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Documentary, BBC The Silk Road 2016 S01E03
The Silk Road
The Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 km (4,000 mi), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds.
The name "Silk Road" was coined in the late 19th century, but some 20th- and 21st-century historians instead prefer the term Silk Routes, on the grounds that it more accurately describes the intricate web of land and sea routes connecting Central, East, South, Southeast, and West Asia as well as East Africa and Southern Europe.
The Silk Road derives its name from the highly lucrative trade of silk textiles that were primarily produced in China.
The network began with the expansion of the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) into Central Asia around 114 BCE, through the missions and explorations of the.
The Silk Road is neither an actual road nor a single route. The term instead refers to a network of routes used by traders for more than 1,500 years, from when the Han dynasty of China opened trade in 130 B.C.E. until 1453 C.E., when the Ottoman Empire closed off trade with the West.
German geographer and traveler Ferdinand von Richthofen first used the term “silk road” in 1877 C.E. to describe the well-traveled pathway of goods between Europe and East Asia.
The term also serves as a metaphor for the exchange of goods and ideas between diverse cultures.
The Silk Road was an ancient trade route that linked China with the West, that carried goods and ideas between the two great civilizations of Rome and China. Silk went westward, and wools, gold, and silver went east. China also received Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism (from India) via the Silk Road.
Originating at Xi’an (Sian), the 4,000-mile (6,400-km) road, actually a caravan tract, followed the Great Wall of China to the northwest, bypassed the Takla Makan Desert, climbed the Pamirs (mountains), crossed Afghanistan, and went on to the Levant; from there the merchandise was shipped across the Mediterranean Sea.
With the gradual loss of Roman territory in Asia and the rise of Arabian power in the Levant, the Silk Road became increasingly unsafe and untraveled.
The Silk Road
The Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 km (4,000 mi), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds.
The name "Silk Road" was coined in the late 19th century, but some 20th- and 21st-century historians instead prefer the term Silk Routes, on the grounds that it more accurately describes the intricate web of land and sea routes connecting Central, East, South, Southeast, and West Asia as well as East Africa and Southern Europe.
The Silk Road derives its name from the highly lucrative trade of silk textiles that were primarily produced in China.
The network began with the expansion of the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) into Central Asia around 114 BCE, through the missions and explorations of the.
The Silk Road is neither an actual road nor a single route. The term instead refers to a network of routes used by traders for more than 1,500 years, from when the Han dynasty of China opened trade in 130 B.C.E. until 1453 C.E., when the Ottoman Empire closed off trade with the West.
German geographer and traveler Ferdinand von Richthofen first used the term “silk road” in 1877 C.E. to describe the well-traveled pathway of goods between Europe and East Asia.
The term also serves as a metaphor for the exchange of goods and ideas between diverse cultures.
The Silk Road was an ancient trade route that linked China with the West, that carried goods and ideas between the two great civilizations of Rome and China. Silk went westward, and wools, gold, and silver went east. China also received Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism (from India) via the Silk Road.
Originating at Xi’an (Sian), the 4,000-mile (6,400-km) road, actually a caravan tract, followed the Great Wall of China to the northwest, bypassed the Takla Makan Desert, climbed the Pamirs (mountains), crossed Afghanistan, and went on to the Levant; from there the merchandise was shipped across the Mediterranean Sea.
With the gradual loss of Roman territory in Asia and the rise of Arabian power in the Levant, the Silk Road became increasingly unsafe and untraveled.
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LearningTranscript
00:002,000 years ago, an ancient trade route slowly spread across a continent.
00:07For 5,000 miles, the Silk Road ran from China's ancient capital through Central Asia.
00:14It passed through mythical cities such as Samarkand or Persepolis,
00:19until it reached the bazaars of Istanbul, the merchants of Venice.
00:23I'm a historian and I've always been fascinated by its impact on the world.
00:31This is the story of the Silk Road and my travels along it.
00:36The Silk Road was a place of adventure and invention.
00:42It cut across borders and brought cultures into contact...
00:47..and conflict.
00:49I've travelled through China and Central Asia
00:55and I'm now heading to a place that was critical, linking East and West.
01:00A country whose troubled past has, until recently,
01:05put off Western travellers like me.
01:08I'm starting to think that I may have actually been an Iranian merchant
01:12in a former life.
01:14I'm going to Iran, a place where modern politics
01:20has obscured the glories of her Persian past.
01:25A past rich with fascinating characters
01:28and where the culture and art of the empires they built
01:31spread to every part of the Silk Road.
01:35And where I make a surprising discovery about something familiar.
01:39To you and me, of course, it's Paisley.
01:42From Iran, I'll travel to the cities at the western end of the Silk Road.
01:51And I'll discover that many of their great palaces, buildings and churches
01:56were inspired by the East.
01:59Paid for and made possible by the Silk Road.
02:03Iran stood at a crossroads of the Silk Road.
02:24And for centuries, traders and travellers plied a network of caravan routes
02:29that crisscrossed its vast deserts and high mountain ranges.
