Blog Entry #1 Response

The Silk Road. The very name conjures up brilliant imagery of vibrant colors, exotic lands and merchants bustling to and fro selling many unique and rare artifacts to the travellers from Europe. No doubt the media has played a major role in implanting these ideas into our heads, as The Silk Road in itself, was not really a real road, nor was it as cheerful and bustling as we may think.

The "road" itself stretches many thousands of miles from Europe to the very farthest reaches of China, and later involved using waterways traversing around the edges of the land, where ports were created in order for more efficient trading. But why did this all happen? And why did the once flourishing trade dwindle and die, only to be resurrected centuries later in a manner that was more downright stealing on the Europeans part, as opposed to trade?

The demand for silk grew early on, and the Romans were especially demanding of it, as both sexes wore it and greatly enjoyed the light material, but as demand grew, so did the prices, but still it was worn by every class, except now it was worn by women only, as men were forbidden from wearing it.

Silk was not the only thing for trade...jewels, artifacts, spices and gold were also available, but to get to these wonders, it was a dangerous journey that cost many lives. It was trecherous, the Taklamakan Desert, and was known for it's vast and terrifying sandstorms, which were said to burry entire caravans. But still people pressed onwards to get these glories of the East and bring them home, and vice versa.

This road also carried a new religion over to China: Buddhism, and slowly but surely, it took hold in China...one of the only foreign religions to make it there, and stay.

But with the collapse of the Tang Dynasty, the silk road slowly began to dwindle, and by the Ming dynasty in the mid 1300's, it pretty much died off completely as China isolated itself.

What really amazed me about this was how China could have so easily abandoned this prosporous trade. They were obviously doing well, and as they abandoned it, they fell into a decline, so one might think that they might want to re-open this trade and reclaim some of the prosperity they needed during this time.

They lost so much, and the abandonment caused many legends and stories to pop up, and these stores seem to have been ignored up until the mid 1800's where certain early archaeologists begin to peak an intrest in it, and this led to may problems. Many of those who went looking ended up killed, and others ended up scamming or being scammed with lies about what they had, or just plain faked thier finds.

I think it's amazing what people will do to eachother just for a little bit of fame, and the lengths they will treck for wealth. It was a dangerous mission on the road, and yet thousands trecked on it. It died, but came back, and now it is dead again, replaced by a real highway.

The signs of a long forgotten trail are still laying around however, being burried by the sands, waiting to be found, and once again reclaimed.