers and these empires grew quite wealthy from this trade as they would tax it and currencies eventually developed to help trade credit develops and sort of the modern idea of an economy comes from a lot of these trade routes that would you know go from okay you're just trading goods for goods and you're bartering one item for another whether it's silk for horses or or gold or silver Until turning into currency. So you're using money that can now transfer for goods and services. Or credit to be paid later. To develop into that modern economy. Here is a graphic image showing the Silk Road again. With some embellishments of the merchants along the way. And some of the items and things along the Silk Road. And showing it how it traversed from Xi'an in China. Along the Yellow River. Kind of going around the mountains and south of the Gobi Desert. Through the Takmalan Desert would be one of the more dangerous areas and difficult areas to cross. Some might go through the Khyber Pass or the Kparmir Mountains or the Hindu Kush Mountains. The Himalayan Mountains are some of the tallest mountains in the world. And they would cross through there. Samarkand is one of the great stops along the Silk Road. Through there all the way to Tehran and all the way this map does. And go all the way to Europe to show Byzantium. or Constantinople and the rest of Europe, but that would be just off there to the left-hand side. But ideas would spread along the Silk Road as well as these merchants are interacting with each other. Of course, they're talking, they're sharing news, they're sharing the newest things that they've heard about, they're sharing their religion, their beliefs, their ideas. And this really had as big of an impact on the world as the actual exchange of goods. did. You know, this exchange of ideas and cultures is really going to have a big impact on the world. So we'll look at the contributions from these different regions to see what each empire or civilization was able to contribute. So from India, you're going to have a great contribution of religion, whether it's Buddhism or Hinduism, that's going to spread from India. The concept of zero. And our decimal system in our numbering, we're talking about 12.2 or 0.3 or pi, 3.14159, that decimal system comes from India. Buddhism and Hinduism, we're going to spread from India into China. Buddhism will spread into Japan from there, it will spread throughout across the Silk Road from India. Middle Eastern contributions, whether we're talking about Persian contributions or the Safavids in the Middle East are going to contribute incredible knowledge of medicine and surgery, great health care from there. Advanced algebra and mathematics are going to come from the Middle East, from Persia. And more religion is going to spread from there. The oldest continually practiced religion in the world is Zoroastrianism. It's this sort of multi-tendency faith involving monotheism, polytheism, and something known as henotheism, where you believe in one god, but you accept other gods as well that are out there. That's henotheism. So this kind of grew up in Persia and the following of Zoroaster. and so our astrotism spread along the Silk Road as well. In China, of course, silk, which we see here, is the dominant contribution, but other things like paper, the Chinese invented paper, paper money would be invented in China, books would spread out from there, the compass was great help for people trading along a trade route, obviously gunpowder was developed in China and exposed to the rest of the world from there, so some of these goods. would be brought along the Silk Road as well and spread outward. The Byzantine Empire rose up in Constantinople. I love this image of Constantinople because it really shows how well protected the city was with these massive high thick stone walls that surrounded the whole city while it was on a peninsula and that's why Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire lasted long after the fall of Rome. But they came home to Christianity, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Eastern branch of Christianity. You have the Roman Catholics based in Rome and Eastern Orthodox Catholicism or Christianity, I should say, in Byzantium was kind of home to their arts and relics that were either Christian in origin or celebration of Christianity. spread from their relics especially. Justinian, Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora were some of the most famous rulers of the Byzantine Empire. Justinian famously codified many different laws from across the world, the known world at that time, into one simple set of laws and that law code would impact generations really all the way up to even Napoleon in the 1800s developed his code of laws based on some of Justinian's ideas. And those ideas on justice and law spread along the Silk Road as well. The Byzantine Empire was also really what kept alive Roman learning and ancient Greek studies, whether it's the philosophers like Socrates and Plato and Aristotle or Roman philosophers as well, or historians like Herodotus. and the dramatists. You know, much of their writings were saved by the Byzantines and those ideas and those writings spread along the Silk Road as well. So the Silk Road obviously had a really massive impact on the world and on history and on culture and on civilizations. Millions of lives were changed by not just the goods that were traversing the world, but the ideas and the concepts and the interaction of cultures. greatly advanced many of these civilizations. Science and religion and culture spread across the Silk Road as well. On the negative side, the bubonic plague would make its way from trade routes and from merchants in the east to the west. I believe it was from rats on trade ships on boats that would be coming from the east to the west. So you You know, you have all the positives and the good things that come from trade, but also you're going to have the spread of diseases can sometimes occur as well. And that bubonic plague will kill millions in Europe during the Middle Ages. But for an exit ticket here, we've looked at, we've talked about the impact of the Silk Road and the goods that were traded and the interaction of these different cultures. How do you think the Silk Road affected these civilizations that traded along it? Whether it's the Han Dynasty in China or the Gupta Dynasty in India or the Persians or the Europeans or the Italians during the time of the Renaissance. How were these civilizations affected? by the Silk Road, this trade, this famous, one of the most famous trade routes in all of history. So that's something to think about for your exit ticket. You can write that down, but I want to thank you for following along with this flipped classroom lesson from Students of History. Stay tuned for more of them in the future. Take care, everybody.

