Explain one similarity between Trans-Saharan trade and trade on the Silk Roads in Asia

Trade Routes between 600-1450 C.E included The Trans-Saharan, Indian Oceanand Silk Road routes. These three important trade routes helped aid the spread ofluxurious goods, religion, and valuable cultural knowledge. The Indian Ocean traderoutes and the Trans-Saharan trade routes were both similar because Islam spreadwithin both of them. Consequently, Islam found itself being practiced and embodiedthroughout the Saharan Desert, and the East Swahili Coast of Africa.The Silk Road andthe Trans-Saharan Trade Routes resemble each other in that they both traded luxurygoods. These luxury goods resembled who, and what they were as a civilization.These trade routes have their similarities but they were distinct in that the Trans-Saharan, and Silk Road were both land routes, oppose to the Indian Ocean, which wasa water route. This made trade much different, this changed migration, the number ofgoods to trade, and ultimately the efficiency of commerce.

Download

Essay, Pages 3 (581 words)

Save to my list

Remove from my list

The trans-Saharan and Silk Road trade routes were global trade routes that shaped and impacted their respective areas during the Iron Age. The trans-Saharan and Silk Road both used similar methods of trade because of technological innovation and environmental interactions of the time. The trans-Saharan and Silk road trade routes lead to different cultural diffusion due to the difference in diversity among the ethnic groups in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

Both the Trans-Saharan and Silk Road relied heavily on the use of caravans, merchants, and domesticated animals as a primary source of conducting trades and commerce along such long paths.

Don't use plagiarized sources. Get your custom essay on

“ Compare and contrast Trade routes ”

Get custom paper

NEW! smart matching with writer

In Africa, the domestication of camels proved to be a monumental invention to boost the flow of trade and commerce.

With camels, merchants could travel across the Sahara much faster and more effectively with fewer resources. The people living on the trade route through the Sahara were able to make a living off of herding and selling domesticated camels in large quantities to merchants and create caravans to aid in the crossing of the Sahara.

In Asia and the Middle East, the Silk Road was almost primarily dependent on the movement of merchants on caravans, just like in the Sahara.

Horses acted as the most effective form of transportation and by the time 600 C.E. rolled around, better innovations for controlling domesticated horses arose. The most predominate of these inventions was the stirrup which is the loop at the bottom of a saddle which gave a rider more stability while riding at a high speed or at great distances.

The stirrup and domesticated camels were so influential at the time of discovery that even to this day, both are still present in the areas where the Silk Road and Trans-Saharan trade routes were located.

The cultural diffusion that resulted from trade on the Trans-Saharan and Silk Road trade routes differed because of the ethnic backgrounds of the merchants and civilizations participating in each respective trade route. Along the Trans-Saharan trade route, tribes such as the Berbers, Nubians, Egyptians, and Tuareg participated as well as interactions with Roman colonists.

Many roman goods were incorporated into this route and, along with the agricultural trade within the different tribes, these aspects mixed together to result in the trade of culture between all these comingled tribes. The mixing of these cultures formed a new society in the middle of the Trans-Saharan that still exist today, the herders. The new societies along the Trans-Saharan trade route specialized in the herding of cattle and camel, and evidence shows that this new culture worshiped cattle as a result of all the necessities cattle provide.

The spread and diffusion that lead to herding in Africa is not prevalent in Asia and the Middle East where the Silk Road was. Instead, the spread of religion, especially Buddhism and Christianity, defined the cultural change brought about by the Silk Road. Missionaries and monks from India brought the teachings of Buddhism to most of East Asia through the Silk Road. As the monks traveled, the different areas they reached obtained and adapted the story of Buddha into local cultures.

Christian Missionaries from the fallen Rome Empire were forced to spread out across the Middle East through the western portion of the Silk Road. Thanks to trade between Rome and the Middle East, the missionaries were able to spread religious teaching to the Middle East and promote the new religion as well as provide a place for it to grow.

How are the Silk Road and Trans

1 Comparing the Trans-Saharan & Silk Road Trade Routes 3 Similarities Both brought wealth and access to foreign products and enabled people to concentrate their efforts on economic activities best suited to their regions. The accumulation of wealth along both routes encouraged nomadic invasions.

What was a similarity between trade along the silk and sea roads?

There differences were the time of their usability and their ways of transportation. The similarities between the Indian Ocean and Silk Road are that they both spread Buddhism and disease. One similarity is they both spread Buddhism. Buddhism was spread through the Indian Ocean because of its winds.

What is the main similarity between the Silk Road and West African trade routes?

one important way in which the silk road and west african trade routes were similar was that along these routes: ideas were exchanged as merchants interacted with each other.

What is the difference between trans

While the Indian Ocean and Trans-Saharan trade routes both encouraged and facilitated the spread of Islam, the Indian Ocean saw a more extensive diffusion of disease, and traded across water instead of land.