Antiquity’s Lesson For Lanka: Lawfulness And The Fabled Silk Road
By Kumar David -August 18, 2013 |
Prof Kumar David
It was the longest, oldest, and greatest trade and cultural route of the ancient world, stretching 6,500 km from Chang’an (modern Xian) to the Mediterranean ports of the Levant, Antioch and Tyre, then by sea to Rome and Byzantium, and later, medieval Venice. It transited magnificent places with breathtaking names,Samarkand, Bukara and Babylon(near Baghdad). The camel-train caravans of 50, 100 and sometimes several hundred animals, carried silk, jade, lacquer, porcelain, cardamoms, ginger and medical herbs of the exotic orient to Persia, the Near East and Rome, and brought back gold and silver from Rome, almonds, nuts, myrrh and frankincense from Persia, and richly worked cotton and religious scrolls from India. Though Alexander had opened Central Asia up to modern Tajikistan by 329 BC, it was during the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) that a continuous route was established. Trans-continental caravans plied, initially in sectors, from Chang’an to the Levant, from at least 130 BC during the reign of Emperor Wu; that is a thousand years before the arrival of Ma Ge Bo Luo (dull Venetians called him Marco Polo).