Traveling the Silk Road


Journey with Susi this week back to a time when the information superhighway was a network of land routes that stretched 4,600 miles from Xi'an in Eastern China through the cities and empires of Central Asia and the Middle East west to the Mediterranean -- along the fabled Silk Road. Our guides are: Dr. Mark Norell, Chairman and Curator-in-Charge, Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, home to an exhibit on the Silk Road, who introduces us to the diversity of the most celebrated trade route in history, and Nirmala Narine, owner and founder of Nirmala's Kitchen and Kojiro Umezaki, a musician from the Silk Road Ensemble, who introduce us to the tastes, smells and sounds of the Silk Road.







What is the Silk Road?

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The Silk Road (or Silk Routes) is an extensive interconnected network of trade routes across the Asian continent connecting East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean world, as well as North and Northeast Africa and Europe.

The Silk Road gets its name from the lucrative Chinese silk trade which began during the Han Dynasty, the major reason for the connection of trade routes into an extensive trans-continental network.

The Silk Routes (collectively known as the 'Silk Road') were important paths for cultural, commercial and technological exchange between traders, merchants, pilgrims, missionaries, soldiers, nomads and urban dwellers from Ancient China, Ancient India, Persia and Mediterranean countries for almost 3,000 years.

Extending over 4,000 miles, the routes enabled people to transport goods, especially luxuries such as slaves, silk, satin and other fine fabrics, musk, other perfumes, spices and medicines, jewels, glassware and even rhubarb, as well as serving as a conduit for the spread of knowledge, ideas, cultures and diseases between different parts of the world (Ancient China, Ancient India, Asia Minor and the Mediterranean). Trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the great civilizations of India, China, Egypt, Persia, Arabia, and Rome, and in several respects helped lay the foundations for the modern world. Although the term the Silk Road implies a continuous journey, very few who traveled the route traversed it from end to end. For the most part, goods were transported by a series of agents on varying routes and were traded in the bustling mercantile markets of the oasis towns. The ruins of a Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) Chinese watchtower made of rammed earth at Dunhuang, Gansu province

The central Asian sections of the trade routes were expanded around 114 BCE by the Han Dynasty, largely through the missions and explorations of Zhang Qian, but earlier trade routes across the continents already existed.[citation needed] In the late Middle Ages, transcontinental trade over the land routes of the Silk Road declined as sea trade increased.

Though silk was certainly the major trade item from China, many other products were traded, and various technologies, religions and philosophies as well as the bubonic plague (the so-called 'Black Death') also traveled along the Silk Routes.


Some Silk Road Surprises
(courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History)

• People often traveled at night to avoid scorching desert heat
• Both one-humped and two-humped camels hauled goods. Camel humps don't store water. They store fat which provides energy.
• Merchants sometimes packed melons and other fruit in lead containers filled with snow and ice from mountains before sending them along the Silk Road.
• When glass first reached China, it was treated as the rarest of jewels.
• The "Arabic' numerals we use today were based on an Indian system and popularized by an Islamic mathematician in the early 800s.

Guests

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Dr. Mark Norell, Chairman and Curator-in-Charge
Division of Paleontology
American Museum of Natural History


Mark A. Norell was born July 26, 1957 in St. Paul Minnesota. He spent most of his formative years (1964 on) in Southern California. He received a Bachelor of Science in 1980 from Long Beach State University and a Masters of Science from San Diego State University in 1983. He received his Ph.D. in 1988 at Yale University (winning a John Spanger Nichols prize for best thesis). After a year of post-doctoral training studying the molecular genetics of maize, Dr. Norell accepted a curatorial position at the American Museum of Natural History in New York where he is a Curator.

Dr. Norell's research encompasses a number of different areas. He has worked on theoretical topics relating to the study of diversity through time, the efficacy of the fossil record in capturing phylogenetic history, and how missing data can influence the estimation of phylogeny. Currently he is working on the relationships of small carnivorous dinosaurs to modern birds, naming new dinosaurs, and attempting to develop new ways of looking at fossils using CT scans and imaging computers. His work has taken him across the globe. Dr. Norell has been accompanying scientific expeditions since he was 14 years old and has taken part in over 20 international scientific expeditions. He has worked actively in the last few years in Patagonia, Cuba, the Chilean Andes, the Sahara, West Africa and Mongolia. The Mongolia project (now in its twelfth year) has received world-wide attention.

