Silk was not the only commodity,
of course, exchanged on the trade routes.
Caravans going toward China carried gold
and other precious metals, ivory, precious
stones and glass. Coming from the east,
traders transported furs, ceramics, jade,
bronze objects, lacquer and iron. Traders
even carried exotic animals and plants
along the routes.
The Romans especially loved the
silk that made its way along the Silk Road
from the east. They even sent out parties
to try to buy the silk more cheaply than
they could buy it in Rome. But the Romans
did not name the Silk Road; rather, it was
named by German geographer Ferdinand
As Bulgaria inches closer to membervon Richthofen in 1877.
ship in the European Union (EU), officials
Use of the Silk Road gradually
worry about the flow of illegal goods and
declined after about 1250 A.D., as international trade increasingly moved from overpeople entering the country from the east.
land to sea routes. When the Portuguese
Many are coming from Turkey, on Bulgaria’s southeast border, following old trade
found the southern passage to the Orient
routes.
around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope in
1488, international oceanic trade took off,
Trade routes as part of the ancient Silk
making the Silk Road almost obsolete.
Road have connected Europe with East
Asia for more than 2,000 years. Trade
Overland trade between Asia
along some of these routes continues, but
and Eastern Europe, however, has probmuch of it now
ably
slightly
is illicit.
increased
in
E urecent
times,
ropol, the Euowing in part
©2006
to the breakup
ropean police
Great Wall
of the Soviet
agency, ranks
Bulgaria
of China
Union and the
Istanbul as one
opening
up
of the top deBlack
1 Sea
of its satellite
parture points
Caspian
countries. Lax
for illegal immiSea
6
ne
grants bound for
border security
7
an
TaklaWestern Europe.
and corruption
Sea 2
5
makan
3
Pamirs
According to a
have resulted.
4
Christian Science
T h e
Monitor article
illicit, untaxed
0
500 mi
(May 17, 2006),
trade funneling
Silk Road Trading Centers
an
estimated
into Bulgaria
Pacific from
6,000 “suitcase
Turkey
1 Byzantium 5 Kashi
Ocean is a concern
traders,” carry2 Antioch
6 Dunhuang
ing everything
to all regional
3 Palmyra
7 Chang'an
Main Silk Road
Arabian
from women’s
governments,
Sea
Alternate Routes
4 Merv
underwear to
as goods move
Source: http://encarta.msn.com
C. Knoll from Bulgaria
sugar,
liquor Geography in the News 9/29/2006
and drugs, make
into adjoining
their living on
countries. Some
Sources: Dyer, John, “Today’s Silk Road: ‘Suitcase traders’ shuttle cheap goods,” Christian Science
the Bulgarianof Eastern EuMonitor, May 17, 2006; and http://www.ess.uci.edu/~oliver/silk.html#3.
Turkish border,
rope’s
needs
avoiding
sin
are still being
taxes and limifulfilled over
would open to Western Europe.
remnants of the Silk Road.
tations on exports in the process. Many of
The eastern end of the Silk Road
And that is Geography in the
the textiles along the route are coming from
in China developed slowly. In 138 B.C., the
News™. September 29, 2006. #852.
China. Could this trade route be a modern
Han leader Zhang Qian set out on an intel(Neal Lineback is a Professor Emeritus of
day revival of the ancient Silk Road?
Bulgaria’s location makes it espeligence mission towards the West. He and
Geography at Appalachian State University,
cially susceptible to trafficking and smughis party traveled as far as Northern India
Boone, NC. Geographer Mandy Lineback
gling contraband and people. An official
and returned to China in 125 B.C. Today,
Gritzner, of Sandpoint, ID, co-authored
many scholars consider Zhang Qian the
this article. University News Director Jane
at the British Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria,
Nicholson serves as technical editor.)
father of the Silk Road.
estimates that 80 percent of the heroin that
Geography
In The
News™
Neal G.
Lineback
THE TATTERED
SILK ROAD
arrives in the United Kingdom is trafficked
through the region, much of it arriving from
Afghanistan.
The main Silk Road historically
began at Chang’an in east-central China
and went west to Antioch (near Damascus,
Syria) and Palmyra (northern Lebanon),
covering more than 4,500 miles. The Silk
Road, however, is actually a misnomer, as
it included a complicated set of secondary
interconnecting routes, which in combination are called the Silk Road.
One of the most inhospitable
places on earth, the Taklamakan (desert),
had a major impact on the Silk Road routes,
covering a vast area with few roads in western China. Throughout history, caravans
skirted edges of the Taklimakan, traveling
from one isolated oasis to the next, avoiding
this desolate territory, as well as the massive
mountains of the Pamirs.
By the third century B.C., many
of the Silk Road trade routes existed on the
western end, primarily because of the development of the empires in the west, and
the easier terrain of Persia and Syria. Eventually, a maze of interconnecting routes
Smuggling on the Silk Road
ra
er
dit
Me
©2006 Maps.com