Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
The 'Myth' of the Silk Road
#4
(03-12-2017, 04:41 PM)Michael Kerr Wrote: a handful of trade missions sent between the two empires

Could we call them 'trade missions' though? That would imply that a government, or individual, had sent a mission with the specific intention of establishing direct trade, which doesn't seem to have happened.

There were individual travellers, as you say - Ball mentions the agents of Maes Titianus, who he suggests reached Tashkurghan. Then there were the 'envoys of An-Tun', and somebody called Tsin-Lun - Ball suggests that these were Syrian, or perhaps Palmyrene, traders - and another group apparently from Egypt in AD284. All except Titianus's men arrived by sea anyway, via Annam.


(03-12-2017, 04:41 PM)Michael Kerr Wrote: Most of the trade pre-Han would have been cattle, sheep, horses, weapons, armour, foodstuffs, fruits, metals and textiles.

But wouldn't that sort of economy preclude a trade in luxury goods, especially if there was a pre-existing trade for such things via India? And luxury goods (like silk or glassware) would be the only items valuable enough to be carried all the way from east to west or vice versa via an overland route. Otherwise all you have is neighbouring peoples trading with each other at a low economic level - certainly an amount of slow percolation of cultures and ideas, but nothing you could call a 'trade route' really.


(03-12-2017, 04:41 PM)Michael Kerr Wrote: Chinese usually offloaded their goods at Tashkurgan where Indians, Tamils and Kushans moved the merchandise south to ship their goods by sea while others continued west and met up with Syrians and Greeks who shipped on to Rome.

Ball devotes several pages to the Indian sea trade route, and evidence from the south of India in particular; this, he thinks, was the sole 'silk route' of antiquity, and the only practical means of transmission of people and ideas (although Christianity reached Merv by cAD200, it had apparently established a foothold in southern India a hundred years before that).

But is there any reason to think that 'others continued west' from Tashkurghan? Why, when the sea route could take their goods where they were wanted, and was run by people with the capital to trade in luxury items?

Rome and the East was published in 2000, although there was a revised edition last year I think. I don't know whether Ball has revised his opinions on this subject at all though - have there been any new finds or research in the last 17 years that might give support to the idea of an overland trade route?
Nathan Ross
Reply


Messages In This Thread
The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-12-2017, 01:17 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Dan Howard - 03-12-2017, 02:08 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 03-12-2017, 04:41 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-12-2017, 08:52 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Dan Howard - 03-13-2017, 12:03 AM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Alanus - 03-13-2017, 05:00 AM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-13-2017, 12:28 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 03-13-2017, 03:16 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-13-2017, 07:26 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Alanus - 03-13-2017, 09:00 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-13-2017, 09:32 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 03-14-2017, 03:59 AM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-14-2017, 12:21 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 03-28-2017, 04:07 AM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-28-2017, 08:14 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Alanus - 03-29-2017, 03:47 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Bryan - 03-29-2017, 05:13 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Alanus - 03-29-2017, 07:37 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Bryan - 03-30-2017, 02:51 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-31-2017, 12:04 AM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 03-30-2017, 10:16 AM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Alanus - 03-30-2017, 10:39 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 03-31-2017, 12:31 AM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 04-04-2017, 04:52 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 04-13-2017, 03:47 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 04-15-2017, 06:38 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 04-16-2017, 01:09 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 06-25-2017, 06:44 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Mikeh55 - 06-28-2017, 05:17 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 06-28-2017, 05:39 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 06-28-2017, 11:00 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 06-30-2017, 05:45 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Robert - 07-14-2017, 11:09 AM

Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  A Silk Road Before the \"Silk Road\" Alanus 8 4,248 02-19-2017, 05:21 PM
Last Post: Alanus

Forum Jump: