The Era of Caravans

With the establishment of the trading route, a long and enlightening commerce between east and west began, one that was to continue for more than a thousand years, through the rise and fall of many empires. After the thirteenth-century Mongol conquests of most of Asia and large sections of Europe, the Silk Road enjoyed a last great efflorescence. For a hundred years, a Pax Mongolica lay over the trade routes; and Europeans such as Marco Polo could travel to the Far East. Then the Mongols declined in their turn and with them overland trade, which was transferred to sea routes. Central Asia sank into the shadows of history.