[HN Gopher] Early Byzantine finds at the far ends of the world (...
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       Early Byzantine finds at the far ends of the world (2017)
        
       Author : Thevet
       Score  : 32 points
       Date   : 2021-03-02 00:51 UTC (22 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.caitlingreen.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.caitlingreen.org)
        
       | vincebowdren wrote:
       | Previously discussed on Hacker News:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14044940
        
       | 99_00 wrote:
       | I love hearing about historical trade networks. I don't think
       | they get a high enough profile.
       | 
       | 1653 North America:
       | 
       | >The two travellers learned of the great trade fairs in the
       | Mandan villages along the upper Missouri River. People from
       | thousands of kilometres away, from all directions of the compass,
       | congregated to haggle and barter for goods such as northern furs,
       | pipestone, buffalo robes, grease, ochre, obsidian, eagle
       | feathers, porcupine quills, fine leather, pottery, dried corn,
       | wild rice, tobacco, dried herbs, preserved fish, precious stones,
       | decorative seeds, coloured embroidery--and of course to share
       | news of the land.
       | 
       | https://www.readersdigest.ca/culture/the-incredible-origins-...
        
       | cat199 wrote:
       | Always find it interesting that Marco Polo, who 'discovered the
       | east' in popular western culture, is a Venetian who's father set
       | up shop in Constantinople soon after it was sacked by the
       | venetians in the 4th crusade, but yet clear evidence of active
       | trade routes like this clearly existed long before - seems like a
       | pretty clear case of historical revisionism to me..
        
         | flohofwoe wrote:
         | I guess that only very rarely a person made the whole trip
         | along the entire silk road, but knowledge about the foreign
         | lands definitely travelled much earlier.
         | 
         | For instance here's a Chinese description of the Roman empire
         | from the 3rd century:
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XdPodNwSGU
        
         | Veen wrote:
         | > Always find it interesting that Marco Polo, who 'discovered
         | the east' in popular western culture
         | 
         | No one thinks Marco Polo "discovered the east", but he was one
         | of the first medieval westerners to travel throughout some
         | parts of east and, most importantly, write about it.
        
           | prox wrote:
           | His father and uncle and were the successful ones, Marco Polo
           | learned their trade and travelled with them. The really
           | interesting part is that they won the favour of the Kublai
           | Khan, arguably the most powerful ruler of the time.
        
         | 99_00 wrote:
         | Goods could have passed through many intermediaries before they
         | reached China.
        
       | vondur wrote:
       | Trade routes with the Eastern Mediterranean were still active in
       | this time period; it's not surprising to find Eastern Roman items
       | in England. The level of trade had dropped to a trickle compared
       | to levels seen before the Fall of the Western Empire, but luxury
       | items could still be had.
        
       | itamarst wrote:
       | Some books I enjoyed about the trade networks across Eurasia:
       | 
       | * When Asia Was the World
       | 
       | * Religions of the Silk Road: Premodern Patterns of Globalization
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-02 23:02 UTC)