Trade And Ancient Cultures Here you will learn about art created along the ancient trade routes. This includes the Silk Road that connected Ancient Greece and Rome with India and China through the areas of the modern day countries of Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Mongolia, Tadzhikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan ("stan" means "land of") and much of southeastern Russia and Northwest China. There is also the Incense Road and the Spice Route.
Click here to print out the slides from the presentation from a PDF file formatted with six slides per page. PDF for Trade and Ancient Cultures PPT
Required Readings, to be read before September 6:
A New Visual Language Transmitted Across Asia Learn about the luxury goods and their designs that appealed to the wealthy along the Silk Road from the 13th century AD to the 16th century.
Trade Routes Between Europe and Asia During Antiquity The Silk Road, The Spice Route and the Incense Route all connected the Roman Empire with Asia, from Britain to Japan beginning in the first century AD.
Trade Routes Between the Romans and Empires of Asia Learn what goods were transported and how they were transported after the first century AD.
Additional Resources:
The Year One A look at 32 works of art created across the world in the years around Year One of the Western calendar, reveals an incredible richness and variety of cultures. It was a time of great cultural interaction, with vast areas crisscrossed by traders and adventurers who journeyed both east and west to bring back coveted goods and tantalizing scraps of information about exotic lands. This includes Western and Non-Western works of art.
Art of the First Cities of the Third Millenium BC Through 18 world of art, learn about the first urban cultures that developed over 5,000 years ago.
The Origins of Writing At this time, it is believed that writing developed in the area of Mesopotamia with the development of cuniform during the third millenium BC. Read how it developed to record economic data.
Here is a book that you might enjoy:
"The History of a Temptation: Spice" by Jack Turner Vintage Books, A Division of Randon House, Inc. 2004 ISBN 0-375-70705-0