The Silk Road was not a trade route that existed solely for the purpose of trading in silk. Many other commodities were also traded, from gold and ivory to exotic animals and plants. Of all the precious goods crossing this area, silk was perhaps the most remarkable for the people of the West. To build a road becomes priority to trade silk. For nearly 60 years of war, the world famous ancient Silk Road was built up at cost of many losses of life and treasures. It started from Chang'an (now Xi'an), across Middle Asia, South Asia and West Asia. Many countries of Asia and Europe were connected.

It is often thought that the Romans had first encountered silk in one of their campaigns against the Parthians in 53 B.C, and realised that it could not have been produced by this relatively unsophisticated people. They reputedly learnt from Parthian prisoners that it came from a mysterious tribe in the east, who they came to refer to as the silk people, ?Seres?.

In practice, it is likely that silk and other goods were beginning to filter into Europe before this time, though only in very small quantities. The Romans obtained samples of this new material, and it quickly became very popular in Rome, for its soft texture and attractiveness.

The Parthians quickly realised that there was money to be made from trading the material, and sent trade missions towards the east. The Romans also sent their own agents out to explore the route, and to try to obtain silk at a lower price than that set by the Parthians. For this reason, the trade route to the East was seen by the Romans as a route for silk rather than the other goods that were traded. The name “Silk Road” itself does not originate from the Romans, however, but is a nineteenth century term, coined by the German scholar, von Richthofen.

In addition to silk, the route carried many other precious commodities. Caravans heading towards China carried gold and other precious metals, ivory, precious stones, and glass, which was not manufactured in China until the fifth century. In the opposite direction furs, ceramics, jade, bronze objects, lacquer and iron were carried. Many of these goods were bartered for others along the way, and objects often changed hands several times. There are no records of Roman traders being seen in Changan, nor Chinese merchants in Rome, though their goods were appreciated in both places. This would obviously have been in the interests of the Parthians and other middlemen, who took as large a profit from the change of hands as they could.

The development of these Central Asian trade routes caused some problems for the Han rulers in China. Bandits soon learnt of the precious goods travelling up the Gansu Corridor and skirting the Taklimakan, and took advantage of the terrain to plunder these caravans. Caravans of goods needed their own defence forces, and this was an added cost for the merchants making the trip. The route took the caravans to the farthest extent of the Han Empire, and policing this route became a big problem. This was partially overcome by building forts and defensive walls along part of the route. Sections of “Great Wall” were built along the northern side of the Gansu Corridor, to try to prevent the Xiongnu from harming the trade. Tibetan bandits from the Qilian mountains to the south were also a problem. Sections of Han dynasty wall can still be seen as far as Yumen Guan, well beyond the recognised beginning of the Great Wall at Jiayuguan. However, these fortifications were not all as effective as intended, as the Chinese lost control of sections of the route at regular intervals.

The height of the importance of the Silk Road was during the Tang dynasty, with relative internal stability in China after the divisions of the earlier dynasties since the Han. The individual states has mostly been assimilated, and the threats from marauding peoples was rather less. During this period, in the seventh century, the Chinese traveller Xuan Zhuang crossed the region on his way to obtain Buddhist scriptures from India. He followed the northern branch round the Taklimakan on his outward journey, and the southern route on his return, he carefully recorded the cultures and styles of Buddhism along the way. On his return to the Tang capital at Changan, he was permitted to build the “Great Goose Pagoda” in the southern half of the city, to house the more than 600 scriptures that he had brought back from India. He is still seen by the Chinese as an important influence in the development of Buddhism in China, and his travels were dramatised by in the popular classic “Tales of a Journey to the West”.

The partial unification of many states under the Mongol Empire allowed a significant interaction between cultures of different regions. The route of the Silk Road became important as a path for communication between different parts of the Empire, and trading was continued. Although less `civilised’ than people in the west, the Mongols were more open to ideas. Kubilai Khan, in particular, is reported to have been quite sympathetic to most religions, and a large number of people of different nationalities and creeds took part in the trade across Asia, and settled in China. The most popular religion in China at the time was Daoism, which at first the Mongols favoured. However, from the middle of the thirteenth century onwards, buddhist influence increased, and the early lamaist Buddhism from Tibet was particularly favoured. The two religions existed side by side for a long period during the Yuan dynasty. This religious liberalism was extended to all; Christianity first made headway in China in this period, with the first Roman Catholic arch-bishopric set up in Beijing in 1307. The Nestorian church was quite widespread in China; Jews and Moslems also populated several of the major cities, though they do not seem to have made many converts.

It was at this time that Europeans first ventured towards the lands of the “Seres”. The earliest were probably Fransiscan friars who are reported to have visited the Mongolian city of Karakorum. The first Europeans to arrive at Kubilai’s court were Northern European traders, who arrived in 1261. However, the most well known and best documented visitor was the Italian Marco Polo. As a member of a merchant family from Venice, he was a good businessman and a keen observer. Starting in 1271, at the age of only seventeen, his travels with his father and uncle took him across Persia, and then along the southern branch of the Silk Road, via Khotan, finally ending at the court of Kubilai Khan at Khanbalik, the site of present-day Beijing, and the summer palace, better known as Xanadu. He travelled quite extensively in China, before returning to Italy by ship, via Sumatra and India to Hormuz and Constantinople.

Despite the presence of the Mongols, trade along the Silk Road never reached the heights that it did in the Tang dynasty. With the disintegration of the Mongol empire, the revival of Islam and the isolationist policies of the Ming dynasty, the barriers rose again on the land route between East and West. The demise of the Silk Road also owes much to the development of the silk route by sea. It was becoming rather easier and safer to transport goods by water rather than overland. Ships had become stronger and more reliable , and the route passed promising new markets in Southern Asia.

Renewed interest in the Silk Road only emerged among western scholars towards the end of the nineteenth century. This emerged after various countries started to explore the region. The foreign involvement in this area was due mostly to the interest of the powers of the time in expanding their territories. The British, in particular, were interested in consolidating some of the land north of their Indian territories.

The study of the Road really took off after the expeditions of the Swede Sven Hedin in 1895. He was an accomplished cartographer and linguist, and became one of the most renowned explorers of the time. He crossed the Pamirs to Kashgar, and then set out to explore the more desolate parts of the region. He even succeeded in making a crossing of the centre of the Taklimakan, though he was one of only three members of the party who made it across, the rest succumbing to thirst after their water had run out. He was intrigued by local legends of demons in the Taklimakan, guarding ancient cities full of treasure, and met several natives who had chanced upon such places. In his later travels, he discover several ruined cities on the south side of the desert, and his biggest find, the city of Loulan, from which he removed a large number of ancient manuscripts.

After Hedin, the archaeological race started. Sir Aurel Stein of Britain and Albert von Le Coq of Germany were the principle players, though the Russians and French, and then the Japanese, quickly followed suit. There followed a period of frenzied digging around the edges of the Taklimakan, to discover as much as possible about the old Buddhist culture that had existed long before.

The archaeological free-for-all came to a close after a change in the political scene. On 25th May 1925 a student demonstration in the treaty port of Shanghai was broken up by the British by opening fire on them, killing a number of the rioters. This instantly created a wave of anti-foreign hostility throughout China, and effectively brought the explorations of the Western Archaeologists to an end.