You might have heard about something called the ‘Silk Road’ in your history class? But what exactly was it? To put it in a simple manner, the Silk Road was — were, a series of trade routes that connected Asia to Europe during the Middle Ages. But there's a lot, lot more to it than just that.
Let’s deal with the origin of the name first, why wasn’t it called the Cotton Road? or the…Wood Road!? Well, the Silk Road derives it’s name for one of the main products that was exchanged through it, Silk. Silk came from China and was received by the Europeans who viewed it as a luxury item.
The Silk Road has been in existence since Roman times, Chinese goods often flowed through Persian Empire own its way to Rome, Greece, and Egypt (then all under the control of Rome). Later, Islamic conquerors from Arabia founded the city of Baghdad, which quickly became the most important city along the Silk Road. In the 13th Century, the Mongols conquered large parts of Europe and Asia, which included the large portions of the Silk Road. Under the Mongols, trade through the Road flourished as much of the route was united under one entity with little disturbance.
The Silk Road started to decline after the fall of the Mongol Empire which saw many small bickering states fighting which brought instability. The Silk Road’s final blow was when the Ottoman Empire took the city of Constantinople in 1453. Constantinople was the city that connected the two continents of Europe and Asia, and the first thing the Ottomans did it was to ban Europeans from the trade of goods from Asia, most notably spices. This almost immediately crippled the Silk Road and Europeans began to look outwards to the sea in hopes of a new route to Asia. This would lead to the beginning of the Age of Discovery…
