The Silk Roads in History by Daniel C. Waugh Flashcards
What was described by Richthofen that was a quite specific route of east-west trade some 2,000 years ago
Silk Road
The phrase “Silk Road” in our own time has been used as a metaphor for ___________________________________, and it is common
advertising copy for the romantic exoticism of expensive adventure travel.
a. Travel tourism
b. Worldwide Web trade
c. Central Asian oil pipelines
Central Asian oil pipelines
German geographer who coined the term “Silk Road” to describe what for him was a quite specific route of east-west trade some 2,000 years ago?
Ferdinand von Richthofen
There might be some consensus as to what and when the Silk Roads were. Yet, as the __________ Museum exhibition of Silk Road artefacts demonstrates, we are still learning about that
history, and many aspects of it are subject to vigorous scholarly debate.
Penn
For Daniel C. Waugh, most today would agree that Richthofen’s original concept was too ___________ in that he was concerned first about the movement of silk overland from east to west between the “great civilizations” of Han China and Rome.
limited
The history of the Silk Roads is a narrative about ________________, ___________________, and __________________ across ill-defined borders but not
necessarily over long distances.
a. movement, resettlement, and interactions
b. movement, warfare, and interactions
c. movement, purchase, and interactions
a. movement, resettlement, and interactions
Did Daniel C. Waugh extended his concept to encompass striking evidence from the Eurasian Bronze and Early Iron Ages, and trace it beyond the European Age of Discovery (15th to 17th centuries) to the eve of the modern world? Agree or Disagree?
Agree
Silk Road is also the story of _______(1)______ exchange and the
spread and mixing of religions, all set against the background of the rise and fall of _____(2)_______ which encompassed a wide range of cultures and peoples, about whose identities we still know too little.
(1) artistic
(2) polities
Many of the exchanges about Silk Road documented by archaeological research were surely the result of contact between various ethnic or ______________ groups over time.
linguistic
The most exciting archaeological discoveries of the 20th century were the _______(1)_______ of Nomadic pastoralists who occupied the ______(2)______ mountain region around Pazyryk in southern Siberia in the middle of the 1st millennium BCE.
(1) frozen tombs
(2) Altai
Nomadic pastoralist horsemen have been identified with the ________________ who dominated the steppes from Eastern Europe to Mongolia.
a. Scathinians
b. Scytusian
c. Scythians
c. Scythians
Pazyryk Tomb
clearly document connections with China: the deceased were buried with Chinese silk and bronze
mirrors.
What were found inside the Pazyryk Tomb?
- graves contain felts and woven wool textiles, but curiously little evidence that would point to local textile production
- earliest known pile carpet has Achaemenid (ancient Persian) motifs; the dyes and technology of dyeing wool fabrics seem to be of Middle Eastern origin.
Achaemenid
558- 333B.C.E, first Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus who capitalized on weakening Syrian and Babylonian empires. Peak was under Darius
Other aspects of the burial goods in Pazyryk suggest a connection with a yet somewhat vague northeast Asian cultural complex, extending along the forest-steppe boundaries all the way to ______(1)______ and _______(2)________. Discoveries from 1st millennium BCE sites in Xinjiang reinforce the evidence about active long-distance contacts well before Chinese political power extended that far west.
(1) Manchuria
(2) north Korea
It was difficult to locate the Pazyryk pastoralists within any larger polity that might have controlled the centre of Eurasia.
What is the name of the tribal group who emerged around the beginning of the 2nd century BCE, established what most consider to be the first of the great Inner Asian empires and in the process stimulated what, in the conventional telling, was the beginnings of the Silk Roads?
a. Xiongnu—the Huns
b. Shiaozen—the Huns
c. Kulim—the Huns
a. Xiongnu—the Huns
Evidence about the Xiongnu supports a growing consensus that Inner Asian peoples formerly thought of as purely nomadic in fact were _________________; incorporating sedentary elements such as permanent settlement sites and agriculture into their way of life.
mixed societies
When substantial quantities of Chinese goods now made their
way into Inner Asia and beyond to the Mediterranean world.
In the flow of goods, the Han Dynasty paid _____(1)_____to the nomad rulers, and trade, in return for which the Chinese received ___(2)____ and _____(3)____.
(1) tribute
(2) horses
(3) camels
TRUE/FALSE
Chinese missions to the “Western Regions” also resulted in the opening of direct trade with Central Asia and parts of the Middle East, although we have no evidence that Han merchants ever reached the Mediterranean or that Roman merchants reached China.
TRUE
From which empire did cities controlled routes leading to the
Mediterranean, and the emergence of prosperous caravan emporia such as Palmyra
Parthian Empire
Palmyra
A Roman trading depot in modern-day Syria; part of a network of trading cities that connected various regions of Afro-Eurasia.
