The Silk Road and Central Asia have always been some of the most fascinating historical subjects to me. So let's have a thread about them.
When, how, and why did the Silk Road lose its importance?
The Silk Road
Joshua Cruz
Carson Powell
When British imperialism and advancing technology rendered it pointless.
Robert Thompson
Apparently it was actually Turkmenistan.
Turkmenistan.
(and the dissolution of the Mongol empire)
James Brown
Even with the discovery of Americas and the Westerly Route, the fact of the matter is that everyone that lined the silk route in the 1500s WAS A MAJOR FUCKING EMPIRE meant that it was a vital trading route even if the Yurofaggots found ways around it.
That, and the Spice route never lost its importance. Ever. Hell it got a fucking upgrade when the Suez Canal was built.
One could truly say that the Silk Route died in the late 19th century. Not before.
Elijah Campbell
okay, well it is atleast 4000 years old (Seima-Turbino phenomeno)
and even before that:
Afanasevo culture (c. 3300–2500 BCE), located north of the Tarim, in Siberia/Mongolia, directly connected (genetically, culturally, linguistically) with Yamna of Europe (Black Sea)
>The oldest known example of silk outside Serica comes from the hair of a 21st Dynasty (around 1000 BC) Caucasoid female
mummy from Dar el Medina.
>Silk has also been found in the Scythian nomad tombs at Pazyryk in the Altai, dating from the fifth to the third centuries BC (figure 4), and even in Celtic tombs of the La Tène culture, 21 in sites as far apart as Scotland and Germany, where silk threads were used in embroidering the clothes of the aristocracy. It is also likely that raw silk, reaching Greece by way
of the Black Sea and its Scythians, was woven into textiles at Cos.
Christopher Wilson
later on a mercantile group known as the Radhanite (medieval merchants) came to profit from the ancient network of trade since it was profitable
Justin Scott
the Yamna/Afanasevo started the whole thing with the transmission of technology, culture, products from west to east
they connected eurasia
one must remember the Anau seal to get an idea of how big the transmission of Yamna/Andronovo was
The discovery of a single tiny stone seal (known as the "Anau seal") with geometric markings from the BMAC site at Anau in Turkmenistan in 2000 led some to claim that the Bactria-Margiana complex had also developed writing, and thus may indeed be considered a literate civilization. It bears five markings strikingly similar to Chinese "small seal" characters, but such characters date from the Qin reforms of roughly 100 AD, while the Anau seal is dated by context to 2,300 BCE. It is therefore an unexplained anomaly. The only match to the Anau seal is a small jet seal of almost identical shape from Niyä (near modern Minfeng) along the southern Silk Road in Xinjiang, assumed to be from the Western Han dynasty.[11]
But in independent studies of the inscription, two experts in ancient Chinese — Dr. Qui Xigui of Beijing University and Dr. Victor H. Mair of Penn — concluded that the characters were much like a more advanced script practiced in the Western Han dynasty of 206 B.C. to A.D. 9.
Influences from Central Asia or farther west might have contributed to the invention of Chinese writing. Dr. Mair, who holds that such influences were greater than previously thought, has raised this controversial point. "The Anau seal forces us to rethink in a most radical fashion the origins of the Chinese script," he said.
Jaxson Young
Wheat and common millet were introduced to northern china from the west. Although westerners think of china as a solely rice-based civilization, wheat and other grains are very important in northern china even today. Also vines and wine and other foodstuffs were introduced from the west.
It is important to remember that Xi'an, the capital of the Han dynasty , is quite far west, and close to the western corridor of Gansu, which leads to the tocharians.
The importance of the horse and chariots to chinese ciliizations can not be overemphasized. It was clearly inteoduced from the west, from indoeuropeans who developed the technology.
The tocharians, bactrians, soghdians were all city based, and highly developed ciliizations. The Han dynasty refers to greek bactira as DaYuan, and chinese travellers highly praised their cities and products, and the prosperous, industrious and peaceful inhabitants. The silk road was created to trade with DaYuan.
The nomadic steppe peoples such as scythians also had aspects of highly developed civilization, such as techincally refined and beautiful gold and iron working and clothing. Also they must have corralled their horses somewhere, implying they had at least semipermanent settlements. Probly similar to how the huns had one major tentcity as their capital in europe. They werent just nomads, but probly a seminomadic civilization.
The chinese learned of buddhism from the missionary efforts of grecobactrian buddhist kindgdoms and tocharians.
There are more examples of cultural and technological innovations that spread from the indoeuropean west to china, and there was a lot of back and forth even before the silk road.
Sebastian Williams
So ancient merchants travelled through thousands of miles of inhospitable steppe and desert for silk in a time when 99% of the population didn't go 5 miles beyond their home village and had no concept of the world beyond it? How does this make sense?