02:39The Iranian plateau effectively controlled two major arteries of the Silk Road.
02:44The main road from China and Central Asia, where I've come from,
02:48and that from the Persian Gulf.
02:50In the final leg of my journey, I'm going to be travelling that southern branch of the Silk Road,
02:55through the deserts of ancient Persia.
02:58Transporting products from India and beyond,
03:07the southern route passes through the fabled caravan cities of Yazd, Esfahan and Kashan,
03:14oasis cities that linked the ports of the Persian Gulf to the main Silk Road, Tehran.
03:19But the traders who travelled this section of the Silk Road had to cross a formidable barrier.
03:29One of the hottest deserts in the world,
03:33where summer temperatures can reach a sizzling 70 degrees Celsius.
03:38There was no way round.
03:42But despite this incredible heat, merchants have plied this route for centuries.
03:51And that's because of a brilliant piece of engineering
03:54that transported precious drinking water from the mountains
03:58to places where people needed it.
04:01This car tyre, and it's one of several, they're all around me,
04:04marks an access shaft to an underground irrigation system,
04:09an engineering miracle that the people of this region mastered some 4,000 years ago.
04:17Now, the ancient Persians didn't leave the car tyre,
04:20but they did construct this, an underground stream called a kanat.
04:26Hey!
04:28And kanats are arguably the single most important factor
04:31in sustaining the Silk Road in the desert regions of Persia for thousands of years.
04:36Kanats are easy to spot from the air,
04:39and if you follow the holes in the ground in this satellite photograph,
04:43it becomes obvious what kanats allowed the ancient Persians to build.
04:51They built cities.
04:57Legendary cities, like the one I'm about to visit
05:00and have always wanted to see, Persepolis.
05:04This was the heart of the first Persian Empire,
05:09an empire ruled by fabled kings whose influence spread far and wide.
05:15It was Cyrus the Great who forged the first Persian Empire in the 6th century BC,
05:35but it was another king, Darius I, who built Persepolis.
05:40Darius was famous for many things.
05:43He dug the first Suez Canal, introduced standardised weights and measures,
05:48and coinage too.
05:49It was this administrative genius that earned him the title Darius the Great.
05:54But to his subjects, who admired this administrative flair,
06:04he was known as Darius the shopkeeper.
06:09He was also the greatest royal architect of his dynasty.
06:13Even in its ruined state, Darius's palace, built around 500 BC,
06:19with its imposing gateways, monumental columns and exquisite reliefs,
06:26leaves you in no doubt about the message.
06:30His empire heralded a new world order.
06:33Darius didn't bother to fortify Persepolis because he didn't need to.
06:40All of his enemies had been defeated.
06:43And here are the enemies his dynasty had defeated.
06:55Indians.
06:57Lydians.
07:00Syrians.
07:03Turks.
07:05Armenians.
07:08Libyans.
07:09The list goes on.
07:12All subject to the Persian king.
07:18This wall shows 23 subject peoples of the Persian Empire,
07:22bringing tribute to their emperor.
07:24It shows that his empire stretched from North Africa,
07:27to North India, to South East Europe.
07:30It was the biggest empire that the world had ever seen.
07:34Here we have representatives of the city of Samarkand
07:37with their distinctive two-humped Bactrian camel,
07:41all marching forward.
07:46I've met these characters before.
07:48They're called Sogdians.
07:50Merchants whose descendants, 25 centuries on,
07:54I met in a remote valley in Central Asia.
07:57Look at their distinctive trousers and hair,
08:02all very Sogdian in style.
08:04They're carrying cups, which represents the tribute
08:07that they're bearing to the Persian emperor.
08:10The Sogdians were the Silk Road's middlemen.
08:14It was through them that China reached out to the Persian emperor,
08:17and trade began to flow through the arteries of Central Asia.
08:22Trade arteries that would be extended west by this.
08:31Linking Persia to what is modern-day Turkey,
08:34Darius built a royal road to control his empire
08:38and to connect east with west.
08:40I wanted to know if this paved the way for the Silk Road itself,
08:46so I've arranged to meet historian Dr. Tabatabai.
08:50To what extent did the existence of this royal road
08:57help the growth of the Silk Road in general?
08:59To what extent did the existence of this royal road
09:03help the growth of the Silk Road in general?
09:05To what extent did the right way the Shri-Ramos
09:08Addedön of the Silk Road and Europe region?
09:12To what extent did the existence of this royal road
09:15help the growth of the Silk Road in general?
09:17This is not a miracle. It is a miracle. It is a miracle. It is a miracle. It is a miracle. It is a miracle.
09:25It is a miracle that the first time the Iranian people have created.
09:28It is a miracle.
09:30The Iranians are in the midst of this miracle.
09:34What happens in the South and the South?
09:37In the case of those who were in the South and who were living in the South,
09:41they did not have one another.
09:43It is a miracle. It is a miracle.
09:53It is a miracle. It is a miracle.
09:58Darius the Great is credited with nothing less than joining together the unknown worlds of East and West,
10:05the very foundation of my Silk Road journey.
