Afghanistan has been an ancient focal point of the Silk Road and human migration.

From the Black Sea, trade could continue to Asia along the Silk Road, another ancient trade route.

Traditionally, Bursa was famous for being the largest center of silk trade in the Byzantine and later the Ottoman empires, during the period of the lucrative Silk Road.

The plague then travelled along the Silk Road and reached the Crimea by 1346.

The Black Death originated in or near China and spread by way of the Silk Road or by ship.

The disease may have travelled along the Silk Road with Mongol armies and traders or it could have come via ship.

This was a slow process which happened naturally through normal spreading of trade, with the silk and spice trade via the Silk Road being the prime vector.

This enabled the first opening of trading connections between China and the West, along the Silk Road.

Military victories in the Tarim Basin kept the Silk Road open, connecting Chang ' an to Central Asia and areas far to the west.

For one, Central Asia has historically been closely tied to its nomadic peoples and the Silk Road.

The Göktürks, under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan ( d. 552 ) and his sons, succeeded the Rouran as the main power in the region and took hold of the lucrative Silk Road trade.

This war tightened the Ashina's grip of the Silk Road and drove the Avars into Europe.

The Crusaders would establish trade routes that would develop into the Silk Road, and open the way for the merchant republics of Genoa and Venice to become major economic powers.

The land served as " a gateway to India, impinging on the ancient Silk Road, which carried trade from the Mediterranean to China ".

Many ancient civilizations were influenced by the Silk Road, which connected China, India, the Middle East and Europe.

While international trade has been present throughout much of history ( see Silk Road, Amber Road ), its economic, social, and political importance has been on the rise in recent centuries.

The economically important Silk Road ( red ) and spice trade routes ( blue ) were blocked by the Ottoman Empire in ca.

She conducted a global search and acquired more than 300 items showcasing the history of the Silk Road.

Early reference to the Chinese export of ivory is recorded after the Chinese explorer Zhang Qian ventured to the west to form alliances to enable for the eventual free movement of Chinese goods to the west ; as early as the first century BC, ivory was moved along the Northern Silk Road for consumption by western nations.

Ibn Battuta joined the royal caravan for a while, then turned north on the Silk Road to Tabriz, the first major city in the region to open its gates to the Mongols and by then an important trading centre as most of its nearby rivals had been razed by the Mongol invaders.

Category: Populated places along the Silk Road

Khazaria was one of the major arteries of commerce between northern Europe and southwestern Asia, as well as a connection to the Silk Road.

At the same time, the area of present Kyrgyzstan was an important link in the Silk Road, as attested by several Nestorian gravestones.

Category: Populated places along the Silk Road

* Is There Anybody Out There-1991 Silk Purse ( out of print ) This release includes a solo version of " Friends and Lovers "

And, after becoming the right-hand man of Enver Pasha, he is sent by the latter to pave the way for a new Turkish Empire embracing `` the union of all Turks throughout Central Asia from Adrianople to the Chinese oases on the Silk Trade Route ''.

* Borland Silk Central ( previously SilkCentral Test Manager )

* Otrar – City located along the Silk Road, important in the history of Central Asia.

Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present.

The Silk Road was also a pathway for intruders, namely the Turkic-Mongol peoples of Central Asia.

These campaigns expanded Han sovereignty into the Tarim Basin of Central Asia and helped establish the vast trade network known as the Silk Road, which reached as far as the Mediterranean world.

The first major step in opening the Silk Road between the East and the West came with the expansion of Alexander the Great's empire into Central Asia.

After the defeat of the Xiongnu, however, Chinese armies established themselves in Central Asia, starting the famed Silk Road, which became a major avenue of international trade.

The Silk Road gave rise to the clusters of military states of nomadic origins in North China, invited the Nestorian, Manichaean, Buddhist, and later Islamic religions into Central Asia and China, created the influential Khazar Federation and at the end of its glory, brought about the largest continental empire ever: the Mongol Empire, with its political centers strung along the Silk Road ( Beijing in North China, Karakorum in central Mongolia, Sarmakhand in Transoxiana, Tabriz in Northern Iran, Sarai and Astrakhan in lower Volga, Solkhat in Crimea, Kazan in Central Russia, Erzurum in eastern Anatolia ), realizing the political unification of zones previously loosely and intermittently connected by material and cultural goods.

* Jiuquan in China is founded as a military outpost on the Silk Road to Central Asia.

As a consequence of the Dynasty's openness to foreign trade and influences through the Silk Road, Tang dynasty Buddhist sculpture assumed a rather classical form, inspired by the Greco-Buddhist art of Central Asia.

Although many Hui people are ethnically similar to Han Chinese, the group has retained some Persian and Central Asian features, their ethnicity and culture having been shaped profoundly by their position along the Silk Road trading route.

Islam had conquered much of Central Asia, and the Silk Road declined in importance when trading via sea-routes began to dominate Chinese trade with the outside world.

During late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Western explorers began to show interest in the ancient Silk Road and the lost cities of Central Asia, and those who passed through Dunhuang noted the murals and artifacts such as the Stele of Sulaiman at Mogao.

* Zhang Qian – Chinese imperial envoy to Central Asia who helped establish the Silk Road.

The Central Asian horse peoples occupied a territory that included the Silk Road, along which goods and innovations were transported rapidly for thousands of miles ( including, via India, by sea to Java ).

When discussing the evolution of the heavily armored horseman, it should be noted that it was not isolated to one focal point during a specific era ( such as the Iranian plateau ), but rather developed simultaneously in different parts of Central Asia ( especially among the peoples inhabiting the Silk Road ) as well as within the Iranian subcontinent.

Merv ( Persian: مرو, Marv ), formerly Achaemenid Satrapy of Margiana, and later Alexandria and Antiochia in Margiana (), was a major oasis-city in Central Asia, on the historical Silk Road, located near today's Mary in Turkmenistan.

Peoples with similar names had been present along the Silk Road for centuries, and several Central European family names actually derive from the names of these tribes.