Silk Roads

Through the formidable trading networks that became known as the Silk Roads in the 19th century, dialogue was established in medieval times between the great civilisations of the Middle Kingdom (China), the Indian and Islamic worlds, and the West. These overland and maritime links between China and the Mediterranean by way of Arabia, India and Central Asia are among humanity’s oldest trade routes. Used by pilgrims and conquerors as well as merchants, they not only brought the civilisations of this vast geographical area into contact but also transformed them through the circulation of ideas, knowledge and forms of artistic expression. The Chinese empire of the Tang dynasty and then, in its wake, the vast domains of Islam established themselves as major actors in these exchanges through Asia Minor, the steppes of Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. After the battle of Talas in 751, which marked the maximum expansion of Islam eastward, the contacts intensified when Arab and Iranian navigators overcame the perils of the China Sea and the Arabian Gulf to establish trading posts in China. The Pax Mongolica imposed by Genghis Khan and his successors in the 13th century created favourable conditions for the circulation of people and manufactured goods, and ushered in what is regarded as the golden age of the Silk Roads. Diplomatic, commercial and cultural contact increased with a marked impact on the development of the arts. At the end of the century, merchants like Marco Polo could travel in complete safety from one end of Eurasia to the other. Fabrics, jade, lacquer, silk and ceramics circulated from the Middle Kingdom to the shores of the Mediterranean. When crossing Anatolia in 1331, Ibn Battuta gave a detailed description of the Chinese styles exported into the Arab, Turkish and Iranian worlds. The fall of the Chinese empire of the Yuan dynasty at the end of the 14th century sharply diminished the importance of these routes, while in the West the Turkish advance into Europe established the young Ottoman empire at the heart of the transcontinental networks that now handled products from the Far East and India.