Career highlights include the discovery of the enigmatic theropods Shuvuuia and Mononykus, the discovery of the richest Cretaceous fossil locality in the world Ukhaa Tolgod, the first embryo of a theropod dinosaur, the description (with Chinese and Canadian colleagues) of dinosaurs with feathers, and the first indication of a dinosaur nesting on a clutch of eggs like a bird. Dr. Norell has named several other dinosaurs including Apsaravis, Byronosaurus, and Achillonychus. His work regularly appears in major scientific journals (including cover stories in Science and Nature) and was listed by Time magazine as one of the ten most significant science stories of 1994 and 1996, and in 1993, 1994 and 1996 as one of Discover magazine's top 50 science stories of the year. He is a fellow of the Explorer's Club and Willi Hennig Society and actively participates in several international scientific societies. In 1998 he was named a New York City Leader of the Year by the New York Times and Mays and in 200 he was honored as a distinguished Alumnus of California State University Long Beach.

Between expeditions and the demands of a scientific career, Dr. Norell lectures to general audiences and writes books and articles for diverse audiences. Discovering Dinosaurs, published by E.J. Knopf in May of 1995, and appeared in a second edition in 2000, won Scientific American's Young Readers Book of the Year Award. In 2000 A Nest of Dinosaurs was given an Orbis Pictus award by the National Council of Teachers as a noteworthy title. Mark Norell resides in New York City.









Nirmala Narine, Owner and Founder
Nirmala's Kitchen


World traveler, cookbook author and global kitchen expert, Nirmala Narine is the owner and founder of Nirmala's Kitchen, a gourmet importer and distributor. Her line of products includes ingredients to replicate ethnic and traditional meals from around the world, all without leaving the comforts of home.

Nirmala has been featured in The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine and FOOD & WINE Magazine. She has been featured by Country Living Magazine as one of their 2007 Women’s Entrepreneurs. She has appeared on the Today Show, the CBS Early Show and Martha Stewart, among others.

The Nirmala's Kitchen brand, cookbooks and other gourmet products are sold at Williams-Sonoma, Sur-La-Table, Indigo (Canada), Costco.com, www.800flowers.com, Cooking.com, Crate & Barrel, Amazon.com, the American Museum of Natural History, Wholefoods, Field Museum and the Smithsonian.

Her products can also be found in fine specialty stores, in London, Japan, Mexico, Australia, and South and Central America.

Nirmala is a gifted teacher when it comes to sharing her extraordinary knowledge of ethnic kitchen cultures and global cuisines. She has traveled to over 125 countires.









Kojiro Umezaki, Musician
Silk Road Ensemble


Kojiro Umezaki grew up in Tokyo, Japan where he began studying Western flute and the shakuhachi. His career encompasses both traditional and technology-based music and a range of electronic media. "My mother is from Denmark and my father is Japanese. My multinational background may be one of the reasons why I don't limit myself to the traditional repertoire. In all my work, I try to put the shakuhachi in a more contemporary, musically diverse context. Hopefully this work can become part of the evolutionary process of the instrument."

Ko holds a degree in Electro-acoustic Music from Dartmouth College and is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of California, Irvine. He performs regularly with the Silk Road Ensemble and the Montreal-based jazz trio, Beat in Fractions. He has recorded on the Sony BMG, Signum Classics, and Smithsonian Folkways labels, among others.

The shakuhachi – Japanese end-blown bamboo flute – is played by blowing air across the beveled edge at the top of the instrument, while covering and uncovering the holes with fingertips. Introduced to Japan in the 7th century, it has been used to create music for Zen Buddhist meditation. The sounds produced by the shakuhachi range from soft whispers to strong piercing tones, often intended to reflect natural phenomena such as falling leaves, wind, and the cries and gestures of animals.


To purchase some music from the Silk Road Ensemble, click below: