Trade Routes between Europe & Asia during Antiquity

 

Trade Routes between Europe & Asia during Antiquity

Long-distance trade played a major role in the cultural, religious, artistic, & plant exchanges that took place between the major centers of civilization in Europe & Asia during antiquity. Some of these trade routes had been in use for centuries. The trade routes served principally to transfer luxury goods, raw materials, plants, & foodstuffs between the East & West.

As far back as the 6th century CE, great caravans of camels traveled regularly over the Arab trade routes between India and the Middle East carrying prized Eastern goods, such as drugs, hemp, opium, incense and spices. In the Middle Ages, these goods were transferred on to the Levant and to merchants in Venice for distribution throughout Europe.

The Silk Road, a series of ancient trade routes stretching across Central Asia to Europe, evokes exotic images of camel trains laden with bales of fine Chinese silk, spices, and perfume;, of desert oases surrounded by snow-capped mountains; of bustling markets thronging with travelers buying and selling grapes, coriander, Baltic amber, and Mediterranean coral. The silks & spices & incence evolved as ancient mankind experimented with the products of Nature.  Along this route, silks were sent from China to ancient Rome; princesses were dispatched in marriage alliances across the deserts; bandits and thieves launched attacks throughout history. Spanning more than 5,000 years, the Silk Road was more than just a trade route, the Silk Road witnessed the movement of Man's cultural influences intermingled with Nature's changing landscapes.

Some areas had a monopoly on certain materials or goods. China, for example, supplied West Asia & the Mediterranean world with silk, while spices were obtained principally from South Asia. These goods were transported over vast distances— either by caravans & pack animals overland, or by seagoing ships—along the Silk & Spice Routes, which were the main arteries of contact between the various ancient empires of the Old World.

Another important trade route, known as the Incense Route, was controlled by the Arabs, who brought frankincense & myrrh by camel caravan from South Arabia. The demands for scents & incense by the empires of antiquity, such as Egypt, Rome & Babylon, made Arabia one of the oldest trade centers of the world.

The original Spice Trade, or 'Incense Route', from the Mediterranean to India and the East was closed off to Europeans due to the spread of Islam after the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632 CE. Traders from the Arabian world controlled overland and sea routes from India to the Levant and Venice. Arabs monopolized trade in drugs, hemp, opium, incense and spices for centuries until the Ottoman Turks broke their stranglehold on Eastern trade in 1453. 

Cities along these trade routes grew rich providing services to merchants who rested in oasis towns (known as a "caravanserai"). These centers served as international marketplaces, & areas where knowledge was also exchanged. Cities such as Palmyra & Petra, on the fringes of the Syrian Desert, flourished mainly as centers of trade supplying merchant caravans & policing the trade routes. They also became cultural & artistic centers, where peoples of different ethnic & cultural backgrounds could meet & intermingle. 

The trade routes were the communications highways of the ancient world. New inventions, artistic styles, religious faiths, cultures, languages, & social customs, as well as goods & plants, were transported.

Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Trade Routes between Europe and Asia during Antiquity.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.