Page 5 - Networks of Exchange 1200-1450

Trade Routes - Silk Roads

● The greatest value of the Silk Road was the

exchange of culture

● Art, religion, philosophy, technology, language,

science, architecture, and every other element of

civilization was exchanged along these routes,

carried with the commercial goods the merchants

traded from country to country.

● Disease was also a “traded” good

● The closing of the Silk Road forced merchants to

take to the sea to ply their trade, thus initiating

the Age of Discovery which led to world-wide

interaction and the beginnings of a global

community.

● The Silk Road can be said to have established the

groundwork for the development of the modern

world.