Trade and Transport on the Antique Silk Road

Part of Trade Routes

The Silk Road owes its name to the most significant article of merchandise to travel its entire length, from east to west, for a thousand years between the 2nd century BC and the 8th century AD. Yet there is no evidence that it was ever called the ‘Silk Road’ in any language during its heyday, and it is generally accepted that the current designation was first devised by a German geographer, Ferdinand von Richthofen, in 1877.

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Map of the Silk Road

Trade Goods

Silk, although highly valuable, made up a relatively small proportion of the original ‘Silk Road’ traffic, and of course it only travelled westward, from China to Central Asia and the Middle East, accompanied by other Chinese exports such as ceramics, bronze artefacts, spices and medicinal herbs. This naturally meant that the caravaneers needed something similarly valuable to carry back in the other direction, from the Middle East and Central Asia to distant Chang’an [modern Xi’an]. Due to the difficulty and expense of long-distance commerce, and because of the difficult terrain traversed by the Silk Road, such goods needed to be light, compact, rare and valuable. Ideally, to suit the sophisticated and demanding tastes of the Tang Court, they needed to be both precious and exotic.

The Golden Peaches of Samarkand

Sogdian merchant riding a camel, Tang Dynasty

The American Sinologist Joseph Fletcher made the ‘Golden Peaches of Samarkand’ symbolic of the trade in Tang exotica, choosing them as ‘deputies and proxies of all exotic goods in medieval China’ because ‘they suggest, simultaneously, the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, the Peaches of Immortality believed by Chinese tradition to flourish in the far West, and James Elroy Flecker’s Golden Journey to Samarkand’. Golden peaches were sent by the Kingdom of Samarkand as gifts to the Chinese Court, where they were highly esteemed. According to the Tang Annals ‘they were as large as goose eggs, and their colour was like gold’. Cuttings from the trees that bore this royal fruit were later brought by Sogdian ambassadors across the wastes of Central Asia and ceremonially planted in the palace orchards of Chang’an.

The Golden Peaches may have been deemed ‘royal’ but they were far from the only exotic fruits and foodstuffs valued by the Tang. Dates, unknown in China, were brought dried and sugared from the Middle East, while watermelons from Khwarizm and honeydew melons from Hami were transported east preserved in lead containers packed with ice from the Tian Shan. Still more valued were the ‘mare-teat grapes’ of Kuqa, brought east and planted at Chang’an in around 640. Grapes were a novelty to the Tang, a society which produced many types of alcohol from rice and other grains, but which soon learned to plant vineyards and produce wine.

When I drink this wine, I am instantly conscious of harmony suffusing my four limbs. It is the true Prince of Grand Tranquillity’. Emperor Muzong (821-24).

Pine seeds were imported, peeled and eaten as exotic snacks, as were pistachio nuts, which were not only deemed tasty, but thought to enhance male sexual vigour. Little cakes of sugar known as ‘stone honey’ came from Bukhara and Samarkand, while both black pepper and long peppers known by their Sanskrit name pippali, travelled overland from India. In the case of the latter the annals comment: ‘The Westerners bring it to us; we use it for its flavour, to put in food’. Quite different was the betel pepper, also a highly valued product from the west, considered by Tang pharmacists to be ‘a tonic for loins and legs, and a digestive aid to abolish coldness in the stomach’.

Aromatics, too, were carried to Chang’an. A scented resin called storax from Parthia – long thought by the Chinese to be dried lion’s dung – gum guggul and benzoin from Gandhara, as well as myrrh and frankincense from Southern Arabia and distant Somalia, rare substances whose value was greatly increased by traversing the Arabian Incense Road between Yemen and Damascus before even starting the long journey east along the Silk Road to Chang’an.

Caravans travelling from west to east brought gems, gold and other precious metals, ivory, amber and coral, as well as opium from the Middle East, which was introduced as a medicine in China as long as fifteen hundred years before the West began pushing it as a narcotic.

The Persian physician, Agha Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al- Razi,(845-930 A.D.), employed opium in anesthesia and recommended its use for the treatment of melancholy in his medical treatise ‘Man la Yahduruhu Al-Tabib’.

Distant Khwarizm in Transoxiana exported prized furs including sable, ermine, fox and marten to China. Rhubarb, too, came from the northwest; it’s root was highly regarded as a bowel tonic. Less valuable, but also transported east from the Hexi Corridor and Mongolia, came horsehides for use in making armour and small coracle-like craft used on the Huang He and other rivers of north China. Sacred objects, such as Buddha images, relics and of course religious treatises and books of secular knowledge also entered China by caravan from the west and especially, via the passes across the Pamirs, India to the south.

