Trade routes wound over an astonishing area of land and sea, the Silk Route traditionally crossing overland and spices being transported more frequently by sea. Yet, in addition to merchandise, ideas, cultures, religions and technologies also passed along these routes, and were very important in the development of civilizations and empires across Central Asia.  The stronger these empires grew, the more capable they were of protecting the trade routes that supplied them. 

The expansion of empires in Central Asia went hand-in-hand with the need for fast and efficient communication on a wide-scale, and from the sixth century BC, the Persian and the Chinese emperors constructed networks of roads, highways and canals across the macro-region. These allowed rulers to administer to their lands, but traders benefitted from them too. Goods, ideas and skills passed along these roads, including technologies for designing weapons.   

From the seventh century, Muslim Arab armies were a new and powerful force in Asia Minor. Whilst the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula had always been involved with trade, the new Muslim empire came to dominate it, especially the Spice Routes that skirted ports from southern China to the Red Sea. The travels of Ibn Battuta in the fourteenth century illustrate the possibilities of travel and cultural exchange in this period. 

The first explorers who travelled the Silk Route found it a difficult and hazardous journey, across the mountains, deserts and steppes of Central Asia. There are many different routes, skirting a variety of countries and these all came to be used to transport goods, both to the east and the west.  The eastern starting point was the Chinese city of Xi’an, and various routes continued as far as Turkey, Greece and Italy.

The expedition of Zhang Qian in 138 BC is considered to be the foundation of the first ‘Silk Road’. On his return to Han China, his most important achievement was to demonstrate the possibility for safe travel far to the west. From these beginnings developed interactions with civilizations across Asia and consequently the exchange of goods, especially of China’s most precious commodity, silk. The Romans, the Parthians and the Kushans all engaged in this trade. 

Silk Route trade became increasingly popular with European merchants from the thirteenth century onwards. The Route’s very nature changed as navigators found ways of trading directly with producers in the Far East, cutting out the ‘middlemen’ of merchants who had traversed different parts of Central Asia.

Political stability was important in keeping a flourishing trade along the Silk Roads and in regulating the goods traded. The collapse of the Chinese Han Empire in the third century AD and the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries disrupted trade by making these regions unsafe for travel.  Other powers took over their role, most notably the Sassanid Empire in Western Asia and the Sogdians further east, under whose administration the Silk Roads thrived once more.   

The voyages of medieval merchants to the Far East provided fuel for exotic stories about their travels on their return.  The earliest account dates from the fourth century BC, and includes many fabulous stories, whilst much later, in the thirteenth century, the explorer Marco Polo was also widely disbelieved with regard to his stories of the East. This element of mystery also helped to make eastern goods very fashionable in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe. 

The business of trade was demanding on the merchants who underwent the journey, whether by land or sea. Over land, the nature of the terrain and its suitability for travel on camel or horseback determined the trajectory of passing traders. By sea, developments were continually being made to ships and to the instruments used for navigation, and all merchants took measures to accurately record the merchandise they carried with them. 

From the Renaissance onwards, European countries began to engage themselves more actively in trade. Technological advances permitted European sailors to navigate new routes to the east, and the advent of the Industrial Revolution accelerated this process.  By the mid-nineteenth century, European goods were being imported into China and Japan.