10:10But as well as communication and trade, the Royal Road also brought trouble.
10:17These broken and fallen columns bear witness to just how much trouble.
10:23Darius' decision not to fortify Persepolis proved to be its undoing.
10:29And the white marks at the base of this pillar are a clue as to what happened.
10:34Because when limestone is subjected to intense heat, it turns white.
10:40In 330 BC, Alexander the Great swept down Darius' royal road and burned Persepolis to the ground.
10:47Its end was sudden, violent and merciless.
10:51When he looted the treasury, it was said that it took 3,000 camels to cart away the treasure.
10:57But while the once great buildings slowly turned to sand and the memory of her great kings faded,
11:14the gods they worshipped lived on.
11:18Symbols such as this one.
11:20A clue to a religious past that the world has all but forgotten.
11:25So, who was this strange winged figure? What did it mean?
11:362,000 years ago, it wasn't just merchants who traded on the Silk Road.
11:41Pilgrims and prophets did too.
11:46Religious battles were waged along the Silk Road.
11:50Deities, cults, priests and rulers jostled with each other in a bid to persuade the populace
11:56to sign up to their particular brand of religion.
11:59This was a time when societies were highly receptive to explanations for everything,
12:05from the mundane to the supernatural.
12:08And when faith offered solutions to all problems.
12:12I'm heading to Yazd, an ancient oasis city,
12:25where I'm hoping to find some living connections to the Silk Road's past
12:29and to one of the oldest religions on earth.
12:33The ancient Persians believed there were four elements from which everything was made.
12:41Earth, wind, water, fire.
12:46Yazd is a city built on all four.
12:50These mud brick alleys protect Yazd from the fierce desert heat.
12:56Our old friend the Kanat supplies her people with life-giving water.
13:02Wind towers draw away the hot desert air from the streets of the city.
13:13And in a temple, smoulders an eternal fire, guarded by priests.
13:21Here's that symbol I saw in Persepolis, the Zoroastrian god called Ahura Mazda.
13:32Ahura Mazda first appeared to a man called Zarathustra
13:36and commanded him to spread his teachings and win converts.
13:40No one is entirely sure where Zarathustra was born or even when he lived.
13:46But he was one of the first prophets to offer a single omnipotent and invisible God.
13:53The faithful were commanded to pray to Ahura Mazda in the direction of the light.
13:59But the only light that the ancients controlled was fire.
14:03And so they built temples to keep the flame burning for eternity.
14:07It's said that the flame in here has been burning for over 1500 years.
14:14At the heart of Zoroastrianism is the idea of duality,
14:31the eternal battle between good and evil, light and dark.
14:36It requires believers to commit to a life based on good thoughts, good words and good deeds.
14:43I'm incredibly privileged to be allowed to get so close to this fire.
14:50And it's wonderful.
14:52So much of history is inanimate, it's dead.
14:56But this is a living, breathing, crackling thing from a very ancient past
15:02that's been so, so lovingly cherished and tended for over a millennium.
15:07I love it.
15:13From Iran to the Caspian Sea, Central Asia, India and beyond,
15:22Zoroastrianism put down roots all along the Silk Road.
15:26Just outside Yazd is the village of Kalantar.
15:33Here I hope to find another living connection to the religion's past,
15:38a Zoroastrian dialect that is over 2000 years old.
15:42I've been invited into the home of one of the villagers to see this ancient religion practiced.
15:54The prayers are led by the men in a tiny room. Everyone else sits outside.
16:12Sitting in the doorway, I feel honoured to be allowed to watch the proceedings.
16:22Though it's a little tricky to follow what's going on.
16:25The prayers are conducted in an ancient Zoroastrian language.
16:38And the offerings are dedicated by neighbours to the souls of the former occupants of the house,
16:44for whom they seek forgiveness from God.
17:01Once it's over, the villagers share and eat the offerings.
17:05Dalnavaz Javad Mahdi is the village leader.
17:10And I'm keen to find out more about what I've just seen.
17:28I recognise that you are speaking Farsi right now.
17:32But they were speaking a different language during the ceremony.
17:35What was that language?
17:36It's the time of prayer, it's the time of prayer.
17:40The time that we talk about ourselves is the name of the river.
17:46From a century to a century, it comes from a century to a century.
17:51Now, the kids are going to go to a church without the river.
17:57But we are trying to make the kids from Kudaki,
18:00the river and the river of the river.
18:05It's noticeable that the women are wearing very beautiful coloured headscarves.
18:09Is colour important to how you dress?
18:35Lively colours to freshen up our souls.
18:46Now, that's a thought that brilliantly sums up the Silk Road
18:50and how it fused culture, religion and art.
18:53Zoroastrianism not only freshened up souls, some say it inspired this.
19:10A style of fabric that originated here in the textile workshops of Yazd.
19:19This is called a termé, a cloth made of wool and silk that's been produced here in Yazd for centuries.
19:25And it's used for everything from headscarves to cushion covers and tablecloths.
