RELG-145 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Pax Mongolica, The Caravan, Sogdia
18 Aug 2018
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Silk road chapter 1: the silk road and its travelers. The term silk road was invented by ferdinand von richthofen. Trans-asian trade network linking the mediterranean with east asia. Consisted of a network of roads going east to west (xi"an, china to. Aryns domesticated the horse 5,000-6,000 years; gave the aryans the means to flee their homeland and bringing their patriarchal culture and warrior values. Pax mongolica: brought most of eurasia under one political administration. Christianity, zoroastrianism, and islam all saw it as the single greatest threat to the survival of their own faiths. The silk road was a formative and transformative rite of passage; they all were influenced. To travel from one place to another in premodern asia, they would ride a caravan there. Caravans coped with problems such as terrain and hostility by (1) safety in numbers, (2) followed established routes, so they were unlikely to get lost, (3) led by professional caravaneers.
