Chapter 7 Notes AP World History

I. The Silk Road A. Origins and Operations 1. Overland route that linked China to the Mediterranean world. 2. Trade was fostered by the Chinese need for horses and by the Parthian state in northeastern Iran and its control of the markets in Mesopotamia. 3. China also imported alfalfa, grapes and other products and exported silk, pottery, and paper.

B. The Sasanid Empire 224-600 C.E. 1. Controlled areas of Iran and Mesopotamia. 2. Came into contact with the Byzantine empire and this alternated between war and peaceful trading relationships. 3. Silk road brought new products to the empire. 4. Zoroastrianism became the official religion while Christianity became the official religion of the Byzantine empire. 5. Sasanids and Byzantines went to war because they persecuted the others in their territories. 6. Mani of Mesopotamia founded known as Manichaeism which centered around the struggle between good and evil. 7. Mani was killed by a Sasanid Shah. 8. During this period, religion had replaced citizenship, language, and ethnicity as the paramount factor in people’s identity.

C. The Impact of the Silk Road 1. Turkic nomads in Central Asia benefited from the trade and became interested in the religions of Christianity, Manicheanism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Islam. 2. Central Asian military technologies, particularly the stirrup, were exported both east and west, with significant consequences for the conduct of war.

II. The Indian Ocean Maritime System A. Origins of Contact and Trade 1. There is evidence of early trade between ancient Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley but this trade appears to have been broken off because Mesopotamia turned toward trade with East Africa. 2. 2000 years ago, Malay sailors from Southeast Asia migrated to the islands of Madagasscar.

B. The Impact of Indian Ocean Trade 1. The Greco-Egyptian text, The Periplus of the Erythean Sea accounts a trading system must have been established and was flourishing when the account was written. 2. The culture of the Indian Ocean ports were often isolated from that of their hinterlands. 3. Traders and sailors in the Indian Ocean system often married local women in the ports that they frequented and these women became mediators between cultures.

III. Routes Across the Sahara A. Early Saharan Cultures 1. Early rock painting indicate an early hunting culture that was joined by cattle breeders. 2. Later succeeded by horse traders and charioteers who might have been Minoan or Mycenaean refugees. 3. Camel riders followed the charioteers and is probably related to the development of the trans-Saharan trade. 4. The camel made it possible for people from the Southern highlands of the Sahara to roam the desert and to establish contacts with the people of northern Sahara.

B. Trade Across the Sahara 1. Two local trading systems were linked. 2. Traders in the south had access to desert salt deposits and exported salt in return for kola nuts and palm oil. 3. Traders in the north exported agricultural products and wild animals. 4. Arabs invaded North Africa during the mid 7th century c.e. and trade of Algeria and Morocco was cut off. 5. The Berber people of these areas revolted against the Arabs in the 700s and established independent city-states, including Sijilmasa and Tahert. 6. Berbers began to trade copper and manufactured goods to the nomads of the Southern desert in return for gold.

IV. Sub-Saharan Africa A. Challenging Geography 1. Large area with many different geographical zones and obstacles to movement. 2. Areas include the Sahel, tropical savanna, tropical rain forest of lower Niger and Zaire, savanna area south of rainforest, steppe, desert, and temperate highlands of South Africa.

B. Development of Cultural Unity 1. No great tradition developed. 2. Sub Saharan Africa is a vast territory of many small traditions. 3. An estimated two thousand languages spoken on the continent. 4. No foreign power ever conquered Africa and imposed a unified great tradition. 5. People were broken up by the different geological obstacles.

C. African Cultural Characteristics 1. Despite diversity there are common African cultural elements called Africanity. 2. Concept of kingship. 3. Cultivation with the hoe and digging stick, use of rhythm in African music, and the functions of the dancing and mask wearing in rituals. 4. One reason for this unity is that the people of Sub-Saharan Africa are descended from the people who occupied the southern Sahara during its wet period and migrated south to the Sahel.

D. The Advent of Iron and the Bantu Migrations 1. The spread of iron and other technology in Sub-Saharan Africa is the result of the phenomenon known as the Bantu Migrations. 2. Bantu speaking people were originally from the area on the border of modern day Nigeria and Cameroon, but spread out toward the east and the south through a series of migrations.

V. Spread of Ideas A. Ideas and Material Evidence 1. Hard to say why ideas spread in preliterate societies. 2. Why is eating pig restricted and prohibited by religious belief in Southeast Asia, ancient Egypt, and in eastern Iran. 3. Was the spread of coins a result of their invention in Anatolia?

B. The Spread of Buddhism 1. Spread of Buddhism was facilitated both by royal sponsorship and by the travels of ordinary pilgrims and missionaries. 2. Mauryan King Ashoka and King Kanishka of the Kushans. 3. Chinese monks Faxian and Xuanzang transmitted Buddhism to China. 4. Buddhist missionaries from India brought Buddhism to the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

C. Spread of Christianity 1. Mediterranean states spread Christianity to Armenia which was on the Silk road and this spread Christianity to other parts of the world. 2. Christianity spreading to Ethiopia was similiarly linked to a Mediterranean Christian attempt to deprive Iran of trade.