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The origins of commercial ties and transport connections between Europe and Asiadate back to the distant past. Marco Polo’s travels, Afanasy Nikitin’s Journey Beyond Three Seas, and the caravans of the legendary Great Silk Road were the first to expose Europeans to unique Chinese products and culture. The term “Silk Road” (Seidenstrasse in German) was pioneered by the German scholar Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen in his 1877 classic, China.
The Great Silk Road, which connected the East and the West for the first time in human history, became operational in the second half of the second century B.C.
This page explores the evolution of the Great Silk Road from the era of centralized Chinese empires to modern times.
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