1. Trade Routes in the Classical Era: 600 BCE - 600 CE
Silk Roads
Indian Ocean Routes
Trans-Saharan Trade Routes

3. Methods of Transportation
Arab-Indian Dhow
(Indian Ocean)
Bactrian Camel
(Central and East Asia)
Dromedary-Arab Camel
(North Africa and Middle East)
Desert Caravans
Steppe Caravans

4. Roman gold coins found In India
Teakwood statues
Spices
Indianhow ship

5. Eastern part of the ancient world accessible to travelers in the first century C.E.

6. Trans-Saharan and East African Trade Regions (pre-Islam)
Arab merchants
Berbers
SW Monsoon Winds
Bedouin
NE Monsoon Winds
Nomadic Pastoralists
“Swahili” is
a reference to
a later Bantu-Arabic
hybrid language
Goods include salt, iron tools, and gold
From West Africa.

7. The most famous of the trading routes established by pastoral nomads connecting the Chinese, Indian, Persian, and Mediterranean civilizations; transmitted goods and ideas among civilizations.
China
Rome
Chang’an
Antioch
Parthia
India

8. This greatly sped up the commercial and cultural development
Chinese Technologies Introduced to the West via Silk Road
The cultural exchange between China and the West offered mutual benefits and achieved common progress – Arabs and Persians acted as “middle men”
Merchant travelers and the stability of the Roman (Pax Romana) & Han empires greatly contributed to this movement.
The Chinese Four Great Inventions
Paper making, printing, gunpowder and compass
…as well as the skills of Silkworm breeding and silk spinning were later transmitted to the West.
Exotic Indian Spices intrigued the Romans love for food
Pepper, Nutmeg, and cinnamon all had great cultural and economic impact along the Silk Road and Indian Ocean routes.
This greatly sped up the commercial and cultural development
of the “known” world!
Silk & Porcelain from China
Coinage, wheat, oil, from Rome
Spices & Cotton from India

9. ?
Consider your understanding of the major developments in world history by 100 c.e.
Predict:
What other impacts would trade routes have besides those relating to commercial expansion?

10. Diffusion of Art-Sculpture in the Greco-Roman Tradition
Sabina, wife of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (136 CE)
Parthian (Persia) Noblewoman
FROM TO

11. Gandharan Buddha 1st or 2nd Century CE
The ancient kingdom of Gandhara stretched across parts of present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan.
For a time, Gandhara also was a jewel of Buddhist civilization. Scholars of Gandhara traveled east to India and China and were influential in the development of early Mahayana Buddhism.
Representation of the Buddha in the
Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, 1st century AD.
Blend from spread of Hellenistic style of sculpture
by Alexander’s empire to Bactria.
Sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE, the first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha were developed. These were absent from earlier strata of Buddhist art, which preferred to represent the Buddha with symbols such as the stupa, the Bodhi tree, the empty seat, the wheel, or the footprints. But the innovative anthropomorphic Buddha image immediately reached a very high level of sculptural sophistication, naturally inspired by the sculptural styles of Hellenistic Greece.
Many of the stylistic elements in the representations of the Buddha point to Greek influence: the Greek himation (a light toga-like wavy robe covering both shoulders: Buddhist characters are always represented with a dhoti loincloth before this innovation), the halo, the contrapposto stance of the upright figures (see: 1st–2nd century Gandhara standing Buddhas [1] and [2]), the stylized Mediterranean curly hair and top-knot apparently derived from the style of the Belvedere Apollo (330 BCE) [3], and the measured quality of the faces, all rendered with strong artistic realism (See: Greek art). Some of the standing Buddhas (as the one pictured) were sculpted using the specific Greek technique of making the hands and sometimes the feet in marble to increase the realistic effect, and the rest of the body in another material. 11

12. The travels of the Chinese Buddhist monk Faxian 337? - 422?c.e.
He left from the capital, Chang’an in 399 c.e.
Then along Silk Roads to India and
Southeast Asia before returning home.

13. Standing Buddha Northern Wei dynasty - China (386 – 534 CE)
Of impressive size, this elegant Buddha
Wear the three traditional garments of an Indian monk: An underskirt, an intermediate garment and a voluminous shawl.
Evident signs of the diffusion of Buddhism
From India to China via Silk Roads
and Indian Ocean travels.

14. Christ the Savior (Pantokrator), a 6th-century icon from Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai (Egypt).

15. Spread of Chan (Mahayana) Buddhism
Big Wild Goose Pagoda: regarded by many as a symbol of the city Xi’an (Chang’an), the pagoda was built in 652 C.E. in the Tang Dynasty to house the Buddhist sutras brought back from India by the famous monk Xuan-zang.

16. Diffusion of Hinduism and Buddhism to Southeast Asia
through Indian Ocean Trade
Temple to the Hindu God Shiva in
Central Vietnam -4th century CE
A Buddha in Borobudur,
(Java) Indonesia – 9th century CE

17. Nestorian Christian priests in a procession on Palm Sunday, in a 7th- or 8th-century wall painting from a Nestorian church in China

18. Question: What impacts of Human-environmental interaction can still be predicted? Hint: The key to answering this, is the ability to analyze the question. (We mainly emphasized economic and cultural effects of these trade routes).

19. Biological Impact Along Eurasian and Indian Ocean Trade Routes
Plague from China
Rice from East Asia
Sugar from Southeast Asia
Cotton from Mediterranean
Bananas from Southeast Asia