The Silk Road: The Age Of Discovery

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As well as silk, gunpowder and paper was also a huge deal on the culture back then, these products were also invented by the Chinese during the times of Han Dynasty. The demand of silk was especially high in Rome, Greece and Egypt. Except of products like silk and spices, the exchange of religion, culture, art, language, science, philosophy and architecture, was also greatly valued. The end of the silk road forced traders to take the sea in order for their business to keep going. This started the Age of Discovery (1453-1660 CE), which was the beginning of a global community. On the other hand, the interest for the Silk Road awakened towards the end of the nineteenth century. This started after many countries began to explore the area, these …show more content…

However, the study of the route really evoked after the Swedish Sven Hedins (1895) trip. He was a cartographer and linguist, and he became one of the great explorers at that time. After Hedin, many archaeologists started exploring as well, like Sir Aurel Stein of Britain and Albert von Le Coq of Germany, yet the French, Russians and the Japanese also joined. The goods of the Silk Road are now in museums in as many as dozen countries around the world. The biggest collection is in Delhi, because of Stein, and in the British Museum, in Berlin, due to Von Le Coq.
The Silk Road is also known for bringing cultures and people together. Traders had to learn new languages of countries they travelled through and sold to in order for them to communicate and sell or make a deal successfully. The cultural exchange was growing so big that people or travellers took chances and went onto the silk road to take part in this exchange that was happening between countries along this route. Because arts, science and literature was exchanging among these …show more content…

Such as, the Black Death plague which had a huge effect on the whole Europe in the 14th century. This plague is said to come through the Silk Road from Central Asia. Another theory that is said is that marmot pelts, which were supposed to be used on fur-trimmed garments, was filled with plague bearing flea eggs. These eggs were brought from somewhere in Central Asia to a Middle Eastern dockyard. There the eggs hatched and infested some local rats, which later went on the ship and were carried in cities in Italy. Where the whole plague disaster