The thing with this one is the map is vertical where the notes are horizontal. Hopefully that doesn't throw you off. That map though, we'll do that first just to understand the geography of the Silk Road and the empires that it impacted.

So of course it began in China, which is where silk was first developed. We'll look at that in a minute. And then the Han Dynasty and the various dynasties that came through over the thousands of years that the Silk Road was in existence. The Gupta Empire was the dominant empire in India.

from a few hundred BCE until a few hundred or 500 or so CE, major years of the Silk Road. The Persian Empire, just a little bit further to the west, was the dominant force across the Middle East and Southwest Asia. You're also going to have the Aksum Empire in Africa who's going to be connected to this trade route and Europeans. As well, whether it's in ancient Greece or Rome or eventually during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance is going to develop in India in large part due to the wealth of merchants who got wealthy from the Silk Road. To draw in that trade route, you would have it beginning here in China and crossing all the way across through these empires to Europe.

It's going to divide up. around the Tibetan Plateau. It's also going to have lots of different other networks around here to kind of avoid the Gobi Desert and to go through the Khyber Pass and across different deserts. And this is not to say this is one route and someone started in Europe and would trek all the way to the other end. These were interconnected trade routes and one person might go back and forth over a course of five miles or a hundred miles or a few dozen miles at different weigh stations along the way and then other people would take it up and bring things across throughout this.

Some of the major cities and trade stops would have be Guangzhou, furthest to the east in China. Xi'an, some people consider that the starting point of the Silk Road in northern China. Antioch is one of the major stops in the Middle East, the Persian Empire. As you get close to Europe, it would be the Constantinople, center of the Eastern Roman Empire.

After the fall of Rome, it carried on into the Byzantine Empire. That would later be renamed Istanbul and last long into the Middle Ages. And we'll look at kind of that city's impact towards the end of this presentation.

But all of these empires and cities and people were connected. This would be 4,000 miles worth of trade routes. that crisscrossed these empires and people.

However, goods were not just transported over land. Just so you understand, there were waterways and water trade that were going on as well that would connect these different areas as well. The Silk Road was dominantly a land trade route, and that's what we'll be looking at today.

But there was lots of overseas trade going on. as well. Well, a lot of this came about through stability and the stability that came about from Classical civilizations, you know, going through long periods of great warfare and infighting until finally some stable governments are able to provide some unity, some strength, some safety, some law and order that are going to allow for greater trade. Of course, if you're terrified to go outside of your village for fear of, you know, bandits and marauders and Mongols who might be attacking and killing and plundering. Trade is not going to exist so much.

That's going to happen after the fall of Rome in Europe. Barbarians are going to really disrupt trade and trade is going to come to a screeching halt across much of Europe during the early Middle Ages because of those sort of fears. But when you have a strong, powerful civilizations who can protect people like Rome did and these governments in China and India are going to do, you're going to have greater trade and greater increase in trade routes.

improving economies. So that stability of government is going to allow increased trade between these different regions, you know, relatively safely, not of course, fully safely as you're going across thousands of miles, but it's going to increase that trade and trade is going to be increasing between these varied civilizations. And this trade is going to slowly develop into very specific trade routes that merchants and caravans would crisscross. And this network of trade routes is going to eventually take the name of the Silk Road.