19:30One of the most common motifs used to decorate it is this, called a bote.
19:35Some people say it was inspired by a pear or the cypress tree.
19:39Others, that it represents the flame of Zoroaster.
19:42To you and me, of course, it's paisley.
19:45I'm pretty sure the young Queen Victoria, who made the paisley pattern famous,
19:53didn't see it as the flame of Zoroaster.
19:56But the emblem found its way from northern India
19:59to the weaving town of Paisley, near Glasgow, in the 17th century.
20:05It's a motif that can be found all along the Silk Road.
20:10The flame of Zoroaster was a powerful symbol of both life and death.
20:27Since the time of Darius the Great,
20:29Zoroastrianism was the state religion of ancient Persia.
20:33It prevailed for a thousand years.
20:36But in 610 A.D. they faced a new challenge,
20:41one that would change the Silk Road and the world forever.
20:55At the beginning of the 7th century, far away in the Arabian Peninsula,
21:00a trader named Muhammad began to receive a series of revelations from God.
21:07The revelations ultimately formed the basis of the Koran
21:11and a small but radical movement
21:13that would rise to change Persia and the ancient world.
21:17Islam was born.
21:22It was a powerful idea.
21:24So powerful, in fact, that in a matter of decades,
21:27the Arab crusading armies of the new religion
21:30had decisively defeated the armies of Persia.
21:36A Zoroastrian fire temple once stood here.
21:40But when Islam reached Yazd, its days were numbered.
21:46This mosque now stands in its place.
21:48It's called the Jammai Mosque,
21:50and it's one of the oldest mosques in Iran.
21:53On the ceiling above me, the tiled pattern depicts
21:56no less than 110 different names of God.
22:00All along the Silk Road,
22:02the Zoroastrian religion fell into decline
22:05as Islam became a major new force.
22:10And here, in Iran,
22:12it would form into a brand of Islam
22:14that one day would divide the Islamic world.
22:17the split between Sunni and Shia.
22:25But some traditions here predate that time.
22:29Down this alleyway,
22:30and through this doorway,
22:32I've been told there's an unusual connection
22:35to the moment Islam arrived in Iran.
22:38A sort of mosque meets gym.
22:48This is a zircone,
22:50which in Farsi means a house of strength.
22:53These rituals date back to the Arab defeat of the Persian army,
23:051500 years ago.
23:08Forbidden to train openly by their Arab conquerors,
23:11Persian warriors met secretly to exercise and practise instead.
23:16Mohammed Ali Dharami runs the zircone here in Yazd.
23:23The first language of the deaf,
23:26the cr kasihens,
23:27and the ambassadors would come out to the death.
23:30They had to ochre its own различ.
23:32Help them come out.
23:33Here,
23:35the enemies,
23:36the enemies,
23:37they were the means of such a well.
23:39They'd give the enemies to the enemy.
23:40They would come out to the enemy.
23:41Here,
23:42the enemyside.
23:43The enemyside did not have to attack the enemy.
23:45It's called Tire Kamun.
23:51Is there a specific routine that each event goes through?
23:56First, they go to their own.
23:58They go to their own.
24:01Then, they go to their own.
24:04Then, they go to their own.
24:06Then, they go to their own.
24:08They go to their own.
24:09They go to their own.
24:12We do not, for example, do these things.
24:16No. They do have their own.
24:19Is that routine, that tradition, a very ancient one that's been passed down?
24:23They go to their own.
24:26They go to their own.
24:27They can give their own aspirations.
24:32They do not give their own aspirations.
24:34They give their own aspirations very much.
24:37They give their own aspirations.
24:39They give their own aspirations.
24:41From every number of people, they have a lot of respect to their people.
24:46And from Qadim and Nadim, they have all these things.
25:01Well, they certainly like mixing things up in Iran.
25:04It's the first time I've ever seen anyone praying, singing,
25:08weightlifting, dancing, and juggling all at the same time.
25:24While the Islamic religion subjugated new regions and peoples,
25:28it also went hand in hand with the expansion of trade.
25:32Over half the Silk Road came under the influence of Islam.
25:38Trade routes, oases, cities, and natural resources were targeted and absorbed.
25:48Mosques sprang up all along the Silk Road.
25:52Some very small and some very great.
25:56In the centuries that followed the Arab conquests,
26:02Persian and Arabic art and culture embraced and intertwined.
26:08It was a partnership that became known as the Persian Renaissance.
26:14And it blossomed in one of the Silk Road's most fabled cities, Esfahan.
26:20Since I've been in Iran, I've rather been wondering where everyone is.
26:41This mosque in the centre of Esfahan is a magnificent symbol
26:56of the artistic and spiritual Renaissance that started 500 years ago.
27:02It's also a powerful reminder of the forces at play in this part of the world.
27:07The Persian Renaissance began in the 16th century,
27:13and the king who built this mosque was a man who set out to redefine his country
27:19through both art and Islam.
27:23And to do that, he needed to impress.
