Silk Road was “One of the Most Transformative Super Highways in Human History" (Essay Sample)

Silk Road was “one of the most transformative super highways in human history”.
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History has shaped the world in what it looks like today. Ranging from wars, battles, treaties and extending up to marketplaces and trade routes, all historical events have contributed in one way or the other to the formation of today's world. Similarly, Silk Road, the trade route in China, has proven to be “one of the most transformative super highways in human history”. It not only served as a travelling route, but also paved way for the transmission of new ideas, technology, art and craft, languages and religion to spread to the surrounding continents and evolve to form the modern day world of advancements and globalization. Thus, Silk Road had globalized the ancient world even prior to the discovery of internet and airplanes.
Silk Route, or commonly known as the Silk Road, is basically the collective name that has been given to numerous routes of trade functioning connecting Central Asia and China since ancient times. It is the network having cultural and trade transmission routes that serve as a central point for regions of Asian continent and their cultural interaction. It has connected the Eastern and Western parts through travelling pilgrims, merchants, soldiers, urban dwellers, monks, and nomads from India and China, with the Mediterranean Sea since ancient times. Silk has been the luxurious fabric that was manufactured in China exclusively and West found out about it in 7th century. Later, it was traded for cattle, horses, hides, furs, and other luxuries by the merchants of Central Asia who were attracted to this precious commodity.
The contributions of Silk Road are many and have played a vital part in the history of mankind. Being known as 'one of the most transformative superhighways in human history", besides trading goods, Silk Road has contributed largely in transforming ideas, Eastern and Western cultures, artistic motifs, technology. It transformed history, primarily for the reason that people crossing Silk Road, wholly or partially, tended to plant their own cultures similar to seeds of striking variety taken to faraway lands. They mingled up with people there, assimilated with different groups and flourished in new homes. The oasis towns, that served as the locations of persistent economic and trade activity, inspired and lured other cultures to cross mountains. Therefore, Silk Road gained much importance historically as the interconnected routes that exchanged the religions, language, technologies, and art of East and West and took the shape of cultural artery.
Silk Road transformed the trade and economy in the history. It begun from the 2nd millennium BC, when nephrite jade was traded to China from Khotan and Yarkand region. Later, in Middle East, the spice trade was introduced and flourished. Spices, chemicals, saddles, metals, glass, paper, and leather products were the common items traded through this vast overland routes which led to the west outside China via Central Asia towards Syria and even beyond. Some other cargo brought along this route included the top traded item, ammonium chloride, that was utilized for the treatment of leather. Besides this, paper, invented in the 2nd centre BCE, was another major commodity and commonly traded item through Silk Road. Silk Road traders also exchanged various other items including silk, ivory, precious metals, medical herbs, gems, livestock, and exotic animals.
The most significant and lasting legacy belonging to the Silk Roads is perhaps its part in bringing people and cultures together and blend them with each other by forming exchanges between them. Practically, merchants were required to and capable of learning the customs and languages of countries where they had to travel, so that they could undertake trade and commercial negotiations successfully. Therefore, it can be understood that cultural interaction proved to be an important part of the material exchange that took place along the Silk Road.
Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Manichaeism, Buddhism, and Islam were brought through Eurasia with the help of interlinked networks of trade which belonged to particular religious institutions and communities. The Buddhist monasteries specially found shelter along the Silk Road and was established in the form of a new religion for people abroad. This transmission of the Buddhist religion to China through Silk Road was started in the 1st century AD, and by 5th and 6th centuries CE, it spread accross Asia by the merchants. In this way, religions in the human history saw a huge transformation through Silk Road.
Art and artifacts were one of the many other major transformations that the human history witnessed taking place through Silk Road. It served as a route for the transmission of majority of different artistic influences, which took place through Central Asia, where Iranian, Chinese, Hellenistic, and Indian influences had the possibility of intermixing. One of the most prominent instances includes the blend of Greek and Buddhist art which is the representative of such cultural and artistic interaction. Besides this, Silk was also presented as a form of art as it was viewed as a religious symbol besides being utilized as trade currency to be exchanged on silk road. A combination of Indian and Greek elements is also witnessed in the Buddhist art found in Chine in the later times, and this development also took place through Silk Road.
Silk Road helped spread ideas and innovations in order to transform the landscape of human history. One of the most popular example of a famous Chinese invention is paper that spread through trade and transformed the entire world. It was during Han dynasty that the invention of paper took place, which later become the preferred writing material for the people in east Asia, China and now the whole world. Another ingenious, simple invention of Roman Syria, which spread across Eurasia through Silk Road, was the irrigation waterwheel, or noria. Moreover, the foodstuffs also brought through the Silk Road, the transfer of ideas about new things. For instance, The maritime route brought oranges, to the world of Mediterranean from China. Apples was a new fruit that spread through the steppe belt in prehistoric times in different directions from the modern-day Kazakhstan region; grapes were also transferred via Silk Road to China and spread further in Asia.
Silk Road also helped spread newer technology which was not known in the world before. The silk-making technology, the paper-making techniques and technology, the technology of printing, and wine-making technology was brought in. They include series of techniques and ideas that gradually transmitted through Silk Road with the passage of time. The purchase of silk, wine, paper, and printed books became common by people on this route. Starting in 700 AD, even before Gutenberg the woodblock printing was developed by Chinese, taken through the Silk Road all over the world and advanced in order to meet the current needs of the people.
Not only trade, but Silk Road also facilitated the transportation and movement of common people from one place to another. Pilgrims of various faiths, merchants, guides travelling in a caravan, soldiers, farmers having hundred of camels made use of Silk Road to travel. Various dominant ethnic groups in different regions also travelled through this route; the Sogdia...