And it is going to begin in China during the Han Dynasty. Silk is going to be developed in China. There's a legend. of how silk first developed in 3000 or so BC when an empress was having a cup of tea and a silkworm in its cocoon dropped into her tea and she began unspooling this silk cocoon and found it very beautiful and decided to weave this silk cocoon and develop this tiny bit of fabric from it. that really amazed everyone with how with its beauty and it's how soft and shiny it was.

And eventually though that silk that develops in China will reach the markets 4,000 miles away in Greece and Rome and will impress thousands and millions of people in between. But many many goods are going to be traded along the Silk Road, not just silk, and we'll look at some of those as well. But as I mentioned silk, yeah, so the legend goes that it was this girl who, you know, got the idea to spin this into silk during the days of the Yellow Emperor. However, historians and archaeologists have kind of come across objects that help them kind of know for a fact that the earliest silk fabric that has been discovered is from 3630 BCE.

That's around the time... of the pyramids that are being built in ancient Egypt. And this was used to wrapping the body of a child.

There's also been knives that have been found that lead for cutting silk from the 3000s BCE. And silk was developed around then in China, this luxurious fabric that was spun from the cocoons of these worms that eat mulberry trees. And for about a thousand years was incredibly well kept secret. Nobody else really knew about it. The upper classes, the royalty in China would be the only ones really wearing silk during, you know, the social class of the Tang Dynasty in China with all the nobles would wear silk.

But eventually, of course, it's going to spread from there. But China will maintain a monopoly over silk production. No one else around the world knew how to produce silk for over a thousand years.

It was closely guarded, Chinese secret, punishable under death should anyone be caught spreading how to make silk outside of China. It was highly coveted, highly valuable. You know, it's not just this beautiful, comfortable fabric for clothing or sheets. It was also used as armor for soldiers in battle because even a sharp arrow cannot pierce silk.

You know, you could be hit with it and go into your skin, but you could pull the silk taut and pop it out. And it was an incredibly, incredibly valuable resource. So the Chinese first started trading silk for horses.

They needed horses and these nomads who moved across the Central Asian steppe. And Central Asia had many horses and traded them for silk. And then they would crisscross and trade routes began to develop from there. And of course, silk spread from there.

The duties of women in ancient China, much of them involved reeling silk, spinning silk, and these eventual, like almost factual, like rooms where silk would be developed from these cocoons because it was so valuable and so many people across the whole world wanted it and China maintained this monopoly over its production for a long time. But as I mentioned there were many goods that were traded along the Silk Road not just silk of course. From China and from the East you'd have spices, beautiful jade, this beautiful green plates and bowls and and glassware made out of jade porcelain came from china as well this fine white um plates and bowls and items used for dinnerware and things like that and other goods from the east traveled west to europe from the west you had olive oil that was grown across italy and greece wine as well there'll be grown and bottled from grapes in Europe, spun cloth, horses, various food items would be developed across the west and brought towards China that would go east to China. And then all along the road you'd have different precious metals like gold and silver, ivory that might come from Africa, timber for the building of houses, tortoise shells were used for ornamental objects and jewelry.

Even eyeglasses were made from tortoiseshells for a long time. These would also cross many of the trade routes and these would be all trading hands from different merchants all along these trade routes, all 4,000 miles. Different goods would be spreading out from each stop along the way.

