22 chapter one
In the light of what has been said above, it seems that the Silk road
was a paradox in need of explanation, since it was a land-locked trade
route par excellence, immensely long and yet of singular importance in
the eurasian trade network. this trans-asiatic trade route was named in
1877 by the German Sinologist Ferdinand von richthofen, whose coinage
Seidenstraße was taken up and adopted into various languages thanks both
to the historical precision of the term and the aura of legend it conjured
up: it was used not just by specialist writers, but by the public at large.70
the name was justified not just because silk was indeed probably the prin-
cipal product traded on the route but also because, as well as being a
manufacture in its own right, it also served as a hard currency: none of the
various coinages issued could compete in widespread acceptance.
Most historians follow von richthofen’s concept of the Silk road as a
via magna which for thousands of years linked the Far east, via central
asia, Iran, Iraq, Syria or asia Minor, to the Mediterranean, with greater
or lesser detours over time.71 other historians however consider that this
classic definition needs to be abandoned, albeit that it contains a kernel
of truth, since the luxury products under discussion here were also trans-
ported via other routes, so that instead of talking of one Silk road, they
write of several silk roads.72 the present work uses the term in its original
meaning.
the Silk road, in Ferdinand von richthofen’s sense, suggests one long
route stretching across eurasia, with towns upon it like beads on a string.
this image is somewhat over-simplified, and does not truly reflect either
the actual anatomy or the physiology of the Silk road. the principle
settlements were not just simple stopovers, rather they were cross-roads
where the main east-West highway intersected with north-South routes.
thus Samarkand drew goods in from the north via its entrepôt at Urgench
in Khwarezm, which collected products from the steppe and the taiga,
70 cf. eliseeff, “approaches,” pp. 1–2; Waugh, “Silk roads,” p. 4.
71 one of the best definitions can be found in Bautier, Relations, p. 286: “L’expression
‘route de la soie’ est familière a chacun, même si la réalité est plus complexe. plus que
d’une route, il sʼagit dʼun grand axe de circulation, unissant par les steppes de l’asie cen-
trale la chine au monde occidental et animant, grâce aux variantes possibles, une série
des marchés dʼimportance variable, selon les époques.” For the vast bibliography on
the Silk road, cf. Barkan, “notes,” Bell, “route,” Boulnois, Route, Drège, Route, eliseeff,
“approaches,” haussig, Vorislamische Zeit, idem, Islamische Zeit, herrmann, Seidenstraßen,
höllmann, Seidenstrasse, Liu, Silk Road, Klimkeit, Seidenstraße, power, “opening,” Uhlig,
Seidenstrasse, Waugh, “Silk roads”.
72 on this topic see Boulnois, Route.