Among the most extraordinary examples of imported Tang exotica were ostrich eggs, sometimes set in precious metal and used as drinking vessels. The Chinese regarded ostriches – which they called ‘camel-birds’ – with some awe, believing they could run 300 miles in a day, fuelled by a diet of copper and iron.

Man herding horses, Han Gan (706-83)

Persian syce tending to a tethered horse

Central Asian cameleer

Beasts of Burden

Few caravans – if, indeed, any – would have completed the entire journey between Chang’an and Antakya. Instead goods were generally moved in stages, passing through the hands of different caravan-drivers and on the backs of different beasts of burden from oasis to oasis, each transfer of ownership increasing the cost to the purchaser and enriching local merchants and transport guilds.

Perhaps the most important beasts of burden employed in the caravan trade were camels, which could be ridden by merchants and caravaneers, as well as used to carry valuable trade goods. Far to the west, in the warmer lands of Syria and Mesopotamia, the single-humped dromedary was preferred, while in Central Asia and western China, harsh landscapes that endure long and bitter winters, the double-humped Bactrian was the camel of choice.

Caravans also employed asses, mules and even cattle to carry goods, depending on the nature of the terrain. Large, fierce caravan dogs were also valued, both to help drive off predatory wildlife such as leopards and cheetahs, as well as to deter sneak-thieves and warn of approaching groups of bandits. In the coldest and highest regions yaks might also be used as beasts of burden, notably in the mountains of Badakhsan and the Pamirs, across the Qinghai Tablelands and on the icy Tibetan Plateau.

Domestic Animals

Domestic animals also formed an important part of the trade between west and east. The Chinese particularly valued the horses of Central Asia, and especially of the Ferghana Valley which they exchanged for silk, but they also imported Bactrian camels, asses and sheep from the plains of Central Asia. Particularly swift and dependable camels were assigned to an official called ‘Emissary of the Bright Camel’, and used to carry the imperial posts. Other highly esteemed Bactrians were designated ‘flying dragon camels’ and kept in the imperial stables.

Camels were not just used for transport, but also prized for their long manes, which made excellent cloth, while camel hump was considered a delicacy. Similarly yaks, as well as being used in transport, were valued for their milk, cheese and meat, as well as dung which could be burned as fuel. Their hair was spun into yarn for knitting warm clothing.

‘The Tibetan lads and Western boys blend their chants and songs. They broil yaks whole and cook wild camels’. Tang ditty translated by Edward Schafer.

Roads and Rivers

Even at the height of its prosperity, the Silk Road was not a single track – except where forced through narrow defiles like the Iron Gates at Tiemenguan near Korla and its namesake at the rather wider Buzgala Gorge in Uzbekistan – or across narrow passes in the Pamirs or Tian Shan. Rather it was an interconnecting network of tracks, established over the centuries and familiar only in parts to experienced caravaneers who knew and understood the terrain. In sections and at times of imperial strength time it was well maintained, for example the Persian Royal Road under the Achaemenids, and the Hexi Corridor under the Han and Tang Dynasties.

A staged trail above a river, Gansu, early 20th century

Great empires and rulers of vision who appreciated the value of trade ordered the construction of garrisons and caravanserai at regular intervals, for example in the west under the Abbasids and Ottomans, in the east, again, under the great Tang Dynasty – but at other times imperial control collapsed and chaos ensued, with caravans threatened by bandits and natural hazards. Only under the Mongols in the 13th and early 14th centuries was the entire length of the Silk Road briefly united under a single, efficient system, best exemplified by the Mongol shuudan or postal relay service in which fast horses were maintained in prime condition at regular stations, ready to speed military orders and political news from one end of the empire to the other at short notice.

‘On large roads guards were posted at junctions to safeguard communications. Travellers and merchants had the right to demand that their wealth and belongings should be escorted by these guards, who were held responsible for any loss’. The Utterances of Amir Timur, Tashkent 1996.

Most caravan transport was carried by road, but there were instances when boats, ferries or rafts were either necessary – as, for example, in crossing the Oxus at Chardzdzou or the great rivers of Mesopotamia, the Tigris and the Euphrates, in present-day Iraq. Elsewhere river transport could be a useful and economic way of transporting goods through difficult terrain where roads were poor or dangerous – for example eastward on the Wei River or the Huang He in Gansu, where rafts of inflated goatskins are still used today, or westward on the Oxus in the region of Termez.