And the Central Asians, you know, across the Middle East of Turkmenistan and the Persian Empire and between India and and Europe many of these Central Asians played roles as middlemen and merchants and grew quite wealthy from that time as goods were traded eventually the the knowledge of how to make silk spread along this route you know you can't keep anything a total secret for that long when it especially can bring such great wealth so eventually the Arabs began to manufacture silk as they learned how to do it and Chinese silk exports became less important or they still had lots of goods that they traded and maintained dominance over you know other markets as well it wasn't really until the crusades you know it as you're getting close to the middle ages around the 1200s 1300s that silk production really made its way finally to Europe thousands of years after it had been in existence in China But looking at these trade routes of the Silk Road, it's an incredibly, incredibly long journey across treacherous lands, incredibly dry deserts, high, vast mountains like the Himalayas, dangerous valleys and harsh winters or brutal summers and heat and cold and really difficult travel. that these merchants had to endure even if they're going a short distance along a portion of the trade route or you know a longer distance along that trade route but of course camels became the dominant form of transport along the silk road they could uh drink some water and they would be good for a number of days before they might need to drink again of course they could store that water in their humps famously and they were could carry a lot of weight and they could walk long distances and they were really good for these trade routes and that's why they became the dominant form of transport and they would stop at these various stations along the silk road these merchants that would trade along it usually they would just trade along a small portion you know a few dozen miles maybe a little more you know the most that a merchant might be able to go in a single day might be 20 or 30 miles max They might travel for a few days before heading back in the other direction. They would have to cross deserts and mountains.

Bandits might be a danger along the different trade routes. And as I mentioned, camels, whether they were the more traditional one or hairier ones like these from the east, were the dominant method of transportation along the Silk Road. But you need to stop along the way, you know, for your own safety and for replenishing supplies. And along that route, different stops along the way would develop known as caravansaris. A caravansari is sort of like a roadside inn where caravaners, those in a caravan, a caravansari, could stop and replenish.

And the horses or the camels could drink. They could get some food. They could meet up with others.

You could trade right here in the courtyard where many people would, you know, hang out and relax after a long day on the road, provide some food and some safety. And these would develop into some of the first towns along these routes. Here is an incredible image of a caravansari today.

This is from modern day Iran. So this would be in the old Persian empire. This is known as the Izqadast caravansari.

This is in Fars province. And really this does not look much different than it would have looked thousands of years ago with the stone walls, the single entrance for safety, and then the booths that people could rent out and stay for the night if they needed to at this caravansar that the merchants would use along these trade routes. Here's an ancient image of, you know, merchants stopping off, coming through the gate, they tie up their horses and their camels, they get a break, they lie down, they relax.

And these would be all along the Silk Road. And these would eventually develop into, you know, villages that would grow up around some of these caravansaries that would turn into settlements and wealthy villages. Much like in the United States when the Transcontinental Railroad was built in the 1800s, many towns and cities developed along stops on the Transcontinental Railroad. This photograph showing some of those early merchants. This is from 1914. This picture from Iraq in Fallujah, Karabansari.

But this really could have looked the same as it did when we're talking about the Silk Road, whether it's in, you know, 500 CE or a couple hundred BCE, you still would have the camels and the horses and the merchants stopped off there trading. And some of these early merchants developed who would settle down in one area and welcome, you know, travelers. from the east and from the west and trade goods and some of these rulers and these empires grew quite wealthy from this trade as they would tax it and currencies eventually developed to help trade credit develops and sort of the modern idea of an economy comes from a lot of these trade routes that would you know go from okay you're just trading goods for goods and you're bartering one item for another whether it's silk for horses or or gold or silver Until turning into currency.

So you're using money that can now transfer for goods and services. Or credit to be paid later. To develop into that modern economy. Here is a graphic image showing the Silk Road again. With some embellishments of the merchants along the way.

And some of the items and things along the Silk Road. And showing it how it traversed from Xi'an in China. Along the Yellow River.

Kind of going around the mountains and south of the Gobi Desert. Through the Takmalan Desert would be one of the more dangerous areas and difficult areas to cross. Some might go through the Khyber Pass or the Kparmir Mountains or the Hindu Kush Mountains. The Himalayan Mountains are some of the tallest mountains in the world.

And they would cross through there. Samarkand is one of the great stops along the Silk Road. Through there all the way to Tehran and all the way this map does.

And go all the way to Europe to show Byzantium. or Constantinople and the rest of Europe, but that would be just off there to the left-hand side. But ideas would spread along the Silk Road as well as these merchants are interacting with each other.

