“The pursuit of knowledge and discovery is the joy and right of humanity.” – Alexander von Humboldt
“The exploration of encounters between nations, the interaction of different cultures, sometimes thousands of kilometers apart, is one of the most exciting branches of science.”
“Cultures have always communicated with each other. Communication between cultures allows for new and fresh currents that enrich life and encourage the development of all involved. In contrast, our historical experience shows that an isolated culture, regardless of the causes of this isolation, is sooner or later doomed to decline and gradual extinction.”
“In order to travel and meet with other nations, we need roads, built highways, maps, knowledge of orientation, or at least guides who will know where to go in order to reach our destination hidden by mountain ranges, vast seas, or endless plains.”
“The most famous historical routes are the European Amber Road, the Persian Royal Road, the Roman roads, the Silk Road, The Indian and Mongolian roads, as well as the Inca roads that connected to the roads of Central and North America, have all been recorded under the name of a specific culture from a certain historical period. However, most often it involved upgrading, expanding, or changing certain sections of existing roads.
The Amber Road is the oldest European land, river, and maritime route that connected North Africa and the Baltic for millennia. For example, Baltic amber was found in the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, as well as in the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. One branch of this road led through Pannonia towards the Black Sea and further connected to roads towards the Far East, and south towards Persian, Greek, or Roman roads, depending on the historical period we observe.
The Royal Road was built in the 5th century BC under the protection of the Persian ruler Darius I. It connected the Persian city of Susa with the Lydian city of Sardis and was constructed along the routes of ancient trade routes that existed approximately three centuries earlier. For years, researchers have connected Indian cities-states like Harappa and Mohenjo-daro with Sumer and Akkad. The length of this connection was 2700 kilometers, and there were postal stations and rest areas at regular intervals.
The Romans organized their approximately four hundred thousand kilometers of roads in a very similar way. At the height of their power, Rome had about thirty main roads leading to all corners of the Empire, which led to the saying “All roads lead to Rome”. The appearance of Roman roads was strictly regulated by laws, and rest areas with veterinary services, doctors, and carriage repair specialists were built every thirty kilometers. The imperial postal service carried letters at a speed of eight hundred kilometers per day, and the Roman communication channels fully covered North Africa and Europe, including present-day Great Britain. Even the Far East was not unknown to Rome – records from the Han dynasty in 166 AD mention that Rome sends representatives residing in their courts. and more commonly known as Marcus Aurelius (full name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus).
And so, if one embarked on a journey along the Amber Road from the top of Northern Europe towards the Far East, according to the old chronicles, one had to switch to one of the branches of the Silk Road at the Empire’s border. This network of roads interconnected the North Asian-Mongolian, Tibetan, Far Eastern, and Indian routes.
Written records speak of the development of the Silk Road during the 1st century BC, during the Han dynasty. The main overland route followed the oases of the Taklamakan Desert, passing through the cities of Kashgar and Samarkand, and continuing through Tashkent towards the Mediterranean Sea and the main destinations of Venice and Rome. It was along this route that caravans from the West transported precious metals, gold, ivory, lapis lazuli, and glass towards China, while from China to the West, they carried silk, fur, ceramics, jade, spices, gunpowder, and iron. The vibrant markets of Samarkand and other cities were the meeting places where the scents of oriental spices mixed with the buzz of the crowds. languages and dialects, faces and traditional costumes of people from different distant regions. Chronicles record: There were sculptors, stonemasons, and other craftsmen from Isfahan and Delhi, mosaic artists from Shiraz, glass blowers and ceramicists from Damascus…
When cultures meet, the influence is usually mutual. An example of this is the assimilation of Hellenism into the cultures of India, China, and Japan from the 4th century BC to the 4th century AD. Besides numerous other influences in architecture and art, let us highlight the example of the mythological hero Heracles who, in Greco-Buddhist art in India, assumes the role of Vajrapani, the divine protector of Buddha, while in Japan, he is identified with one of the Buddhist guardian deities and the manifestation of Vajrapani, Shukongoshin, whose figure can be found at the entrance of Buddhist temples.
Namely, when in the 14th century the Turko-Mongol ruler Timur Lenk conquers Persia, its rich tradition will, in return, conquer the Timurid dynasty and lead to the flourishing of fine arts, literature, mathematics, and In the 15th century, Samarkand became one of the world’s centers of astronomy as it was the capital of the Timurid empire. Its scholars created a catalog with the positions of 992 stars, calendars, and works on spherical trigonometry, which the Western world would only familiarize itself with a whole century later.
