Atlas Oasis General Trading Llc
Alethia Tiell
Encyclopedic entry. An oasis is an area made fertile by a source of freshwater in an otherwise dry and arid region. Oases (more than one oasis) are irrigated by natural springs or other underground water sources.
Meadow in the Mojave
The Las Vegas Valley, in the U.S. state of Nevada, is a popular tourist destination known for gaming and entertainment. Before the arrival of casinos, however, Las Vegas was the site of a natural oasis in the Mojave Desert. Springs brought water from the regions aquifer to the surface, ultimately flowing into the Colorado River. Las Vegas means the meadows in Spanish, and was named when the oasis was discovered by Mexican merchants in 1829.
The Las Vegas oasis has dried up. Development drained the springs. The areas empty aquifers are now used to store water from Lake Mead, an artificial lake created by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. Water is a major environmental and political issue in Las Vegas and throughout the U.S. Southwest.
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The Silk Road[a] was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century.[1] Spanning over 6,400 km (4,000 mi), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds.[2][3][4] The name "Silk Road" was first coined in the late 19th century, but some 20th- and 21st-century historians instead prefer the term Silk Routes, on the grounds that it more accurately describes the intricate web of land and sea routes connecting Central, East, South, Southeast, and West Asia as well as East Africa and Southern Europe.[1]
The Silk Road was utilized over a period that saw immense political variation across the continent, exemplified by major events such as the Black Death and the Mongol conquests. The network was highly decentralized, and security was sparse: travelers faced constant threats of banditry and nomadic raiders, and long expanses of inhospitable terrain. Few individuals traveled the entire length of the Silk Road, instead relying on a succession of middlemen based at various stopping points along the way. In addition to goods, the network facilitated an unprecedented exchange of religious (especially Buddhist), philosophical, and scientific thought, much of which was syncretised by societies along the way.[6] Likewise, a wide variety of people used the routes. Diseases such as plague also spread along the Silk Road, possibly contributing to the Black Death.[7]
From 1453 onwards, the Ottoman Empire began competing with other gunpowder empires for greater control over the overland routes, which prompted European polities to seek alternatives while themselves gaining leverage over their trade partners.[8] This marked the beginning of the Age of Discovery, European colonialism, and the further intensification of globalization. In the 21st century, the name "New Silk Road" is used to describe several large infrastructureprojects along many of the historic trade routes; among the best known include the Eurasian Land Bridge and the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In June 2014, UNESCO designated the Chang'an-Tianshan corridor of the Silk Road as a World Heritage Site, while the Indian portion remains on the tentative site list.
The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk, first developed in China,[9][10] and a major reason for the connection of trade routes into an extensive transcontinental network.[11][12] It derives from the German term Seidenstrae (literally "Silk Road") and was first popularized in 1877 by Ferdinand von Richthofen, who made seven expeditions to China from 1868 to 1872.[12][13][14] However, the term itself had been in use in decades prior to that.[15] The alternative translation "Silk Route" is also used occasionally. Although the term was coined in the 19th century, it did not gain widespread acceptance in academia or popularity among the public until the 20th century. The first book entitled The Silk Road was by Swedish geographer Sven Hedin in 1938.[16]
The southern stretches of the Silk Road, from Khotan (Xinjiang) to Eastern China, were first used for jade and not silk, as long as 5000 BCE, and are still in use for this purpose. The term "Jade Road" would have been more appropriate than "Silk Road" had it not been for the far larger and geographically wider nature of the silk trade; the term is in current use in China.[19]
The Silk Road consisted of several routes. As it extended westwards from the ancient commercial centres of China, the overland, intercontinental Silk Road divided into northern and southern routes bypassing the Taklamakan Desert and Lop Nur. Merchants along these routes were involved in "relay trade" in which goods changed "hands many times before reaching their final destinations."[20]
The northern route started at Chang'an (now called Xi'an), an ancient capital of China that was moved further east during the Later Han to Luoyang. The route was defined around the 1st century BCE when Han Wudi put an end to harassment by nomadic tribes.[21]
The northern route travelled northwest through the Chinese province of Gansu from Shaanxi Province and split into three further routes, two of them following the mountain ranges to the north and south of the Taklamakan Desert to rejoin at Kashgar, and the other going north of the Tian Shan mountains through Turpan, Talgar, and Almaty (in what is now southeast Kazakhstan). The routes split again west of Kashgar, with a southern branch heading down the Alai Valley towards Termez (in modern Uzbekistan) and Balkh (Afghanistan), while the other travelled through Kokand in the Fergana Valley (in present-day eastern Uzbekistan) and then west across the Karakum Desert. Both routes joined the main southern route before reaching ancient Merv, Turkmenistan. Another branch of the northern route turned northwest past the Aral Sea and north of the Caspian Sea, then and on to the Black Sea.
