Ch 7 mostly describes 3 types of roads: silk, sea and sand. Before completing this reading; I was mostly familiar with the Silk Road which was more popular for connecting Eurasia and particularly in the transportation of the commodity of silk, this road also lead to many other commodities, such as ideologies. Buddhism was one of the most common ideologies spread through the Silk Road. However, these ideologies were not the only things to be passed on through the silk road. These roads played a major role in the mass spread of diseases which took the lives of many and also was integral in the fall of the Roman Empire.
The Sea roads were ocean roads that navigated through the Indian Ocean which connected the mainlands with various islands. The Sea road ranged from Africa to the Mediterranean Sea to Arabia, India, Southeast Asia, and China. Hinduism also spread vastly through the sea roads. It was because of the sea road that boats were able to carry and transport very large cargo such as timber. Product such as timber was utilized by the wealthy and the poor, so everyone was able to benefit from the use of the sea roads. For those that lived in places like the port cities, they had great opportunity to buy and sell products which made for a successful buy/sell/trade economy.
The last of the 3 roads; the sand road which was a trade route that expanded through the Sahara Desert. Merchants would use this trade route to trade most commonly, gold and slaves. These merchants used camels, horses, donkeys and slaves to carry their merchandise. Because the weather was so intensely hot during the day; merchants traveled at night when the temperatures were much cooler.
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