An Overview of the Silk Road During Ancient Times

The Silk Road is the path through the desert between Europe and China, located South of Russia, and North of Tibet. The desert through which the road is laid is protected by mountains from all directions, except from the East. The Silk Road began to be used a lot during the Han dynasty, around 206 BC-AD 220. It was used to transport the Chinese silks, and other goods such as satins, musk, rubies, diamonds, pearls and rhubarb from China to Europe, and other places. In the early days mostly missionaries of various faiths used to travel the Silk Roads, but from the nineteenth century the travellers included explorers, geographers and archaeologists.

Its romantic name, Silk Road, or Seidenstrasse, was created only in 1877 by the German explorer and geographer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen. It was an extremely dangerous travel which sometimes could take several months or longer to accomplish. Many people could not survive the difficulties of travel, and occasionally the bones of a whole caravan can be found in the middle of a desert. The bones of those who lost the direction on the way, and ran out of water and provision. The shortcut through the mountains on the West of the desert also was dangerous, because besides natural difficulties of climing the rocks, up until the nineteenth century it was possible for travellers to be killed by bandits.

So many legends were created over time about the Silk Road, where it is depicted as dangerous, misterious, but intriguingly romantic path. According to traditional history, the Buddhism was brought to China from India through the Silk Road.