Path of the Caravans Recalled
from the Cape Cod Times, Sunday, March 11, 2001
What is the Silk Route? Although this passage was popularized by the travels of Marco Polo and the crusaders, there is ample evidence in Egytian tapestries to suggest that information and goods traversed this trading route four thousand years ago.
In the fourth century AD, the Romans used this network of highways (and nautical routes that traversed the Black Sea) to aquire silk from China. The roads from the west stretched from the Golden Horn in present-day Istanbul to Chinese seaports, crisscrossing the Caucasus, Iran (then Persia), Afghanistan and Central Asia. The route, in fact, looked somewhat like - and had the same economic impact as - the railway system that opened the United States to trade. By making all sorts of goods available, the railroads improved the standard of living for all Americans during the 1860s.
Similarly, the Silk Route influenced life and played an economic role in European incursion into the Middle East and Asia throughout history. From the seventh century onward, silk was shipped from China to Constantinople, and from there transported to trading centers in Greece, Italy, Spain and France.
Many of the cocoons went to Bursa in what is now northwest Turkey, a city still famous as that country's center for silk production. An old story told by Turkish silk merchants recounts how two Byzantine monks smuggled silkworms hidden inside their hollowed-out walking sticks into Bursa. In Byzantine art, monks are often depicted spinning silk.
In the 13th century, Marco Polo made the Silk Route famous as an early trading caravan route stretching from Europe to China. This route became the lifeline for Central Asian, Middle Eastern and Far Eastern peoples to acquire European goods.
Oriental rugs represent the varied religious and cultural traditions of the peoples living along the Silk Route.
--------------------
Istambul's Hagia Sophia was originally built as a Christian basilica under the direction of Emperor Justinian