27:27The dome above me is more than 100 feet high,
27:30but there's a second exterior dome beyond that,
27:32and it's the space between the two, some 45 feet,
27:36which is responsible for all of the echoes that you can hear.
27:43You may be wondering why I'm whispering.
27:45Well, if I spoke any louder, this entire place would be filled with echoes.
27:51Scientists have actually measured some 49 distinct echoes here,
27:55though only seven are audible to the human ear.
27:59But that's more than enough for the call to prayer to be heard by the faithful.
28:03This mosque was built by a dynasty of shahs called the Safavids.
28:30It was the Safavids who launched a vigorous campaign across Iran
28:40to eradicate Sunni Islam and replace it with a different brand of Islam called Shia.
28:52The sermons preached from here declared that the people of Iran must convert to Shia,
28:58a form of Islam which claimed that the line of Imams who succeeded the Prophet Muhammad,
29:03were descended not from his father-in-law, as Sunnis believed, but from his cousin and son-in-law instead.
29:11This mosque, the royal mosque, was built by Shah Abbas the Great,
29:21the only Islamic ruler in Iran to be bestowed the title of greatness.
29:26And standing here in this most beautiful of places,
29:29in the heart of what would become his new Iranian capital, it's not difficult to see why.
29:35When work started on the royal mosque, Shah Abbas was 52 and, as the years ticked by,
29:46he grew anxious he might die before his life's architectural duel was completed.
29:53As the years turned to decades, Abbas grew impatient.
29:57His architect, Ali Akbar Esfahani, used some innovative labour-saving techniques,
30:05one of which I'm sure you've used in your bathroom.
30:10Rather than covering the walls with millions of individual tiny tiles,
30:14he came up with the idea of using larger, prefabricated patterned tiles called Haft Renai.
30:21They've been standard ever since and can be found in most DIY stores today.
30:28And if you look closely, you'll see that the great man has even signed the building that he built.
30:33The inscription gives the date 1616 A.D. and his name, Ali Akbar Esfahani.
30:40When Shah Abbas came to power in 1588, his country was in chaos and locked into a bitter
30:55and often bloody rivalry with the Sunni Ottoman Turks.
31:00Yet within a decade, Abbas moved his capital to Esfahan, where he not only rebuilt the city,
31:07but set out to remake Iran too.
31:11Central to Abbas's nation building was his definition of Iran as Shia.
31:16While it had been his grandfather who had first declared Shia Islam to be the country's official
31:21religion, it was Abbas who first forged the link between nation and faith in much the same way that
31:28Protestantism defined Tudor England. Shia Islam then provided a clear boundary between Iran
31:35and Abbas and Abbas's greatest enemies, the Sunni Ottomans to the west and the Uzbeks to the north.
31:45In rebuilding Esfahan, Shah Abbas pulled together the three main components of power in Persia.
31:51The power of the clergy, represented by the royal mosque, the power of the Shah himself residing in the Ali Kapu Palace,
32:01and the power of the merchants, whose Silk Road booty and money paid for it all.
32:07Above the entrance gate to the Esfahan Bazaar can be found frescoes of European figures.
32:23They represent Shah Abbas's vision to make Esfahan a new centre for international commerce,
32:29and to upstage her main competitor, the Ottoman capital, Istanbul.
32:36The tangle of lanes and stalls bearing fruit, sweets and spices offer a veritable feast for the senses.
32:44It's a lemon. It's the weirdest lemon I've ever seen.
32:50Under the domed and arcaded halls, time-honoured Persian crafts can still be found, including Paisley, of course.
32:59Shah Abbas recognised the commercial benefit of promoting the arts.
33:04It was in these royal workshops that Esfahan's artisans would become the engine of the Persian Renaissance.
33:13Painters, metal workers, textile makers, potters and carpet weavers achieved new heights of perfection and took the world by storm.
33:27Four hundred years later, and they're still at it.
33:34In a small workshop just off the square, I find a family working away at a particularly exquisite craft, Mina Kari.
33:44Mina means heavenly, Kari, art.
33:48Heavenly art.
33:50Esfahan is famous for it.
33:52Mina Kari is the art of enamelling, painting, colouring and ornamenting metal objects and then baking them at incredibly high temperatures.
34:04It's painstaking work.
34:06I love it and I just have to buy one.
34:09The Persians called Esfahan Nisf-e-Jahan, half the world, meaning that to see it was to see half the world.
34:26Up until the 20th century, Persia was the common name the West historically used to describe this part of the world.
34:37But her people used another, Iran.
34:40I think it's particularly interesting that Iran literally means a place of order, a place of civilisation.
34:53They even had a word for the lands beyond their country and it was Turan.
34:57It meant a place of chaos, a place of barbarism, of darkness.
35:02But actually, if you're lucky enough to come here, we find that the people are careful, measured, kind, thoughtful, generous, polite.
35:12They're dignified, respectful, they're interested, they're entertaining.
35:16It really is a wonderful place.
35:19And after a long day selling silk or like me, travelling, you get to sit down, have a pipe and a cup of tea and a bit of chat, a bit of banter.
