Routes

The travelers of the Silk Road include some of the great figures of human history. They include people from throughout Eurasia: merchants Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo, pilgrims Xuan Zang and John Mandeville. Beliefs, commodities, epidemic diseases, armies, and cultural practices traveled along the Silk Road. Until the age of steam and rail, travelers moved overland by caravan from town to town, and they moved from port to port by sailing ship.

The interactive maps depict two routes: Marco Polo’s reputed travels to and from China in the fourteenth century, and a general route that archaeologists believe came into existence as early as the fifth century BCE.

Routes - Interactive Java TimeMap
Time enabled map showing explorer routes and empire expansion.

Mongol Video
Extension of Mongol armies through Eurasia during 12th - 15th centuries (25MB video file)

International Dunhuang Project (IDP)
More than 100,000 manuscripts, paintings and artefacts from Dunhuang and other Silk Road sites.

Maps and photos from the Journeys of Sir Aurel Stein, IDP
Over 30,000 manuscripts and printed documents from the first three Central Asian expeditions of Aurel Stein, dating from the 1890s to 1938.

Lights of Earth, November 27, 2000, NASA
A composite of hundreds of pictures made by the orbiting DMSP satellites shows the night lights of earth.

Sources