Silk Road

The Silk Road was a network of ancient trade routes across Central Asia that linked people, ideas, goods, technology, and diseases from Rome to China during the period from c. 500 BCE to 1500 CE

World Heritage Sites connected to 'Silk Road':

  • Aleppo
  • Ancient Merv
  • Ancient Nara Influences from Silk Road areas
  • Bamiyan Valley
  • Bukhara
  • Damascus
  • Gonbad-e Qâbus Jorjan town was commercially significant in the Roman period due to its location on the Silk Road between Merv and Ctesiphon (AB ev)
  • Gyeongju The Silk Road contributed to the Golden Age of Silla. Silla Kings allied with the Tang dynasty to defeat rival Korean kingdoms. The flowering of Buddhism in Gyeongju in the 7th and 8th centuries began with the Silk Road extending to the Korean peninsula.
  • Istanbul
  • Kunya-Urgench
  • Longmen Grottoes Luoyang was the east capital of Tang Dynasty, the centre of silk road
  • Mogao Caves
  • Orkhon Valley AB evaluation: "The broad, shallow river valley provides water and shelter, key requisites for its role as a staging post on the ancient trade routes across the steppes, such as those now known as the ?Silk Road?, and for its development as the centre of two of the vast central Asian empires."
  • Palmyra
  • Samarkand
  • Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple The Silk Road contributed to the Golden Age of Silla. Silla Kings allied with the Tang dynasty to defeat rival Korean kingdoms. The flowering of Buddhism in Gyeongju in the 7th and 8th centuries began with the Silk Road extending to the Korean peninsula.
  • Shakhrisyabz
  • Site of Xanadu an important stopping place on the silk route (AB ev)
  • Sulaiman-Too
  • Tabriz Bazaar
  • Taxila
  • Tyre
  • Yungang Grottoes