Skin raft on the Huang He, early 20th century

Bazaars and Caravanserai

A Persian caravanserai, c. 1900

Halting places, generally styled caravanserai in Turkish and Persian, were established by rulers to promote and protect the trade that enriched their kingdoms. Ideally these were roadside inns placed a day apart where travellers could eat, sleep and recover from the day’s journey, with their animals securely tethered, watered and fed, and their precious goods safely within walls. Of course, the harshness of the terrain and the great distances involved meant that inns of such quality were the exception rather than the rule, especially in the wilder reaches of the Middle Eastern deserts and Central Asian mountains.

Typically, caravanserai were built within a square or rectangular wall to give protection from attack as well as from the elements, excessive heat and cold, rain and snow, dust storms and hail. They were entered by a single, easily-defended gate that was wide enough and high enough to permit fully laden camels to pass through. The central courtyard was open to the sky and lined with stalls for beasts of burden and rooms to accommodate travellers together with their merchandise. Well-organised caravanserai provided washing facilities, cooked food and fodder for animals, and sometimes small shops. In Muslim areas – which, by the 8th century AD, already meant most of the Silk Road – there were rooms for prayer, orientated towards Mecca.

‘I ordered the ditches cleaned and maintained, bridges built over rivers, and the construction of caravanserai at distances of one day’s travel. Each caravanserai had keepers and guards, whose responsibility it was to ensure the security of travellers and to guard against thieves’. The Utterances of Amir Timur, Tashkent 1996.

Bazaars, by contrast, were not established at regular intervals in the wild, but were naturally found in towns and oases, especially at large commercial crossroads such as Lanzhou, Dunhuang, Yarkand, Kabul, Bukhara, Mashad, Reyy and Palmyra. The very greatest were at Xi’an in the east, at Kashgar and Samarkand in the centre, and at Baghdad, Damascus and Aleppo in the west. Today, remarkably, the great souqs of Damascus and Aleppo survive almost unchanged, fifteen hundred years on. It seems entirely possible that a time traveller from Abassid Aleppo could find the spice bazaar or the gold market of Aleppo’s walled and covered souq in exactly the same location today as it was during his or her lifetime.

Saddled yaks grazing, Tibetan Plateau. Joseph Rock, 1925

In contrast to the simplicity of the caravanserai, essentially a transit stop where men and beasts rested overnight, layovers in the great bazaars could easily extend into weeks or even months. Trade was carried out in these locations, goods sold, purchased and exchanged for onward carriage or for local consumption. Specialists services such as money changing, banking, interpreting and of course a gamut of entertainments ranging from music and theatre through to drinking and sex were also available to caravaneers and merchants.

The most difficult stages on the old Silk Road were those that crossed the Tarim Basin, circling the barren central Taklamakan Desert, and the passes across the Pamir and Karakoram Ranges. Caravans would generally halt for a longer rest, perhaps for a week or two, before setting out to face these natural difficulties. This imparted particular importance to the bazaars at Dunhuang, Kashgar and Samarkand, all key bazaar towns on the Central Asian Silk Road, and further to the west at Palmyra and Petra in the Syrian and Jordanian deserts.

Composition of Caravans

Camel caravan by Tangar (Huangyuan), Qinghai, early 20th century

Trading along the Silk Road, in either direction, was no small undertaking, whether for small-scale trader or merchant prince. The road was tough, often beset by bandits or dangerous animals, and liable to extremes of weather – an ingeniously crafted pair of goggles currently on exhibit at the museum in Urumqi, cut from metal a thousand years ago to permit tiny eye-slits, and lined with felt to keep out the driven sand, confirms the ever-present threat of sand storms in the Taklamakan Desert.

On Detecting Sand Storms

When such a wind is about to arrive, only the old camels have advance knowledge of it, and they immediately stand snarling together, and bury their mouths in the sand. The caravan men always take this as a sign, and they too immediately cover their noses and mouths by wrapping them in felt. This wind moves swiftly, and passes in a moment and is gone, but if the men did not protect themselves in this way, they would be in danger of sudden death. Bei Shi – Northern History (Chinese Annals).

Along the road there was greater safety in numbers, and travellers would wait in urban centres or even at remote caravanserai to join major caravans which might include hundreds or even thousands of camels and horses, sometimes accompanied by armed guards. As well as merchants sometimes accompanied by family members, servants and translators there were many specialists, including camel drivers, doctors and vets, local guides, cooks and guards. Journeys could last for weeks or months, and it was usual for caravans to travel around 20-30 kilometres in a day – though this, of course, was liable to the availability of water and the exigencies of the weather, nomadic raiders and local politics.