Ryder Rogers
Most traders didn't go from one end to the other, they just traded with some people who traded with other people who traded with other people and on and on until finally you get goods from Italy to Korea and back.
Chase Cook
Dosh.
Also it was mostly the products doing the travelling, rarely the merchants. Except in the Spice Route where Ships ranged far and wide.
Thomas Butler
Tocharian shitposter is at it again
Henry Wood
T*rkroach detected
Angel Rivera
Stormnigger copypasta is easily debunked.
>Sericulture
The earliest example of silk fabric is from 3630 BC, and it was used as wrapping for the body of a child from a Yangshao site in Qingtaicun at Xingyang, Henan.[10][12]
>Anau script
>Mair's conjecture vs. Mattos,Allan,Qiu's views
Other experts said some symbols of completely different ancient Asian scripts bore a likeness to one another even though there was no evidence that they are related. One of the inscription's characters, variously described as the ''bow tie'' or ''figure eight,'' resembles signs or design motifs in many cultures, including some as far away as Easter Island.
Angel Jenkins
The Great Game might have helped kill it.
Luke Brown
The Silk Road is just dormant.
China still believes in it, they have been trying to undermine Russian influence in Central Asia. Nobody realized that China is using Pakistan to keep India out of Central Asia, China has surpassed Russia in economic influence of Kazakhstan, and China continues to fund railroads and highway networks to connect East Asia to the Middle East/Africa/Europe by way of Central Asia.
As well, because of climate change and peak oil (it may not happen as soon as we thought, but there's still a finite amount of the shit), the cross Pacific and cross Atlantic shipping routes may stop being usable. The tankers need either a fuck ton of crappy oil or a nuclear reactor. Peak oil and climate cross off the first one, and we obviously cant stuff a nuclear reactor in a tanker or Somalia will be the world's biggest nuclear power in a year or less.
A single bridge across the Bering strait is way more doable, safe, and cheap than continental Europe-UK-Iceland-Greenland-Canada, which might not even be possible. Thus, shipping from Europe/Africa-Americas will have to be done via freight on the Silk Road paths.
The Silk Road has been dormant multiple times in history. Even now, China is trying to utilize it, and ut may soon become the world's primary shipping route again.
Jaxson Butler
>Millet
agreed, common millet first appears as a crop in Transcaucasia/Fertile crescent and reaches China about 7,000 years ago
>Sericulture
Sericulture from the word Seres (Seres-culture)
Seres Kingdom of Tocharians
Seres was a confederacy of Tocharian people, who invented silk and traded it with the Indians, the Chinese and, through the Parthians and later the Sassanid Persians, the Romans.
>Anau script
Prof Qiu: I have also all this time been saying that the ultimate origins of Chinese writing lie not in Mesopotamia or Egypt, but that they should be intimately linked with the same complex of peoples who brought bronze metallurgy and the horse-drawn chariot during the second millennium B.C. The Anau seal brings us one step closer to figuring out how all of the pieces of the jigsaw fit together.
Leo Torres
thanks for correcting my errors
i am fully convinced
we are now in agreement
Caleb Roberts
>agreed, common millet first appears as a crop in Transcaucasia/Fertile crescent and reaches China about 7,000 years ago
>Two types of millet were cultivated and domesticated in northern China (Stevens and Fuller, in press; Liu et al., 2009; Zhao, 2011). Evidence for the cultivation of broomcorn millet (Panicum mili-aceum), together with foxtail millet (Setaria italica), first appears in Hebei associated with the Cishan Culture 6500–5500 BC. Contemporary centres of domestication with mainly broomcorn millet, and foxtail millet later, are found associated with the Xin-glongwa Culture of the northeast in Manchuria.
> The earliest securely dated occurrence of broomcorn millet outside China comes from Begash, Kazakhstan, c. 2200 BC, with foxtail millet by c. 1400 BC at Tasbas some 100 km to the northwest (Spengler, 2015; Spengler et al., 2014).
>Seres Kingdom of Tocharians
Nice meme. Doesn't change the fact that the earliest examples of sericulture date to China.
>Prof Qiu: I have also all this time been saying that the ultimate origins of Chinese writing lie not in Mesopotamia or Egypt, but that they should be intimately linked with the same complex of peoples who brought bronze metallurgy and the horse-drawn chariot during the second millennium B.C. The Anau seal brings us one step closer to figuring out how all of the pieces of the jigsaw fit together.
>When Victor Mair flew to China six months ago, he met with Dr. Qiu Xigui, professor of Chinese languages at Beijing University. After he showed him a photo of the Anau stamp seal, he wrote another letter to Wilford describing Qiu’s reaction and his own ruminations on the subject.
> Prof. Qiu says that both of the Central Asia lignite seals look as though they were written by people who had contact with the Chinese writing system and may have tried to imitate it without getting the forms entirely right.
