Chapter 7 - Exchange and Trade

     When Chinese General Zhang Jian crossed the desert into Northeastern Iran, he began what soon was known as the Silk Road. By 100 BCE, Greeks could buy silk from China via the road through Persia. The Scythians, located north of the Black and Caspian Seas, started using carts for trade along the Silk Road, and nomads traded as they traveled. New crops (such as alfalfa and wine grapes), medicines and products traveled the Silk Road. The Turkish even found a way to move their homes (yurts) as they traveled.

Yurt in Turkmenistan, 1913

     One empire in the Middle East that took advantage of the Silk Road was the Sansid - Iranians who took over Mesopotamia, defeating the Parthians and crowning their own leader as Shah (king - more on shahs in Chapter 8). The Sansids were warrior nomads, whose religion, Zoroastrianism, permeated the peoples' lives.
     Religions also spread along the Silk Road. Manichaeism believed in the cosmic struggle between good and evil, and Nestorian Christians claimed that Mary was not the mother of G-d but of the human prophet Jesus (If anyone needs clarification on that, let me know. Don't worry, I had to explain the concept of Santa Claus to someone last year. Don't be embarrassed to ask!) Jews moved into China, and Buddhism spread. Christianity moved into the Arabian Peninsula, where it would soon become the basis for Islam.
     Besides the Silk Road, the Indian Ocean Maritime System was a great help to trading. It spread across the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea, including the Malay Islands, Indonesia, India, Persia and Arabia, and fostered the Indonesian move to Madagascar (the big island off the coast of Africa). Pearls, frankincense and myrrh, along with many different types of spices traveled this route. Although mainly over water and isolated from desert areas, the port of Apologus (aka Ubulla, aka Basra) allowed for products to be moved from the Persian Gulf to Baghdad, in ancient Babylon.
     The Eastern part of the trade route was more hospitable, and many trading merchants settled down and started families there. This brought bilingual and multicultural families, with women as the mediators between cultures.
     Trans-Saharan caravan routes sprang up to cross the desert, linking North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Rock paintings in the area tell us that the herding of cows played a major role in agriculture, but was then replaced by horses, and then horses and chariots. This led archaeologists to believe that Minoan or Mycenaean refugees had come to the area, bringing chariots with them. There have been no chariots found in the area (as of the writing of the book), so we can only speculate. While conquering Romans supplied Italy with goods in the North of Africa, the belt below the Sahara, called the Sahel, was rich with trade.
     What to know about Sub-Saharan Africa:

• Few external contacts because of geography
• Steppes - treeless plains
• Savanna - tropical or subtropical grassland
• Rain forests DO exist in Africa
• Large and diverse area

     Sub-Saharan Africans were likely driven together by droughts, and became ruled by kings. Social categories were formed, such as laborers and farmers. but these categories were seen as even (not a hierarchy). Copper working began in Niger, and by the second century BCE, agriculture was common. While smelting of iron was discovered in Anatolia by the Hittites, the practice somehow reached Sub-Saharan Africa. Archaeologists are not sure how, as the two areas did not trade with each other.       
     The Bantu people were a large group that spoke similar language sin Sub-Saharan Africa, located near present-day Cameroon and Nigeria. They are lumped together as one people though they spoke different languages and were quite diverse.
  
  With different ways to trade, ideas and practices spread all over the known world. Pigs, first domesticated in Southeast Asia, became a ceremonial food in other places, possibly being worshiped in Iran and eventually entering Islam and Judaism as a "non-halal" and "non-kosher" food. Coins, first from Lydia, began to appear elsewhere. Buddhism spread by Ashoka and Kanishka, from India and Kush, and the Chinese pilgrim Faxian promoted it as well. Christianity eventually confronted Islam in the Middle East, starting a conflict that we can still see today.
     Armenia (East Turkey) was fought over between the Iranians and the Mediterranean peoples for control of the Silk Road. It eventually opened up to Christianity, allowing the religion to spread further. In Ethiopia, the Kingdom of Aksum spread Christianity to Egypt and Nubia, becoming a key political and economic power from the Red Sea to Yemen.

Africa: North and Sub-Saharan

         Terms:

•      "Great traditions" - traditions shared by elites from all over, such as writing, legal/belief systems, ethics, and intelligence attitudes

•     "Small traditions" - local customs/beliefs