The Riches of the East

Posted by John Crandall Nov 20, 2006

The silk road carried caravans trading rich silks, jade, lapus lazuli, gold, and other riches while at the same time transmitting art, ideas, and culture from the East to the West, and vice versa from time immemorial. At the hieght of traffic, an impressive network of roman roads made connection with the eastern terminus of the silk road. This trade spans the majority of human history, and its interuption by the rise of the Turks and the Fall of Byzantium led Europeans to seek a Western route to tap these riches which led to the Discovery of America, and eventually Magellan's Voyage around the world. Not to mention "rounding the Horn" of Africa, and exploring the Indian Ocean.

It would not be too much of a stretch to say that the demise of the silk road initiated the great Age of Sail, and also European Imperialism. The English, Dutch, and Portuguese all made claims in the East motivated by rich trading possibilities. Sailing Ships provided the link from India lost by the Muslim/Turk/Magyar incursions and this is the spur to the British Empire in India. The Portuguese and Dutch tapped the Spice Islands and conducted a vigorous trade directly with their island holdings bypassing the old link to China.

The British (and American) clipper ships, once sailing technology had advanced far enough, initiated trade directly with China where the Portugese and their caravels had been before them. Opium, tea, and silver were the key elements of the great riches of the China Trade, as immortalized by James Clavell in his Noble House series of historical novels. Chinese junks had long carried on a minor southern trade adjunct to the silk road, but the new European ships and military technology took most of their business as well as that which had for so long travelled overland.

Further technological advances including steamships then lead to the global world in which we now live where most of humanity is under the influences of cultural exchange that were once concentrated along the silk road.