Silk Roads
In Mahayana Buddhism, these enlightened beings delay entering nirvana so they can help others reach salvation. This idea made Buddhism appealing to ordinary people along the Silk Roads.
What are bodhisattvas?
These seasonal winds blow from the southwest in summer and from the northeast in winter. They controlled when ships could sail across the Indian Ocean.
What are monsoons?
Known as the "land of gold," this was the first major West African trading empire. It grew rich by taxing the gold-for-salt trade.
What is Ghana?
This Buddhist kingdom on Sumatra grew rich by controlling the Strait of Malacca and taxing passing ships.
What is Srivijaya?
This Ancestral Puebloan center in present-day New Mexico (c. 900–1150) featured "great houses" and a network of straight roads.
What is the Chaco Canyon?
This Song Dynasty philosophy blended Confucian ethics with Buddhist and Daoist ideas and later spread to Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.
What is Neo-Confucianism?
This triangular sail, used on Arab dhows, let ships sail against the wind.
What are the lateen sail?
This city in the Mali Empire became a famous center of Islamic learning, with mosques, madrasas, and huge manuscript libraries.
What is Timbuktu?
This East African coastal civilization included cities like Kilwa, Mombasa, and Mogadishu. Its language blended Bantu grammar with Arabic words, and its exports included gold, ivory, and enslaved people.
What are the Swahili city-states?
Unlike camels and horses in Afro-Eurasia, most American traders moved goods this way. The Andes, where llamas were used, were the main exception.
What are human porters (carrying goods on foot)?
How did tribute missions from Korea to China benefited BOTH sides.
China got recognition of its superiority and a stable, friendly border. Korea got legitimacy, trade access, and luxury goods like silk, porcelain, tea, and books. These goods became status symbols for Korean elites.
What is this an example of:
Merchants often waited months in foreign ports for the winds to change, so they formed these communities abroad and frequently married local women who converted to the merchants' religion.
What are Diasporic Communities?
This Abbasid center of learning in Baghdad translated Greek, Persian, and Indian texts into Arabic.
What is the House of Wisdom?
This Khmer temple complex was built as a Hindu temple to Vishnu and later became Buddhist. It shows Indian cultural influence in Southeast Asia.
What is Angkor Wat?
This Mississippian city near present-day St. Louis was known for huge earthen mounds and was a major trade hub.
What are the Cahokia?
What is Neo-Confucianism an example of?
Syncretism
Name TWO reasons the Ming Dynasty ended Zheng He's voyages and turned away from sea exploration.
What are the huge cost, Confucian officials' distrust of merchants and foreign ventures, and the need to defend the northern border against the Mongols (including rebuilding the Great Wall)?
Explain why Islam in West Africa spread mainly among rulers and merchants.
Elites benefited most from Islam through trade ties with Muslim merchants, literacy in Arabic, and religious legitimacy, while rural farmers kept their ancestral religions.
Srivijaya, Malacca, and the Swahili city-states were powerful despite controlling little land. Explain what their power was based on and why that made them vulnerable.
Their power came from controlling key ports and chokepoints, like the Strait of Malacca, and taxing the trade that passed through.
Explain what the selling of luxury items tells historians about long-distance trade in the Americas and how it compares to Silk Road trade.
These were luxury goods show there were those with wealthy status. This resembles the Silk Roads, where most long-distance trade was also in small amounts of luxury goods.
Buddhism began in India with a focus on monks and personal discipline. Explain TWO ways it changed as it spread along the Silk Roads into China, and how Chinese thinkers eventually responded.
Mahayana ideas like bodhisattvas made salvation open to ordinary people. Some Chinese criticized Buddhism as foreign and anti-family, and Neo-Confucianism responded by absorbing Buddhist ideas about the universe while reasserting Confucian values.
Explain how the monsoon winds shaped the culture of Indian Ocean port cities.
This created diasporic communities, where merchants married local women who often converted to their religion. As a result, Islam spread through trade, and ports like the Swahili cities and Malacca developed blended cultures.
For centuries the Sahara was a barrier. Explain how technologies and ideas turned it into a trade highway.
The camel and improved camel saddles made long desert crossings possible, and organized caravans followed. Islam gave merchants a shared set of laws, credit systems, and trust
How are Angkor Wat and the Swahili coast examples of cultural diffusion?
Angkor Wat was used by multiple religions and local architectural style. On the Swahili coast, elites adopted Islam and Arabic words, but the Swahili language stayed Bantu at its core and African customs remained.
Give TWO reasons the American Web was less intense and less connected than the Silk, Sea, and Sand Roads.
What are the lack of large pack animals and wheeled transport, a north-south layout crossing many climate zones, and no links to the other hemisphere?