Chapter 8: Commerence And Culture

In this chapter there were three main roads that were discussed: silk, sea, and sand roads.  The Silk road went all across Europe and Asia; mainly through Saudi Arabia, Persia, India, Turkestan, and China.  These countries went in a complete frenzy when it came to trading silk.  They traded: cotton, spices, gold, animals, oil oil, paper, wool, etc.  In Central Asia, silk was used to make currency and to determine a person's wealth.  Yet, despite that there was a new road to cross, new diseases came from other regions that destroyed many populations.  The Sea road, which was located in the Indian Ocean, between Africa and India.  People traded many things like: wine, gold, olive oil, ceramics, glassware, ivory, iron goods, slaves, quartz, rankincense, myrrh, perfumes, grain, cotton textile, etc.  Trading through sea roads has been dated all the way back to the first civilizations.  Then there are the sand roads which went through Africa, mainly the Sahara desert.  By far this is the most dangerous road because there is nothing, but sand and the hot blazing sun, not to mention poisonous creatures wandering around.  There was no roads, just sand that goes for miles.  Plus people had to be careful around bandits.  The one way to avoid the heat was by traveling at night when it got cold.  The major tool for travel through the desert was the camel, which could go for miles without water and made traveling through the Sahara a lot easier.