Merchant caravans were often joined by private individuals, whether itinerant traders, monks and religious teachers, entertainers moving between urban centres, adventurers, or even covert criminals and escaped slaves. For this reason, as well as for purposes of taxation, regulation and promoting peaceful commerce, passports and other forms of laissez-passer were issued by various authorities, notably at times of dynastic strength. Again, only under the Mongols would a single pass, issued by appropriate authority, have sufficed for the entire length of the Silk Road – and then only briefly. Examples of such bronze passports, looking rather like medals, survive today; engraved in a special Mongol script called Phags-pa commissioned by Kublai Khan in 1269, these passports guaranteed unimpeded passage for diplomats and other official travellers throughout the vast Mongol realm. The Venetian traveller Marco Polo was issued with one of these on his journeys in the service of the Great Khan, travelling to distant Yunnan and even Burma in the far southwest.

Trade and Transport in Recent Times

Yak caravan by Koko Nor, Qinghai, early 20th century

Sven Hedin riding a Bactrian camel in the Mongolian steppe circa 1908

Turkoman cameleer, late 19th century

As we have seen, following the collapse of the Pax Mongolica in the 14th century and the development of direct sea routes between the West and China, overland trade along the old Silk Road dried up and almost disappeared. The establishment of a “new” Silk Road was a gradual process that did not really start until 1906, when the Imperial Russian Government began construction of a long-mooted rail link to join Central Asia with Siberia. Work was delayed for a decade after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, but was finally completed by 1930, and on 21 April that year the first locomotive ran between Tashkent and Semipalatinsk, where the line intersects with the Trans-Siberian.

The new Turksib ran tantalisingly close to the Xinjiang frontier by the Dzungarian Gap, and following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, plans were made to link up the Soviet and Chinese rail systems via the old northern spur of the Silk Road running through Dzungaria. The Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway reached Urumqi by 1962, but then ground to a halt following the Sino-Soviet Split. It was not until September, 1990, a decade after the break-up of the Soviet Union, that this rail link was finally completed.

Road links between east and west have remained even more tenuous. The Russians occupied Xinjiang’s Ili Valley between 1867 and 1881, and helped install a separatist regime, the East Turkestan Republic, in the same area between 1944 and 1949. As a consequence, the Chinese remained viscerally suspicious of Soviet intentions in Xinjiang until the collapse of the USSR in 1991, keeping their borders virtually closed until the emergence of independent Kyrgyz and Kazakh Republics. Since that time the road links between Xinjiang and Kyrgyzstan via the Torugart Pass and the Irkeshtam Pass – the latter being the main route followed by the Silk Road in antiquity – have opened to trade and travellers, and the Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway has been extended to Kashgar, making it possible, for the first time since the Pax Mongolica, to travel easily and safely between Xi’an and Samarkand by land.

Further to the West the situation is less clear. War continues to disrupt travel and communications in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Road and rail links are good in neighbouring Iran, but the establishment of an Islamic Republic in 1979 has made travel in that country more difficult than under the old regime of the Shah. In the 1960s and 70s travel overland between Europe and India was simple and relatively safe by road or by rail – though the ‘Stans’ and Xinjiang were quite inaccessible. It’s strange, then, that today the eastern and central sections of the Silk Road are readily accessible, while the ‘Overland Trail’ to India, so popular four decades ago, is now made difficult by war and invasion in Iraq and Afghanistan, different varieties of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran and Northwest Pakistan, and the unsettled issue of Palestine and Israel in neighbouring Syria and Lebanon. Even to the north, in the Caucasus Mountains, the situation has deteriorated, with war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and ongoing secessionist struggles in Chechnya and Georgia.

Only at its western terminus, in the sleepy Turkish port of Antakya, is the western section of the Old Silk Road at peace. Yet Antakya is still claimed by neighbouring Syria, while as recently as 2008 Turkey’s ongoing low level battle against the Kurdish separatists of the PKK (Kurdish Worker’s Party) resulted in a two week invasion of northern Iraq.

In just four decades political conditions along the eastern, central and western sections of the Old Silk Road have been completely reversed. The road and rail links are there, but China and Central Asia are now open to trade and travel, while Iran and large parts of the Middle East no longer present a very appealing face to travellers. At present, he politics of the region remain volatile and unpredictable, and it is difficult to predict when circumstances may improve.

Text copyright © APA Insight Publications & Andrew Forbes / CPA 2008.

An extended version of this text may be found in APA Insight Guide The Silk Road (2008).

Part of Trade Routes