Deep Explore about Great Silk Road
by Tracy

March14

Great benefits brought by the Silk Road, modern tourists wanted to memory and record. Now, let us to have a deep research about the life on the Silk Road.

Detail Information about the Caravanserais
Silk Road Caravanserais

A series of overnight halts known as caravanserais or khans was established to provide food, water and security for the travelers and to promote and protect the trade that enriched their kingdom. The word comes from the Persian karvan, meaning a company travelling together, and sara, a living place though In Persia it was also called a khan, in Turkey a han. Ideally these were roadside inns placed a day apart where travelers could eat, sleep and recover from the day journey, with their animals securely tethered, watered and fed, and their precious goods safety within walls.

Of course, the harshness of the terrain and the great distances involved meant that inns of such quality were the exception rather than the rule, especially in the wilder reaches of the Middle Eastern deserts and Central Asian Mountains. Typically, caravanserais were built within a square or rectangular wall to give protection from attack as well as from the elements, excessive heat and cold, rain and snow, dust storms and hail. They were entered by a single, easily defended gate that was wide enough and high enough to permit fully laden camels to pass through.

Bazaars on Silk Road
Bazaars on Silk Road

Bazaars, by contrast, were not established at regular intervals in the wild, but were naturally found in towns and oases, especially at large commercial crossroads such as Lanzhou, Dunhuang, Yarkand and Palmyra. The very greatest were at Xian in the East, at Kashgar and Samarkand in the centre and at Baghdad, Damascus and Aleppo in the West. Today, remarkably, the great souqs of Damascus and Aleppo survive almost unchanged. 1,500 years on. It seems entirely possible that a time traveler from Abassid Aleppo could find the spice bazaar or the gold market of Aleppo walled and covered souq in exactly the same location today as it was during his or her lifetime.

In contrast to the simplicity of the caravanserai, essential a transit stop where men and beasts rested overnight, layovers in the great bazaars could easily extend into weeks or even monts. Trade was carried out in these locations, goods sold, purchased and exchanged for onward carriages or for local consumption.

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