Of course, they're talking, they're sharing news, they're sharing the newest things that they've heard about, they're sharing their religion, their beliefs, their ideas. And this really had as big of an impact on the world as the actual exchange of goods. did.

You know, this exchange of ideas and cultures is really going to have a big impact on the world. So we'll look at the contributions from these different regions to see what each empire or civilization was able to contribute. So from India, you're going to have a great contribution of religion, whether it's Buddhism or Hinduism, that's going to spread from India. The concept of zero.

And our decimal system in our numbering, we're talking about 12.2 or 0.3 or pi, 3.14159, that decimal system comes from India. Buddhism and Hinduism, we're going to spread from India into China. Buddhism will spread into Japan from there, it will spread throughout across the Silk Road from India. Middle Eastern contributions, whether we're talking about Persian contributions or the Safavids in the Middle East are going to contribute incredible knowledge of medicine and surgery, great health care from there. Advanced algebra and mathematics are going to come from the Middle East, from Persia.

And more religion is going to spread from there. The oldest continually practiced religion in the world is Zoroastrianism. It's this sort of multi-tendency faith involving monotheism, polytheism, and something known as henotheism, where you believe in one god, but you accept other gods as well that are out there.

That's henotheism. So this kind of grew up in Persia and the following of Zoroaster. and so our astrotism spread along the Silk Road as well. In China, of course, silk, which we see here, is the dominant contribution, but other things like paper, the Chinese invented paper, paper money would be invented in China, books would spread out from there, the compass was great help for people trading along a trade route, obviously gunpowder was developed in China and exposed to the rest of the world from there, so some of these goods. would be brought along the Silk Road as well and spread outward.

The Byzantine Empire rose up in Constantinople. I love this image of Constantinople because it really shows how well protected the city was with these massive high thick stone walls that surrounded the whole city while it was on a peninsula and that's why Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire lasted long after the fall of Rome. But they came home to Christianity, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Eastern branch of Christianity.

You have the Roman Catholics based in Rome and Eastern Orthodox Catholicism or Christianity, I should say, in Byzantium was kind of home to their arts and relics that were either Christian in origin or celebration of Christianity. spread from their relics especially. Justinian, Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora were some of the most famous rulers of the Byzantine Empire. Justinian famously codified many different laws from across the world, the known world at that time, into one simple set of laws and that law code would impact generations really all the way up to even Napoleon in the 1800s developed his code of laws based on some of Justinian's ideas.

And those ideas on justice and law spread along the Silk Road as well. The Byzantine Empire was also really what kept alive Roman learning and ancient Greek studies, whether it's the philosophers like Socrates and Plato and Aristotle or Roman philosophers as well, or historians like Herodotus. and the dramatists. You know, much of their writings were saved by the Byzantines and those ideas and those writings spread along the Silk Road as well. So the Silk Road obviously had a really massive impact on the world and on history and on culture and on civilizations.

Millions of lives were changed by not just the goods that were traversing the world, but the ideas and the concepts and the interaction of cultures. greatly advanced many of these civilizations. Science and religion and culture spread across the Silk Road as well. On the negative side, the bubonic plague would make its way from trade routes and from merchants in the east to the west. I believe it was from rats on trade ships on boats that would be coming from the east to the west.

So you You know, you have all the positives and the good things that come from trade, but also you're going to have the spread of diseases can sometimes occur as well. And that bubonic plague will kill millions in Europe during the Middle Ages. But for an exit ticket here, we've looked at, we've talked about the impact of the Silk Road and the goods that were traded and the interaction of these different cultures.

How do you think the Silk Road affected these civilizations that traded along it? Whether it's the Han Dynasty in China or the Gupta Dynasty in India or the Persians or the Europeans or the Italians during the time of the Renaissance. How were these civilizations affected? by the Silk Road, this trade, this famous, one of the most famous trade routes in all of history. So that's something to think about for your exit ticket.

You can write that down, but I want to thank you for following along with this flipped classroom lesson from Students of History. Stay tuned for more of them in the future. Take care, everybody.

Transcript for:Exploring the Silk Road's Influence

Transcript for:
Exploring the Silk Road's Influence