“prosperous caravan emporia”
-eastern Syrian Desert
-attest to the importance of interconnected overland and maritime trade
Palmyra Caravan emporia products include not only silk but also:
a. spices
b. iron
c. olive oil
d. all of the above and much more
d. all of the above and much more
The Han Dynasty expanded Chinese dominion for the first time well into Central Asia. In the process, extended the ________________
and establishing the garrisons to man it.
While one result of this was a shift in the balance of power between the Xiongnu and the Chinese in favor of the latter.
Great Wall
Xiongnu tombs
-late 1st century BCE through the 1st century CE
in north-central Mongolia
-contained abundant Chinese:
a. lacquer ware
b. lacqueredChinese chariots
c. high-quality bronze mirrors
d. stunning silk brocades.
There is good reason to assume that much of the silk passing through Xiongnu hands was traded farther to the west.
Although Richthofen felt that the Silk Road trade ceased to be important with the decline of the ____(1)____ Dynasty.
In the 2nd century CE, there is ample evidence of very important interactions across Eurasia in the subsequent period when—both in China and the West—the great sedentary empires fragmented.
(1) Han
During the 2nd century CE, what religiom began to spread vigorously into Central Asia and China with the active support of local rulers?
Buddhism
The earliest clearly documented Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures date from this period, although the process of expanding the Buddhist canon in China and adapting it to Chinese religious traditions extended over subsequent centuries?
a. 2nd century CE
b. 3rd century CE
c. 1st century CE
a. 2nd century CE
Understandably, many of the key figures in the transmission of the faith were those from Central Asia who commanded a range of linguistic skills acquired in the multi-ethnic oasis towns such as __________.
Kucha
TRUE/FALSE:
Buddhism made its way east via the coastal routes.
TRUE
During the Northern _______ Dynasty (5th and early 6th centuries) there were major Buddhist cave temple sites in the Chinese north and extending across to the fringes of the Central Asian deserts.
Wei
Perhaps the best known and best preserved of Buddhist caves is the _________ Caves at the commercial and garrison town of Dunhuang.
a. Mogao
b. Mugal
c. Mamul
a. Mogao
The town where there is a continuous record of Buddhist art from the early 5th century down to the time of the Mongol Yuan
Dynasty in the 14th century?
Dunhuang
Who was the Chinese monk which was one of the most famous travelers on the Silk Roads whose route to the sources of Buddhist
wisdom in India took him along the northern fringes of the Tarim Basin, through the mountains, and then south through today’s Uzbekistan and Afghanistan?
Xuanzang
About how many years did it took Xuanzang in China wherein he stopped at Dunhuang along the way and had brought back a trove of scriptures and important images?
15 years
Many of the sites that we connect with this spread of Buddhism are also those where there is evidence of the Sogdians. Who are these Sodigans?
Iranian speakers
who were the first great merchant diaspora of the Silk Roads.
The homeland of Sogdigans is in Samarkand and the
Zerafshan River Valley. Which are respectively called today’s?
a. Kazakhstan and Tajikistan
b. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan
c. Uzbekistan and Tajikistan
c. Uzbekistan and Tajikistan
How did Sogdigans extended their reach?
I. homeland-> Black Sea (west)-> mountains of Kashmir (south)-> ports of Southeast Asia
II. homeland-> Black Sea (north)-> mountains of Kashmir (south)-> ports of Southeast Asia
III. homeland-> mountains of Kashmir (south)-> ports of Southeast Asia-> Black Sea (west)
I. homeland-> Black Sea (west)-> mountains of Kashmir (south)-> ports of Southeast Asia
Early 4th century Sogdian _____(1)_____, found just west of Dunhuang, document a Sogdian network extending from Samarkand through Dunhuang, and along the Gansu Corridor into central China.
Sogdians entered Chinese service and adopted some aspects of Chinese culture while retaining, it seems, their indigenous religious traditions; a form of _____(2)____.
(1) letters
(2) Zoroastrianism
Sogdian’s importance went well beyond commerce, as they served
not only the Chinese but also some of the newly emerging regimes from the northern steppes which are?
a. Turks and Unaus
b. Turks and Uyghurs
c. Uyghurs and Kalum
b. Turks and Uyghurs
The ___(1)_____ for a time extended their control across much of Inner Asia and were influential in promoting trade into Eastern Europe and the Byzantine Empire.
The ___(2)___ received huge quantities of Chinese silk in exchange for horses.
(1) Turks
(2) Uyghurs
Manichaeism
Religion founded by the prophet Mani in the third century C.E., a syncretic version of Zoroastrian, Christian, and Buddhist elements.
-Sogdians played a role in the transmission of this another of the major Middle Eastern religion
–> to the Uyghurs in the 8th century, by which time both Islam and Eastern Christianity had also made their way to China.
With the final conquest of the Sogdian homeland by ________ armies in the early 8th century, Sogdian influence declined.
Arab
Due to decline, Sogdians were replaced by _________ merchants of various ethnicities would replace the Sogdians in key roles
controlling Silk Road trade.
Muslim
By the time of the Tang Dynasty (618-906), which managed once again to extend Chinese control into Central Asia, foreign culture was all the rage among the Chinese elite: everything from makeup and hair styles to dance and music.
