Isolated from one another by enormous distance and rugged mountains, East Asia and Europe first became acquainted in the second century B.C. when traders began to move goods like cloth, jade, and spices along a system of pathways known today as the Silk Road.

Originating in the Han capital of Ch'ang-an, the network of routes stretched from China in the east to points in India, Constantinople (now Istanbul), Damascus, and other Middle Eastern cities.

Silk was an important commodity for the Chinese, who kept the process of its creation secret for centuries. East Asian traders brought spices such as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger to Europeans, who used them as flavorings, drugs, and perfumes. India traded pepper, pearls, sesame oil, textiles, coral, and ivory. Central Asian nations sent horses and jade back to China, while Mediterranean merchants traded wools, gold, silver, gems, glassware, olive oil, and wine.

The Silk Road carried more than goods. Indian merchants brought Buddhism to China by the fifth century, Christianity took root in parts of western Asia, and Islam spread. Smallpox, measles, and bubonic plague also hitched a ride, spreading along the pathways. The infamous Black Plague of the 1300s also moved by trade routes from China to Europe.

The routes were busiest from about 200 B.C. to A.D. 200. After the decline of China's Han empire, trade diminished until the Mongols provided safe passage for travelers in the 13th and 14th centuries. One traveler was a Venetian trader named Marco Polo.

By the 15th century trade along the Silk Road declined as more and more people chose less dangerous sea routes, and the era of Silk Road travel and trade came to an end.