Chapter 8Commerce and Culture

500 – 1500

Growing Importance of Long Distance TradeWhat is needed? What is in abundance?

More than just physical goods----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Politics, philosophy, religion, disease, etc.

A new powerful class of people (sometimes distrusted and disliked)

Luxury goods as a status symbols

Silk = status and the sacred across cultures

Chinese monopoly broken by the 500s(Japan, Korea, India, Persia, Byzantine)

The Spread of Buddhism500s BCE – 600s CE

Blocked by Zoroastrianism

Adopted by anti-caste Indian merchants

Slowly adopted in China

Buddhism adopted and altered by different cultures (ex. Greco-Buddhism)

The Buddha and Heracles/Vajrapani

Disease in Transit – plague, smallpox, etc.

Political effects of epidemics? Long term impact?

Care for the sick may have increase appeal of Christianity and Buddhism

Indian Ocean - “Southernization”

Mass Market Goods and Heavy Cargo

Islam spread among merchants and traders much more than Confucianism and Buddhism

Why?

Srivijaya - SW Asian trading empireSpices, Buddhism, and Islam

East Africa-----------------------------------------------------------------

Arab culture and language blend

with Bantu African

to form Swahili language and culture

Great Zimbabwe

c. 1250-1350 trade center rich in gold

West Africa - Sahara “Ocean”Islamic kingdoms of Mali and Ghana

Gold richGhana Empire

c. 300-1200

Arab traveler Ibn Battuta

(1304-1368)

Pre-Columbian Americas

Regional trade

No sustained interaction

Maize = exception