Kathy Ceceri - The Silk Road: Explore the Worlds Most Famous Trade Route with 20 Projects

14 Roman Empire tries to ban silk robes for men.

70 Kushan Empire encourages Silk Road trade through Central Asia.

65 Buddhist missionaries sent from India to China.

20 Roman, Parthian, Kushan, and Chinese empires begin to collapse, limiting Silk Road trade.

618 Tang Dynasty in China reopens Silk Road

635 Nestorian Christians arrive in China.

1096 Christians begin Crusades against Muslims in the Middle East.

1196 Genghis Khan (11671227) creates Mongol Empire.

12601368 Pax Mongolica.

1264 Kublai Khan (12151294) founds Yuan Dynasty in China.

12711295 Marco Polo (12541324) journeys to China along the Silk Road.

1368 Ming Dynasty pushes Mongols out of China and ends Silk Road trade.

1325 Ibn Battuta (1304c.1377), a Muslim scholar, begins a long journey along the Silk Road.

1369 Timur (13361405) attacks Central Asia to control Silk Road. Tries to revive Mongol Empire.

1453 Muslim rulers in Turkey close Silk Road to

Christian Europeans.

1498 Vasco da Gama opens sea route around Africa to Asia.

1877 Ferdinand von Richthofen (18331905) coins the name Silk Road.

1907 Marc Aurel Stein (18621943) finds Diamond Sutra in cave in China.

1998 Yo Yo Ma (1955) establishes the Silk Road Project to promote the study of cultural traditions along the ancient Silk Road trade routes.

2001 Taliban destroys Silk Roadera Buddha statues in Afghanistan.

2009 Silk Road countries join together to seek membership on UNESCO World Heritage list.

Other Titles in the Build It Yourself Series

In a bustling town along an ancient trade route its market day. The streets are filled with merchants, city dwellers, and farmers from the surrounding countryside.

Everyone is hoping to make a good sale or a good purchase. Some people drive carts pulled by camels or donkeys. Others arrive on foot.

Rows and rows of booths proudly display every kind of item imaginable. Fabric, jewelry, leather goods, and carpets are laid out for inspection. In one row meat vendors sell sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, and ducks. Down another row neatly stacked piles of melons, grapes, and figs are for sale. An inviting smell comes from a booth filled with sacks of colorful spicesblack pepper, yellow sesame seeds, orange saffron red curry powder, and many more.

Bottles of herbal medicine line the shelves of a stall next to some chairs where customers are getting their hair cut or their teeth pulled. Everywhere salespeople call out to passersby. Friends greet each other, traders haggle nose to nose, and children race up and down the alleys in between.

trade route: a route used mostly to carry goods from one place to be sold in another.

merchant: someone who buys and sells goods for profit.

saffron: a cooking spice.

Silk Road: the ancient network of trade routes connecting the Mediterranean Sea and China by land.

Long before the invention of highways, airplanes, telephones, or the Internet, trade routes connected different parts of the world. People used them to carry goods and information across long distances. But these routes werent like todays roads. Crossing just one section of a trade route could take weeks or months.

Perhaps the most famous trade route of all is the Silk Road. The Silk Road was actually a network of eastwest paths connecting the Mediterranean Sea and China. It stretched across more than 7,000 miles (11,300 kilometers), or one quarter of the way around the globe.