It is believed that the first Christian missionaries also traveled along the Silk Road. There are records of Franciscans visiting the Karakorum region, and in 1307, the first Roman Catholic bishopric was founded in Beijing.
It is well-known that Marco Polo traveled to the Far East, but less known is the fact that at the same time, the Far East was also sending its representatives to the West. Rabban Bar Sauma, a Nestorian of Uyghur origin serving the Turko-Mongolian khans, stayed as an envoy in Western Christian countries where he met with Pope Nicholas IV and European rulers of that time. While Marco Polo describes the East from the perspective of a Westerner, Bar Sauma provides a picture of the West through the eyes of an Easterner.
This is a time of complete The opening of communication channels that will have far-reaching consequences for the development not only of European science and art, but also of all other culturally less developed regions through which the routes pass. One significant example of the then intense cultural intermingling is the Chinese city of Chang’an, the capital of about ten Chinese dynasties, which already had two million inhabitants in the 8th century. The eastern branch of the Silk Road ended at the large market in Chang’an. The city had twelve entrances determined according to the traditional Chinese art of geomancy and various types of canals, depending on whether it was used for drinking water, irrigation water for gardens, or waste water. The mixing of cultures resulted in the equal construction of Buddhist and Taoist monasteries, Zoroastrian sanctuaries, and Nestorian-Christian churches alongside imperial ancestral shrines. Silk Road In all periods, cities – great cultural centers with their royal or imperial roads. Jim in libraries and schools, like Alexandria, Persepolis, Constantinople, Samarkand, Nalanda, Taxila, and many others.
An example of a traveler, monk, scholar, and translator is the Chinese Xuanzang from the 7th century. In his travel records, Xuanzang describes his research of early Buddhist texts in the Mahayana Buddhist monasteries of Nava Virahe, which included hundreds of monasteries in the kingdom of Kapisa with six thousand priests, and fourteen hundred-year-old monasteries in the kingdom of Uddiyana with eighteen thousand priests. He stays in Samarkand, and later in Indian schools and temple monasteries of Nalanda and Ajanta. He describes Nalanda as a university … whose monasteries are surrounded by azure pools adorned with blue lotuses, mixed with the bright flowers of kanaka, while outside the monasteries, mango forests offer dense and protective shade to the inhabitants. He describes Nalanda’s observatories, four-story priests’ residences adorned with painted dragons and red pillars, and three huge libraries where ten thousand students and two thousand teachers study the sacred texts of various religions, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, physics, logic, metaphysics, philosophy, and other sciences. Hsuan Tsang states that students came from Japan, Tibet, China, Persia, and Europe. Upon his return to China from Indian schools, he brings back over one hundred Mahayana Buddhist texts and around six hundred other philosophical texts. With the emperor’s support, he opens a large imperial translation office in the city of Chang’an and dedicates himself to translating the collected works until the end of his life.
No culture, no people can survive alone. Mutual encounters and acquaintance contribute to their mutual understanding, tolerance, and acceptance, which leads to the growth and development of cultures and peoples. These are the eternal values that weave the history of humanity and prevent unnecessary conflicts and destruction. The ancient Latins described it as communicare, which means sharing something valuable: thoughts, knowledge, emotions. And that valuable thing we share is Connecting with others will make us unique. Perhaps this is exactly what the Stoics had in mind when they emphasized that a person should strive to feel like a citizen of the world, someone who can rise above the boundaries that mountains, deserts, seas, or us humans create, and feel connected to the heritage of humanity. Because, let us remember, history is not just a thing of the past and transience, but a life woven into the experience of eternity.
The oasis and city of Tunhuang was one of the main stations on the Silk Road, a crossroads from which one branch leads to the distant Siberian North and Japan, another to the south towards Lhasa, the heart of Tibet, while the main road continues inland towards China. The city was imbued with medieval European, Indian, and Chinese cultural heritage, primarily visible in the 492 discovered Mogao or Thousand Buddha Caves in 1900. In these caves, almost accidentally, around sixty thousand printed documents, manuscripts, and fragments of texts dating from the 4th to the 14th century were found. According to legend, there were over a thousand temples, and the priests were engaged in collecting records of Buddhist canons, original interpretations, prayers, works of Confucianism, Taoism, Nestorian-Christian records, administrative state documents, dictionaries, and calligraphic exercises. Many pilgrims left painted murals on the temple walls.