Even women played polo, a game imported from what country?
Persia
Abbasid Caliphate
third of the Islamic Caliphates of the Islamic Empire. The rulers who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphs. In started in 750 CE. It flourished for two centuries, but slowly went into decline with the rise to power of the Turkish army it had created, the Mamluks. In the 13th century the Mongols displaced them.
By the second half of the 8th century—with the consolidation of Arab control in Central Asia and the establishment of the Abbassid Caliphate. The capital is in western Asia called _____________, wherein the west a new period of prosperity.
a. Baghdad
b. Bangladesh
c. Babuyan
a. Baghdad
Many threads made up the complex fabric of what we tend to designate simply as “Islamic civilization”. True/ False?
True
Baghdad
-Earlier Persian traditions continued, and the expertise of Eastern Christians contributed to the emergence of Baghdad as a major intellectual
centre.
Even though Chinese silk continued to be imported, centres of silk
production were established in Central Asia and northern Iran.
Considerable evidence has been found regarding importation of Chinese ______________ into the Persian Gulf in the 8th through the 10th century.
ceramics
Even though Chinese silk continued to be imported, centres of silk
production were established in Central Asia and northern Iran.
Considerable evidence has been found regarding importation of Chinese ______________ into the Persian Gulf in the 8th through the 10th century.
ceramics
TRUE/FALSE:
The importance of maritime trade for the transmission of Chinese goods would continue to grow as Muslim merchants established themselves in the ports of northeast China.
FALSE;
southeast
The Chinese connection had a substantial impact on artistic production in the Middle East, where ceramicists devised new techniques in order to imitate Chinese wares.
Conversely, the transmission of __________and _______ pottery decoration moved from the Middle East to China.
a. red and white
b. blue and white
c. red and brown
b. blue and white
Under the Mongols, we can document for the first time the travel of Europeans all the way across Asia, the most famous examples being the Franciscan monks:
John of Plano Carpini and William of Rubruck (first half of the 13th century) and Marco Polo a few decades later.
Agree? Disagree?
Agree
Genoese merchant families
took up residence in Chinese port cities, and for a good many decade there was an active Roman Catholic missionary church in China.
The reign of _____(1)______ in China and the establishment of the Mongol Ilkhanid regime in Iran in the second half of the 13th century was a period of particularly extensive exchange of
artisans (granted, most of them probably conscripted) and various kinds of technical specialists.
While their long-term impact may have been limited, the exchanges included the transmission of medical and ________(2)_________ knowledge.
(1) Kublai Khan
(2) astronomical
Ilkhanids
dynasty put in place after mongol conuest BY mongols; after split into various kingdoms Islamized, Baghdad/Iraq/Iran, first governors of conquered territory
TRUE/ FALSE:
Despite the rapid collapse of the Mongol Empire in the 14th century, under their Ming Dynasty successors in China and the Timurids in the Middle East, active commercial and artistic exchange between East and West continued into the 16th century.
TRUE
Timurid Samarkand and Herat
centres of craft production and the caravan trade
-16th Century
The early Ming sponsored the sending of huge fleets through the _____(1)_____ Ocean, which must have flooded the markets in the West with Chinese goods. Among them the increasingly popular ____(2)_____ (pale green) and blue-and-white porcelain.
(1) Indian
(2) celadon
The centres of Chinese ceramic production clearly began to adapt to the tastes of foreign markets, whether in Southeast Asia or the Middle East.
The legacy of this can be seen in the ceramics produced in ______________________, which decorated palaces and shrines, and in the later collections of imported porcelain assembled by the
Ottoman and Safavid rulers in the 16th and 17th centuries.
northern Iran
Persian painting, reached its apogee in the 15th and 16th centuries, was substantially influenced by ____________ models.
a. East Asian
b. Southeast Asian
c. Chinese
c. Chinese
Conventional histories of the Silk Roads stop with
the European ____________________ and the opening of maritime routes to the East in the late 15th century.
a. Age of Discovery
b. Age of Astronomy
c. Age of Fishing
a. Age of Discovery
In 15th Century, relative value of overland and sea trade now changed, as did the identity of those who controlled commerce. Despite growing political disorders disrupting the overland routes, many of them continued to flourish down through the 17th century.
New trading diasporas emerged, with _________________ and ________________ merchants now playing important roles.
a. Indian and Armerican
b. Armenian and Mongols
c. Indian and Armenian
c. Indian and Armenian
Trade in traditional products such as horses and spices continued, as did the transmission of substantial amounts of ___________ to pay for the Eastern goods (17th Century)
silver
Trade in traditional products such as horses and spices continued, as did the transmission of substantial amounts of ___________ to pay for the Eastern goods (17th Century)
silver
Among the Chinese goods much in demand was?
tea
Tea whose export to the Inner Asian pastoralists had grown substantially during the period of the ___________ and early Ming dynasties.
Yuan