35:27I absolutely love it and I'm starting to think that I may have actually been an Iranian merchant in a former life.
35:43Merchants from Europe, Asia and China flocked to Esf-e-Jahan's bazaar.
35:49Links were forged, deals done, fortunes made.
35:52Avas' vision proved so successful that he effectively rerouted the Silk Road through Esf-e-Jahan.
36:01Meanwhile, outside the new capital city, a new golden age of commerce dawned.
36:09Today, this section of the Silk Road, with its HGVs and service stations, looks not unlike the M6.
36:17But in the age of the Silk Road, it was caravans, not juggernauts, that carried goods.
36:21And they required a whole network of inns and hostels, in Persian, called caravanserai.
36:31Hundreds can still be visited today along Iran's former Silk Roads.
36:37That there are so many is down to one sleepless and very uncomfortable night.
36:42One day, Shah Abbas went hunting, became separated from his party and was forced to spend the night in the desert, uncomfortable and alone.
36:52Now, a passing goatherd, who of course didn't realise that Abbas was the king, gave him a blanket and some food.
36:59The next morning, Abbas was rescued, and he soon discovered from his advisers that such discomfort and loneliness was the norm for merchants passing through his country.
37:11His experience led to a massive building programme.
37:15He built 999 caravanserai to nurture and protect the commerce that was pumped into Iran by the Silk Road.
37:23And this just happens to be one of them.
37:33As service stations go, this beats anything I've ever seen on the M6.
37:41The design and shape of caravanserai barely changed over the centuries.
37:46Built in a square shape for both defensive purposes as well as protection from the elements.
37:51And inside, designed for security of goods and a place for cooking and rest.
38:05There's little poetry in service stations these days, but the Persian poet Hafez found something to say about the 14th century version.
38:14Hafez's beautiful poetry was celebrated all along the Silk Road, and he had quite an eclectic fan base, including Timur, the famed Mongol warrior, and, more bizarrely, Victorian England.
38:31This one's particularly appropriate for where we are, standing outside an ancient caravanserai.
38:37A caravan from China comes, for miles it sweetens all the air, with fragrant silks and dreaming gums, attar and myrrh, a caravan from China comes.
38:49Oh, merchant, tell me what you bring, with music sweet of camel bells, how long have you been travelling with those sweet smells?
38:59Oh, merchant, tell me what you bring.
39:01Of course, what the merchants brought depended on what the cities on the Silk Road actually wanted.
39:14And the master weavers and dyers of Kashan, my next stop, were particularly exacting.
39:21Underneath this beautiful domed ceiling is Kashan Bazaar, which sells an object of desire for which the Silk Road, and Kashan in particular, is renowned.
39:34To make it, the local artisans not only needed bales of silk, wool and camel hair, but pigments for colour dyes.
39:44Pomegranate, azure, ivory, red cochineal, yellow larkspur, and the most precious of all, Tyrian purple.
39:58In the hands of local weavers, the product they created became a byword for luxury, famed far beyond the borders of Persia.
40:07Carpets.
40:10No wonder they were said to have magic powers.
40:13It was under Shah Abbas that Persian carpets reached their zenith in elegance and reputation.
40:31Nowhere more so than here in Kashan.
40:35And while it's men who trade them, it's usually women who make them.
40:42The traditional skills of Kashan carpet weaving are passed down to daughters from their mothers and grandmothers.
40:49Their fingers seem to fly, knotting the wool to the warp using a distinctive Farsi knot.
40:57The weaving style is applied with such delicacy that the back and front of the carpet are almost indistinguishable.
41:06The size of this carpet and the scale of the task is quite difficult to get your head around.
41:12Eight people working on it every day for a year and a half.
41:16And the knots are so small, even though you can see their fingers working busily, you can't actually see it getting any bigger.
41:23But if you put your hand on it, you can feel it vibrating.
41:27I think the word's thrumming.
41:29Well, in any case, it's definitely growing.
41:32It's a lie.
41:34From magic carpets, to frescoed ceilings, to coloured tiles, to Persian gardens.
42:01This blossoming of arts and culture under Shah Abbas added up to an astounding cultural rebirth in Persia.
42:17Word of the Persian Renaissance trickled down the Silk Road to Istanbul,
42:23where the defenders of Sunni Islam, the Ottomans, could not but feel threatened by this new commercial, cultural and Shiite state on their border.
42:34Built by Shah Abbas, I'm in Bagifin Garden, just outside Kashan.
42:41In his advanced years, this is where he came to escape the heat and stresses of Esfahan.
42:52There's a mausoleum here in Kashan which might contain the remains of Shah Abbas.
42:57After his death, three and some say four coffins were prepared and each was put in a different part of Iran.
43:04Perhaps this was to ensure that his remains could not be scattered by his enemies after his death.
43:09Perhaps it was a statement to say that he ruled over the entirety of Iran.
43:14But which one contains Shah Abbas? Well, no-one really knows.
