• Remember: Classical Era 600 BCE - 600 CE

How did stuff travel?

• Bridges and roads that were built.
• Domesticated Pack Animals
  • Camels (central Asia, Sahara desert)
  • Horses
• Technology
  • Stirrups
  • Saddles
  • Made land travel much easier if you were actually riding an animal!
  • Sailing
    • Lateen Sail
      • Allows ships to sail into the wind (called tacking)
    • Convenient for traders to travel when knowing the monsoon patterns

Why did people travel?

• Military
• Forced migration
• Selling/Trade
• Missionaries

The Four Networks

• The Silk Road
  • Land route
  • Connects China and Mediterranean
  • Spurs to India
  • Runs through Central Asia
• Indian Ocean Network
  • Sea Route
  • Connects India, Southeastern Asia, and the Mediterranean
  • Based on seasonal monsoon winds
• Mediterranean
  • Connects Greece, Rome, Northern Africa, and the Middle East
• Saharan Caravan System
  • A sea route??? (works like traveling through the ocean, you need to take much more stuff with you in order to last the journey (huge advantage with camels))
  • Connects Mediterranean to Sub-Saharan

What kind of stuff travels?

• Porcelain (CHIna)
• Meat
• Spices
• Silk
• Trade goods! (actual physical stuff)
  • China
    • Silk, porcelain, tea
  • India
    • Spices, cotton textiles, gems, ivory
  • Rome
    • Gems, glass, linen textiles
• Other stuff
  • Wheels (traveling)
  • Religion
  • Numbers
  • Astrological measurement tools
• Beliefs
  • Buddhism
    • Becomes popular in China and Central Asia
    • Doesn't actually end up surviving in India
  • Christianity
    • Begins in the middle east
    • Spreads to Europe, Persia, and Central Asia
  • Manicheanism
    • Begins in Persia
• Technology
  • China
    • Steel, paper, gunpowder, rudders, printing, etc.
  • India
    • Zero!, Decimal System
• Diseases!
  • Bubonic Plague
  • Cholera
  • Smallpox