For tonight, I take you on a journey along the Silk Road. We explore how and why this route or network from China to the Mediterranean opened at the time of the Han Dynasty and Ancient Rome.
Given the distances and costs, long distance trade was limited to light, expensive and exotic goods, like silk, glassware, fine crafts, perfumes and spices. It adapted to changes over centuries: the rise and fall of dynasties in China, the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the struggles of Byzantium, the Muslim conquest, the Mongol invasion, the rise of Italian merchant republics...
I also tell you about how the Black Death epidemic spread along the Silk Road in the 14th Century and the rediscovery of land routes to the Far East by European travellers of the Middle Ages, especially Marco Polo.

Credits: Script and narration by the French Whisperer, visuals by the French Whisperer, under Wikipedia Commons, or under license from Panthermedia, Canstock and Shutterstock. Sound effects and music from the YouTube Audio Library for Creators.

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Timestamps:
0:00 The Silk Road
1:42 Beginnings
9:47 Han Dynasty
15:10 Rome and China
24:21 Caravanserais
29:02 Third Century Crisis
32:54 Byzantium and the Turkic Khaganate
38:04 Tang Dynasty and Muslim Expansion
43:30 Rise of Merchant Republics
47:21 Mongol Invasion
54:42 Marco Polo
1:03:14 New Roads of World Trade
1:09:40 Fireplace Sounds, No Talking