You are either willfully blind or retarded. Only Mair is arguing for this.
Adam Hernandez
The silk road wasn't really a road, more like web. It constantly shifted based on natural, political, and economic circumstances. Silk, jade, glass, porcelain, horses, spices, etc. were the big thing. Oddly enough the Chinks valued jade as much as westerners valued silk. It spread ideas across eurasia like herpes at a rap concert. Greek colonists during the age of alexander introduced new artforms, gods, and even influenced the development of buddhist tradition. Hindu numerals, gunpowder, and other eastern inventions found their way west. It was a weird place. Mish-mash of red/blond haired blue eyed buddhists & hindus rubbing elbows with mongolian christians and chinese muslims. On the whole, the silk road was inclined toward the desert and mountain areas of central asia because, hazardous as those were, they were usually less hazardous than the steepes riddled with constant wars among the nomads dwelling there.
Not many folks traveled the entire expanse. It was dangerous and expensive as fuck to pay tariffs by every prince or chief you ran into. The regions was crawling with bandit armies, steppe barbarians, and mountain tribes who demanded "toll" money. Tariffs were less of an issue when the entire route was ruled by one powerful empire. The silk road was like an ocean with each city being an island.
What really fucked the whole deal was the portuguese sailing around africa and making eastern goods piss cheap.
Jordan Anderson
Its first main use was the Buddhist trade route.
Then muslims cut it off and diminished the use.
Later on it was used by the mongols to trade again.
After the mongols were done, the start of the exploration age began in Europe. Which lead to alternative trade routes.
Jaxon Howard
Tell me about Manicheaism, Veeky Forums.
What was it, how was it transmitted (like was it a missionary religion like Buddhism?), and why did it get cucked.
Chase Watson
weak b8 m8
the land where white mullberry is native to was the land of tocharians
the chinese now control this land
>the chinese now control this land
>it is now part of china
>chinese conquered this tocharian land
Pliny the Elder states: The first people that are known of here are the Seres, so famous for the silk that is found in their mullberry tree forests. After steeping it in water, they comb off a white down that adheres to the leaves; and then to the females of our part of the world they give the twofold task of unravelling their textures, and of weaving the threads afresh (this describes silk thread extraction). So manifold is the labour, and so distant are the regions which are thus ransacked to supply a dress through which our ladies may in public display their charms.
According to Book of Zhou (completed in 636) the kingdom of Yanqi (Karashahr)
The climate is cold, and the land good and fertile. For cereals, they have rice, millet, pulse, wheat, and barley. For animals, they have camels, horses, cows, and sheep. They raise silk-worms. It is their custom to relish grape wine, and also to love music. It is some ten li north of a body of water, and has an abundance of fish, salt, and rushes. In the fourth year of the period Pao-ting, its king sent an envoy to present its renowned horses
>Dr. Gilbert L. Mattos, a specialist in ancient Chinese writing at Seton Hall University, said three of the characters definitely resembled Chinese. "This is certainly a significant find," Dr. Mattos said
>Dr. Sarah Allan, a scholar of Chinese and Asian studies at Dartmouth, agreed that the inscription "looks extraordinarily Chinese"
Why ignore all the other specialists for Mair?
Jayden Turner
Can you faggots get this fucking bait out of here? Does this shit even have anything else behind it but "m-m-muh caucasian supremacy"?
Ryan Nelson
Mani's parents were members of the Jewish Christian Gnostic sect known as the Elcesaites.
maybe related to Radhanites
Mason Davis
>Jewish Christian
Justin Harris
Going to be dumping these early color pictures Prokudin-Gorsky took of the Russian Empire before the Revolution as they are very apropos.
The last emir of Bukhara
Jack Reed
Jewish children of Samarkand with their teacher
Asher Barnes
Melon man in Samarkand
Leo King
A Caucasian man and his wife
Zachary Sullivan
A Turkman with his camels
Logan Lewis
A fabric merchant in Samarkand
Thomas Peterson
Isfandiyar Jurji Bahadur, Khan of the Russian protectorate of Khorezm, modern-day Khiva
Jacob Flores
A water-carrier in Samarkand
Adam Taylor
Nomadic Kirghiz in Uzbekistan
Nicholas Rodriguez
A boy sitting outside a mosque in Samarkand
Isaac Martinez
A Sart woman in purdah in Samarkand
Wyatt Johnson
A caravan
Luke Flores
...
Juan Butler
...
William Lopez
Alright that's all I got
Juan Price
ocen krasava!
do you live near Gozokistan?
Julian Thomas
I'm American lmao
Jacob Campbell
Might I add, Russia and China are basically in this together.
Russia has this plan to connect Japan to Sakhalin, and Sakhalin to the mainland.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Robert Bell
That dude was related to Genghis Khan through legitimate birth.