Hot answers tagged trade
19
The nature of the silk road meant that it had to pass through commercial centres.
"The Silk Road was largely fragmented and very few merchants travelled the whole route. Goods were passed from one merchant to another until it reached the final buyers" source
So deviation over the steppes wasn't really possible as it was not the intermediaries goal to ...
13
From "The origin of metallic currency and weight standards" By Sir William Ridgeway (Google books); University Press, 1892
... We saw that the Arabs of the Soudan down to the present day prefer silver to gold whilst in the earlier part of the present century when Japan was opened to European commerce the Japanese eagerly exchanged gold for silver at the ...
9
Papyrus was known to the Greek world since the 8th century BC, as it's mentioned in the Odyssey:
[Hom. Od. 21.390] Now there lay beneath the portico the cable of a curved ship, made of byblus plant, wherewith he made fast the gates, and then himself went within. Thereafter he came and sat down on the seat from which he had risen, and gazed upon ...
8
Just take a look at any political map, let it be Classical period, or early Medieval times. When travelling to China you need water, supplies of food, fodder, etc. Also it's safer to spend a night in a city or some kind of inn instead of open steppe spaces. Then what Joe mentioned, between the cities you've got roads, which again - are safer.
South of Black ...
7
It's not a full answer, but if you're interested by medieval Arabic travels, the unavoidable reference is Ibn Baṭūṭah. In his Rihla, he describes three travels he made during the 14th century :
from Tangiers to middle-East, with a travel along the East coast of Africa, down to Zanbar and Kilwa. (map here)
from Mecca to Beijing, and back, through Eastern ...
7
All the sources I've perused can, just as Wikipedia does, only surmise on the how and why gunpowder made its way to Europe.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology offers a nutshell overview of the possible routes that might have been taken:
Just how the secret of gunpowder traveled west-ward to Europe will probably never be ...
6
It's difficult to give a proper answer, because during any century of Middle Ages there could be many reasons for closing trading routes for European merchants as outsiders in various parts of Islamic world (which is huge). And it didn't need to have anything in common with religion - it could be the level of civilization (early medieval Europe), an economic ...
5
The Silk Way was not a single road, but rather a net of roads. And the ways Amudarja/Uzboj (Amudarja went to Caspian Sea till 16 Century, for example) - Caspian Sea - Volga - Don - Azov sea - Black sea - Konstantinople (variant: Aral-Caspian Sea by foot) was in use -especially for long periods when Amudarja was switched to the Caspian Sea and some stable ...
4
The exact technique these caravans used to navigate the desert appears to an issue of some contention in the scholarly community. Solid historical evidence seems to be lacking, since these cultures orally passed down this navigation knowledge for the most part. Anthropologists and other scholars have made analyses of modern Saharan navigators, but the ...
4
You are confusing money supply with inflation. Increasing the money supply can sometimes (but not always) increase prices right along with it - this is called inflation. Inflation devalues the currency, and if it devalues too much, smaller denominations, like the penny in the US, becomes an impractical medium of exchange.
Increasing the money supply is a ...
3
My family came from Western Ukraine and my grandfather attended University in Chernotsy and Vienna. He said that historically our family were merchants on a branch of the Silk Road that ran through Ukraine. Ukraine was a bulwark in the hundreds of years of warfare between Europe and Turkey and it is absurd to think that a substantial amount of trade did ...
3
It is sometimes argued, albeit farcically in the manner of "For the want of a horseshoe nail", that WWII was started over Germany's inability to deliver telegraph poles it owed to France and Belgium.
For the want of a telegraph pole, the Ruhr was occupied. For the want of a free Ruhr, a shaky economy was sent into a death spiral. For the want of a ...
3
I am skeptical as well. One could argue that debt (internal and external) is inversely correllated with state strength, and that war is a way of reinforcing state strength. One might argue that this is part of the grounds for the war of 1812 (the segment of the population that backed the war was motivated in part by their loathing for British creditors).
...
3
The process of wrapping purchases in paper and twine is called packaging, and the resultant wrapped item is called a package. (You will hear purchases sometimes referred to as packages in old books, TV shows and movies.) It was replaced by self-service shops and sturdy paper bags beginning in the '30s.
To begin with, paper was used as flexible packaging as ...
3
Barter, gifts and payments - same as now.
I'll swap you a sheep for half of that pig I just slaughtered.
Head of the tribe gives weapons, jewelry to people to both bind them in his debt and to show his wealth and power.
I'll work on your fields for a day in return for food and lodging.
ps. the Celts had coins before the romans, rather better quality ...
2
Obsidian was exported during the Stone Age (Neolithic) from Melos (an island in Europe) to the Near East (Asia) and Egypt (Africa). Blades, cutting tools, piercing tools, arrow heads, mirrors and artwork are made from obsidian. The trade started 13000 years ago, before the discovery of agriculture.
2
The Celts were using "ring money" as early as 800bc, up until 300bc, when they picked up the idea of using coins from the Greeks.
2
As far back as 8th century BC there was evidence of 'proto money' in the form of rings, bracelets and other wearable currency items. They were often roughly made and sometimes had marks on them so they could cut them into segments to buy smaller items.
They tended to be made of gold, silver or bronze and there are plenty floating around in museums and even ...
1
One proximate cause of World War II was the Versailles treaty, and the huge reparations debt it imposed on Germany. One of Hitler's main platform planks was to revitalize the German economy by "tearing up" that Treaty.
Under the Dawes Plan of 1928, Germany would have been paying off Versailles debt for 60 years, all the way to 1988, if it had not been wiped ...
1
I am rather skeptical of the theory that leaders go to war to get people's mind off debt, but it's certainly a discussionable matter. However, I do have an example for you of a debtor invading his creditor to write off the debt : here. Spoiler: it backfired rather spectacularly.
1
In those days, most of the people of the "Ukraine" lived in the western part of the province (around Kiev). The eastern part, which abuts on Kazakhtstan, was mostly "deserted," except for the fierce nomads that later became the "Cossacks."
The easiest route from Persia (the main "terminus") to Kiev was via northern Turkey, and from there by water across ...
1
There was actually a trade route through Ukraine - "из варяг в греки" - that is "From Varangians to the Greeks". You could travel from Byzantine Empire to Scandinavia through Kiev and back. But traveling further East would be problematic: You'll face first the warlike Turkic tribes (Kipchaks and Pechenegs) then the warlike Circassians and Chechens and then a ...
1
"The grass family is one of the most widely distributed and abundant groups of plants on Earth. Grasses are found on every continent, and are absent only from central Greenland and much of Antarctica"
Wikipedia page It seems unlikely that grass seed would ever have been really all the prized given it's natural abundance basically everywhere. Grass also ...
1
As a supplement, there were other reasons.
Money was one of the important reasons. Such fleets cost huge amounts of money. The Emperor Zhu Li (Yongle Emperor) had been spending huge amount of money on the book of Yongledadian (《永乐大典》), moving the capital, and the war with the Mongols. Exploration was definitely not the number one thing to do on an empty ...
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