Trade Classical Period

1. Networks of
Interaction & Exchange
300 BCE – 1100 CE

4. The Silk Road
• Geography: Outer versus Inner Eurasia
• Three Phases due to Secure Politics
(CONSIDER CCOT!)
– 100 BCE-200 CE
– 7th century – 1000 CE
– 13-14th centuries

13. “I can see clothes of silk (if
materials that do not hide the body,
nor even one’s decency, can be
called clothes)…Wretched flocks of
maids labor so that the adultress
may be visible through her thin
dress, so that her husband has no
more acquaintance than any
outsider or foreigner with his wife’s
body.”
Seneca the Younger, ~60
CE

15. Kushan Art & Syncretism

16. The Silk Road
• Dynamic trade
– Expensive, luxury items
– Syncretism
• Spread of Buddhism (compare with Islam
after 600 CE)

17. Bamiyan (Afghanistan)

18. Buddha: An Evolution
Alexander the Great, 300s BC

21. The many images of the Buddha
Leshan Buddha, China

22. The many images of the Buddha
Thailand

23. Indian Ocean Trade
• Up to 1500 CE, largest sea-based system
of trade (cf. Mediterranean)
• Transportation costs cheaper

25. The Romans in India

26. Trans-Saharan Trade
• Use of the camel
• Significant especially after 600 CE

28. “Perhaps, in the future, there will be some African history to teach. But
at present there is none, or very little: there is only the history of the
Europeans in Africa. The rest is largely darkness, like the history of pre-
European, pre-Columbian America….”
-- Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Rise of Christian Europe, 1965

29.  “In my three volumes with the
title Black Athena, I argue that the
Ancient Egyptian civilization can
usefully be seen as African. I also
maintain Ancient Egypt and
Semitic speaking South West Asia
played fundamental roles in the
formation of Ancient Greece. I do
not claim the Ancient Greeks were
Black or that the Ancient
Egyptians all looked like
stereotypical West Africans.”
(Martin Bernal)

30.  “There were books in
circulation that claimed
that Socrates and Cleopatra
were of African descent,
and that Greek philosophy
had actually been stolen
from Egypt. Not only were
these books being read and
widely distributed; some of
these ideas were being
taught in schools and even
in universities…”

31.  Primitive
› Failed to develop; non-changing
 Wild & Dangerous
› Wild animals & wild people
 Exotic
› Strange & fanciful
 Unspoiled
› Avoided progress – pure
 Broken
› Poverty, political sickness

32.  Recognize diversity – no single image of
Africa

40.  Stateless societies
› = no professional political class
› = no one spent all their time telling people what to
do
 Difficult to produce consistent surplus of food?
 No state chaos
› Solution through discussion
› Authority through kinship, age, experience

41.  Hundreds, even thousands of indigenous
African religions. Many
› believe in one God above a host of lesser gods
or semi-divine figures
› believe in ancestral spirits
› stress the idea of sacrifice, often involving the
death of a living thing, to ensure divine
protection and generosity
› Stress rites of passage to move from
childhood to adulthood, from life to death.

43.  First
diaspora
› Egypt
› Axum
(Ethiopia)
 Beta
Israel

44.  Egypt via pax
Romana
(Coptic
church)
 St. Augustine
(modern
Tunisia)

48. Visualizing Culture: Sacred Sites

49. The plan
• What are these cultural systems – how do they
create order?
• How did they spread and how did they affect
the way people behave?
• How were these cultural systems expressed
visually?

51. Buddha: an evolution

52. Sacred Sites: Angkor Wat

54. Sacred sites: the stupa

55. Sacred sites: the stupa

56. Sacred sites: the stupa

57. Sacred sites: the Catholic Church

58. Santa Sabina Basilica (5th century CE)

59. Sacred sites: the Catholic Church