43:32A few hours driving to the north of Kashan is my last stop in Iran, the caravan city of Reh,
43:39where the road from the Persian Gulf joins the main Silk Road from China and Central Asia.
43:46Today, it's better known as Tehran.
43:50Thirty-two shahs of Iran followed Shah Abbas.
44:03This tower was built by the last of them in 1971.
44:11A fusion of architectural styles through the ages,
44:14it was designed to commemorate two and a half thousand years of the Persian Empire.
44:21Standing between west and east,
44:24the Persian Empire was the Silk Road's gatekeeper
44:27and shaped its history for just as long.
44:32It seems so appropriate that the monument which marks the end of my journey in Iran
44:37is such a fusion of ideas, both old and new,
44:41and also that it's a gateway, a gateway to the west
44:45and a gateway to my next destination.
44:55I'm heading to the city which that gateway challenged
44:58and marked Journey's End for thousands of merchants and caravans.
45:04The capital of the Ottoman Empire
45:06and the terminus of the Overland Silk Road.
45:09Istanbul.
45:13The great trading city that Shah Abbas hoped to rival when he built Esfahan.
45:24Istanbul is often seen as the bridge between east and west.
45:30But there's an intriguing side to the city and its history.
45:33I know why the Silk Road started in China.
45:43Because the Chinese had silk and the world wanted it.
45:47But Silk Road merchants and caravans were trading in Istanbul
45:52a thousand years before the Ottomans built this bazaar.
45:55So how did Istanbul become one of the world's greatest trading cities?
46:05And why did the Overland Silk Road end here?
46:08The Hagia Sophia, a place that preserves the Silk Road past,
46:23and a time when Istanbul was known by another name.
46:31Constantinople.
46:33The seat of Imperial Byzantium for a thousand years.
46:37This was once the largest religious building in Christendom.
46:51The Byzantine rival to St Peter's in Rome.
46:53These extraordinary mosaics weren't uncovered until the mid-19th century,
47:02and contain a clue to Constantinople's Silk Road past.
47:06In the middle is the Virgin Mary,
47:09and to the right is the first Byzantine emperor, Constantine,
47:13who moved the Roman capital here in 330 AD.
47:16The figure on the left is the man who built the Hagia Sophia,
47:21the emperor Justinian.
47:23Here he's shown holding a model of the church.
47:26But look what he's wearing.
47:29Gorgeous, colourful silks.
47:32The inventors of silk fabric, the Chinese,
47:36had always tried desperately to keep its production a closely guarded secret.
47:41But silk was always a staple of subterfuge and espionage,
47:45and so its secrets were impossible to keep.
47:49There's one story that the emperor Justinian sent two monks to China
47:53in search of silk moth cocoons,
47:55and they smuggled them back, hidden in bamboo canes.
47:58True or not, what we do know for certain is that,
48:01by the fifth or sixth centuries,
48:03silk not only was a Byzantine product,
48:06it was also a symbol of wealth and power.
48:11The story of the monks is probably a myth.
48:13woven like the precious material itself.
48:17But we do know that Justinian was desperate to learn the secrets of silk production.
48:24As these mosaic figures reveal, silk ran through the veins of ancient Byzantium.
48:30Silk symbolised rank and social status. Silk was power.
48:36Dr Anna Mutasius is a silk historian and has come to the Hagia Sophia today wearing a colour that,
48:44over a thousand years ago, would have been considered treason.
48:49We're standing in the Hagia Sophia and you're wearing the most magnificent piece of purple and gold silk.
48:55Tell me about it.
48:57This is the closest thing that I've seen to what would have been an imperial Byzantine silk worn in Hagia Sophia.
49:03And I simply thought I must have it.
49:06It's wonderful, isn't it?
49:08And it's noticeably similar to what's up on the wall there.
49:11Will you explain what we're looking at?
49:12Yes.
49:13On the wall is Alexander, the Emperor Alexander, 9, 12 to 13.
49:19And he is wearing the epitome of Byzantine imperial dress.
49:24So he's wearing this long scarf down to his feet.
49:27On his feet he's got purple shoes.
49:31The purple symbolise the death of Christ and the gold symbolise the glory of God's resurrection.
49:37And it's not just this silk scarf and the slippers.
49:39He's wearing a tunic as well, isn't he?
49:41He's wearing...
49:42Completely covered in silk.
49:43He's absolutely covered.
49:44He's covered in the imperial purple and it was treason to wear these silks dyed in these dyes.
49:51You would be considered a usurper of the throne and killed.
49:57That's extraordinary.
49:58So if we imagine the court here with the Emperor in his amazing purple and gold silks,
50:02what was everyone else in the court wearing?
50:03There were 18 categories, ranks, and each had their own uniform.
50:10He had a foreign personal guard and they would be given different types of silk.
50:15He had the whole of the bedchamber, the whole of the stewards of the dining halls,
50:21the whole of the choirs.
50:23They each had their silk uniforms.
50:25Right. It's extraordinary, I think, how a fabric can define a civilisation.
