Transcript 6 Trade Networks

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Emergence of Transregional
Networks of Communication
and Exchange
Long-Distance Travel in the Ancient
World
• Lack of police enforcement outside of established settlements
• Changed in classical period
• Improvement of infrastructure
• Development of empires
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Trade Networks Develop
• Maintenance of roads, bridges
• Discovery of monsoon wind patterns in the Indian Ocean
• Increased safety & reliability
• Increased tariff revenues used to maintain open routes
• Improvement in technology
• Domesticated pack animals transport goods across longer routes
(i.e. horses, oxen, camel, & llamas)
• Yokes, saddles, & stirrups
• Camel can store 80lbs of fat in its hump, travel long distances, great
for sand travel
• Dhow ships with lateen sail
• Sturdier than galleys with square sails, suitable for open-water
navigation
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The Mediterranean
• Persians, Greeks, Phoenicians, & Romans
• Coastal navigation
• The Turkish straights connected the Black Sea to the
Mediterranean
• The Suez Isthmus connected the Red Sea to the
Mediterranean
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The India Ocean Basin
• Connected East Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and
Southeast Asia with China & Japan
• Open water navigation
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Trans-Saharan Caravan Routes
• Only a handful of routes linked sub-Saharan Africa to the
Mediterranean
• Nubia served as a road between north & south trade
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The Silk Roads
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Named for principal commodity from China
Dependent on imperial stability
Overland trade routes from China to Roman empire
Sea lanes and maritime trade as well
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The Silk Roads, 200 B.C.E.-300 C.E.
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Organization of Long-Distance Trade
• Divided into small segments
• Trade done in stages
• Sea trade
• Malay and Indian mariners
• Persian, Egyptian, Greek
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Cultural Diffusion
• Goods, animals, & products are spread
• Spices, camels (from Arabia to Sahara), bananas (from Southeast Asia to
Africa), stirrup, printing, paper, gunpowder (later), lateen sail
• Merchants carry religious ideas
• Christianity – Middle East, Africa, Europe
• Influence of ascetic practice from India
• Desert-dwelling hermits, monastic societies
• St. Augustine, 354-430 C.E.
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Hippo, north Africa
Experimented with Greek thought, Manichaeism
387 C.E., converts to Christianity
Major theologian
• Buddhism & Hinduism are spread via Silk Road
• Buddhism becomes dominant faith of Silk Roads, 200 B.C.E. – 1000 C.E.
• In China Buddhism was originally restricted to merchants, spread to larger
population circa 5th century C.E.
• Cosmopolitan centers promote development of monasteries to shelter traveling
merchants
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The Spread of Buddhism, Hinduism,
and Christianity, 200 B.C.E.-400 C.E.
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Greco-Roman influence on
Buddhist Sculpture
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Farming & Changes in
Agriculture
• Rice & cotton are brought from South Asia to the Middle East
• Qanat system - is a water management system used to
provide a reliable supply of water for human settlements and
irrigation in hot, arid and semi-arid climates.
• Qanats are constructed as a series of well-like vertical shafts,
connected by gently sloping tunnels. Qanats tap into
subterranean water in a manner that efficiently delivers large
quantities of water to the surface without need for pumping.
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The Spread of Epidemic Disease
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Role of trade routes in spread of pathogens
Smallpox, measles, bubonic plague
Effect: economic slowdown, move to regional self-sufficiency
The Antonine Plague, AD 165–180, caused up to 2,000 deaths
a day in Rome, as many as 5,000,000 deaths!
• Epidemic disease came later to China than to Rome but still
had the same negative impact on classical Chinese society.
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