A route for caravans, the northern Silk Road brought to China many goods such as "dates, saffron powder and pistachio nuts from Persia; frankincense, aloes and myrrh from Somalia; sandalwood from India; glass bottles from Egypt, and other expensive and desirable goods from other parts of the world."[22] In exchange, the caravans sent back bolts of silk brocade, lacquer-ware, and porcelain.
The southern route or Karakoram route was mainly a single route from China through the Karakoram mountains, where it persists in modern times as the Karakoram Highway, a paved road that connects Pakistan and China.[citation needed] It then set off westwards, but with southward spurs so travelers could complete the journey by sea from various points. Crossing the high mountains, it passed through northern Pakistan, over the Hindu Kush mountains, and into Afghanistan, rejoining the northern route near Merv, Turkmenistan. From Merv, it followed a nearly straight line west through mountainous northern Iran, Mesopotamia, and the northern tip of the Syrian Desert to the Levant, where Mediterranean trading ships plied regular routes to Italy, while land routes went either north through Anatolia or south to North Africa. Another branch road travelled from Herat through Susa to Charax Spasinu at the head of the Persian Gulf and across to Petra and on to Alexandria and other eastern Mediterranean ports from where ships carried the cargoes to Rome.[citation needed]
The network followed the footsteps of older Austronesian jade maritime networks in Southeast Asia,[32][33][34][35] as well as the maritime spice networks between Southeast Asia and South Asia, and the West Asian maritime networks in the Arabian Sea and beyond, coinciding with these ancient maritime trade roads by the current era.[36][37][38]
Austronesian thalassocracies controlled the flow of trade in the eastern regions of the Maritime Silk Road, especially the polities around the straits of Malacca and Bangka, the Malay Peninsula, and the Mekong Delta; through which passed the main routes of the Austronesian trade ships to Giao Chỉ (in the Tonkin Gulf) and Guangzhou (southern China), the endpoints (later also including Quanzhou by the 10th century CE).[28] Secondary routes also passed through the coastlines of the Gulf of Thailand;[26][39] as well as through the Java Sea, Celebes Sea, Banda Sea, and the Sulu Sea, reconnecting with the main route through the northern Philippines and Taiwan. The secondary routes also continue onward to the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea for a limited extent.[26][40]
The main route of the western regions of the Maritime Silk Road directly crosses the Indian Ocean from the northern tip of Sumatra (or through the Sunda Strait) to Sri Lanka, southern India and Bangladesh, and the Maldives. It branches from here into routes through the Arabian Sea entering the Gulf of Oman (into the Persian Gulf), and the Gulf of Aden (into the Red Sea). Secondary routes also pass through the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, and southwards along the coast of East Africa to Zanzibar, the Comoros, Madagascar, and the Seychelles.[26][41]
The term "Maritime Silk Road" is a modern name, acquired from its similarity to the overland Silk Road. Like the overland routes, the ancient maritime routes through Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean had no particular name for the majority of its very long history.[28] Despite the modern name, the Maritime Silk Road involved exchanges in a wide variety of goods over a very wide region, not just silk or Asian exports.[31][40] It differed significantly in several aspects from the overland Silk Road, and thus should not be viewed as a mere extension of it. Traders traveling through the Maritime Silk Road could span the entire distance of the maritime routes, instead of through regional relays as with the overland route. Ships could carry far larger amounts of goods, creating greater economic impact with each exchange. Goods carried by the ships also differed from goods carried by caravans. Traders on the maritime route faced different perils like weather and piracy, but they were not affected by political instability and could simply avoid areas in conflict.[31]
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