50:28Identity. It does. It defines the civilisation because through silk you could order the court,
50:35you could have a hierarchy of status, you could distinguish the empire,
50:40and you could act out empire on a public stage.
50:42Like me, you might have spotted the Paisley motif I saw in Iran, and here it is in the Hagia Sophia.
50:54The fabric, the colour, the design, all products of that route from China.
51:00Once again, art playing its part in the art of power.
51:04Viewed from the perspective of my Silk Road journey, the momentous decision of the Emperor Constantine
51:12to move the Imperial Roman capital here in the 4th century makes perfect sense.
51:18Rome's future lay not in the west, but in the superhighway from the east.
51:23Constantinople was to be the Roman's Silk Road city, and it was governed through the very fabric that gave the road its name.
51:34As the terminus of the Overland Silk Road, and standing at a crossroads with Europe,
51:41Constantinople became the largest and most important trading city in the eastern Mediterranean.
51:47But as Constantinople's wealth grew, others grew envious.
51:53I'm now in a part of Istanbul called Galata, and during the 11th and 12th centuries,
51:59this whole area began to fill up with traders on the make.
52:03But these people weren't originally from Constantinople.
52:08They were Genoese and Venetian merchants who, until the arrival of the Ottomans,
52:12were some of the biggest commercial players in town.
52:16They controlled the sea lanes of the eastern Mediterranean, the Maritime Silk Road.
52:35This is the Galata Tower.
52:37It has an amazing view, which of course was why it was built.
52:46It was from here that traders and merchants could watch the comings and goings of their trading fleets in the waters of the Golden Horn below.
52:54In a way, this tower marks the end of the Overland Silk Road and the beginning of the Maritime Silk Road to the trading cities of Italy.
53:08Venice, in particular, did very well out of Constantinople.
53:12Goods traded between the two cities accounted for half of international Venetian trade.
53:21But until the 13th century, the Venetians remained ignorant of the 5,000 mile trade route to the east.
53:28But that all changed in 1295, when a great trader and explorer returned to his home city of Venice, dressed in brightly coloured silks,
53:49and considerably richer than when he'd set out.
53:56He'd come from the court of the Kubla Khan in China and, like me, travelled through Central Asia, Iran and back here to Venice.
54:08His adventure had taken 24 years and he was electrified by the places, faces and things he had seen.
54:20His name was Marco Polo.
54:27His house still stands and this is his front door.
54:31One Venetian biographer wrote that when it opened, he was greeted as a complete stranger
54:35because his family had long since given up hope of ever seeing him alive again.
54:44Marco Polo later recorded an account of his travels.
54:48It was originally called Il Milione, A Million Tales.
54:53It's arguably the most famous travel book ever written.
54:57Marco Polo's descriptions of entirely unknown civilisations, their resources, advanced technology and wealth,
55:03amazed the readership of backwards Western Christendom.
55:08This is the book that first revealed East to West.
55:12And in reality, it's a travel guide tailored to the needs of merchants,
55:16with details of directions, distances, the kind of terrain to expect, how much food to pack.
55:22Marco Polo's travels revealed a new world of commercial links
55:25that reached as far as Persia, Central Asia, India and China.
55:34More merchants followed in the Polo's footsteps and the riches began to flow.
55:42The ideas and products that Marco Polo and other travellers had seen during their travels
55:46trickled down the Silk Road.
55:50In Europe, they ignited.
55:53They formed, in part, a movement which we call the Renaissance,
55:58an explosion in new thinking, new art, new inventions.
56:05A quintessential Renaissance city, Venice is a place I understand better now,
56:09positioned at the far west of the 5,000-mile Silk Road, to which Europe owes so much.
56:17From musical instruments, to mathematics, to the dozens of technical innovations like paper and printing.
56:26Even Silk Road characters like Timur become the stuff of plays and operas.
56:31Now, across my whole journey, in China, Central Asia, Iran and Turkey,
56:42the Silk Road itself is enjoying a Renaissance.
56:46Because we're starting to acknowledge what we owe to the East.
56:51Gifts, inventions and ideas that tell a history that's been overlooked.
56:56And the clues to that history are everywhere if you know where to look.
57:05This pillar in St Mark's Square bears the faces of merchants who brought those gifts and inventions.
57:12Turks, Syrians, Asians and Persians.
57:17All figures from the Silk Road.
57:22The pillar supports the Doge's Palace.
57:24The crenelated decorations, the lattice windows and pointed arches are the marks of Islamic influence.
57:38Over there, the distinctive tall couplers of St Mark's Basilica resemble the mosque domes I saw in Iran and Central Asia.
57:46Despite the hordes of tourists come rain or sun, the Piazza San Marco never fails to impress.
58:00We've seen this square so many times in movies, on canvas in print, on TV.
58:07It's become an enduring image of the Renaissance.
58:11But that's a movement that was paid for and made possible by the Silk Road.
58:16The road that helped set Europe on a path of unstoppable change triggered a golden age and the rise of the West.
58:30A
58:32The End
58:32A
58:44A
58:46A
58:47A
58:48A
58:49A
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