How does culture travel from place to place? You might want to stop for a minute and think about what culture is (hint: try using a dictionary). Culture can be comprised of a wide variety of artifacts, whether they are material things, for example, blue jeans or Hondas or tombs. But artifacts can also be comprised of ideas and concepts.
Cultural artifacts can be transmitted in many ways. Traditionally, the most common method of transmission has been trade. Trade has always been a problem however. Today, for example, not everything is traded, only those things that people want or need. Trade doesn't take place everywhere either, only in those places where markets and facilities for trade exist. There are other problems too. Thieves and pirates steal goods, and governments establish tariffs and taxes so they can benefit from the wealth produced by trade. These problems have always existed in the past as well, but then the problems were compounded by limitations in knowledge and in technology. How, for example, did you get your goods to market? How long did it take to get there? How long did you stay? Where did you stay? What roads did you travel? Did you go by ship? By camel? By foot? How did you protect yourself along the way? Who did you talk to?
Over time, trade became well-established in the ancient world. Merchants began to follow more-or-less permanent roads and sea-lanes. Villages, then towns and cities sprang up as rest stops and market centers along the roads or at seaports. The most famous of these roads was the Silk Road. With one end in China and the other in the Middle East, the Silk Road carried a tremedous amount of traffic and goods. Cities on the Silk Road, such as Samarkand, became rich with trade.
The Silk Road was certainly not the only trade route to develop. Trade routes developed, and were used for generations, in Central America, Africa, and Europe. In the Middle East also, very old trades routes occasionally shifted because of local wars and raiding pirates. In about the fifth century CE, these problems forced Arab merchants of the Arabian Peninsula to find safer routes. One such route passed through the city of Mecca which soon became a rich trade center. But more than just trade goods passed through Mecca. Merchants came to the city from almost all parts of the world. They brought with them their music, clothing, food and holidays. (Think of modern-day New York City as a center for cultural exchange.) They also brought with them their religions, their cosmologies, their politics and many other ideas. And these merchants, salesmen all, talked to one another.
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2. Interpretation of Images.
3. Paper Assignment: The Ramayana. Due 5-7-2009
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