Silk Road

The discovery of silk in China occurred many centuries BC, and by the time of the Roman empire, silk fabric was a prized trade commodity. The caravan routes across Asia became known as the Silk Roads. It is estimated that nearly 90% of the imports into the Roman Empire consisted of silk goods. 

David Lee Hoffman Silk Road Teas Lagunitas, CA 94938... 

Reproduced with permission of Silk Road Teas. 

Process R D, AstraZeneca, Silk Road Business Park, Charter Way, Macclesfield, Cheshire SKIO 2NA, UK... 

T Turkish traders bargain for tea and the Silk Road is born... 

Silk is an animal fiber valued for its texture, strength, and luster. First prepared in ancient China, silk fabric was expensive, luxurious, and soft its popularity led to the development of a trade route known as the Silk Road leading from Asia to Europe. Early American entrepreneurs such as Benjamin Franklin promoted the silk industry in the colonies. Silkworms spin cocoons that are collected, steamed, and unwound to obtain the silk fiber by a process known as reeling. A number of fibers are twisted together to form a thread of raw silk. Threads are combined, cleaned, stretched, dyed, and woven into fine fabrics. Silk fibers have great tensile strength and are sometimes used in cordage. 

Georgia is located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, and it was a major link in the chain of the Great Silk Road. It always was a vivid transition point for voyagers, thus it was not protected from the spread of different epidemics - among them plague. 

Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. These regions compose a secondary gene center. The movement of the soybean throughout the period was due to the establishment of sea and land trade routes, for example, the Silk Road (Boulnois, 1966) the migration of certain tribes from China, for example, the Thais (Prince Dhaninavat, 1961) and the rapid acceptance of the seeds as a staple food by other cultures, for example, the Indonesians (Hymowitz, 1990 Hymowitz Newell, 1980). 

The Commagene became known as Kutmuhi in Assyrian times from 1300BCE to 612BCE. After this, the Commagene passed into Persian control. It later became an important part of the Silk Road because of its natural access to Asia Minor, Uzbekistan, Bukhara and the Steppes of Russia. 

Oxus (Amu Darya) and Jaxartes (Syrdariya) Rivers and the Aral Sea. By lOOBCE, the famed cities of Bukhara and Samarkand were part of the Silk Road. Yet, as we saw in Chapter 4, itinerant groups crossed these deserts many thousands of years before this time. Hundreds of ancient ruins in this early cmcible of the Indo-Hittites are yet to reveal their secrets. 

Liu, X., 2010. The Silk Road in World History. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 

Wood, F., 2004. The Silk Road Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA. 

It is well known that the Arabs had contacts with the Chinese via the Silk Road, the great trade route between China and the Mediterranean. It is notable that the concept of the elixir of lifey a medicine with the power to prolong life, is found in Islamic alchemy, but is entirely absent from its Alexandrian precursor. The transmission of this idea from China is highly likely. It is also possible that the word chemistry is derived from the Chinese word for gold. The best representation for the sound this word made in the early Chinese dialects is probably kimy from which the Arabs could have derived their word al-kimiyOy from which in turn the Europeans obtained the words alchemy and chemistry. An alternative theory is that the Arabs derived al-kimiya from Khemy which means Black Landy and is the ancient name for Egypt. 

Transportation (highways) Trans Canada highway, U. S. Highway 30, Baikal-Amur Line (Russia), proposed Silk Road, Cairo-Cape Town... 

Daly, J. C. K. (2008). Kazakhstan s emerging middle class. Silk Road Paper. Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. 

Guo, X. (2007). Towards resolution Chirm in the Myanmar Issue. Silk Road Paper, Johns Hopkins University and Uppsala University. 

Wiedemann Bayer (1997) Wiedemann, H.G. Bayer, G. Formation and Stability of Chinese Barium Copper-Silicate Pigments Conservation of Ancient Sites on the Silk Road Proceedings of an International Conference on the Conservation of Grotto Sites Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles... 

Historically silks were known to the ancient Chinese since 3000 B.C. To the Western world, the art of silk production and processing was largely unknown for centuries as the process of sericulture was kept secret. Over time, migration, commerce, and wars led to the birth of the Silk Road, and the loss of the monopoly on silk production. Later, silks transitioned from textile-targeted materials into surgical sutures. Subsequently, silk stirred the interest of the scientific community and in 1913 the capacity of silk to diffract x-rays was reported (Lucas et al., 1958). 

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