Question

in what ways does the silk road represent a bridge between east and west?

Answer 1

The Silk Road was not, strictly speaking, a "road": rather, it constituted a set of overland routes from the Chinese capital at Chang'an (Xian) all the way to Antioch, Damascus, and other cities of the Levant. Nor was it typical for a single journeyer to travel the entire route: instead, merchants would cover a certain distance to a trading town and exchange their wares, which continued to move westward or eastward. At several points, mountains and other obstacles created forks at which it became necessary to take either a northerly or southerly route, for instance either north to Samarkand (in modern Uzbekistan) or south into Bactria, or present-day Afghanistan; but the ultimate destination was the same. At the height of the Silk Road's early history in A.D. 100, it was theoretically possible to travel on established routes from China to Spain, some 8,000 miles (12,800 kilometers) away.