1Long before the age of aeroplanes and steamships, patient traders crossed Asia on camels and on foot.
2Their winding routes later became known as the Silk Road, named after China's most precious export.
3Silk was so valuable in Rome that senators complained about the gold leaving the empire.
4Yet the long caravans carried far more precious things than silk, silver, glass, and fragrant spices.
5They also carried new ideas, religions, languages, technologies, and even many unfamiliar kinds of music.
6The Buddhist faith travelled very slowly from India into China along these busy desert highways.
7The secret of paper, first invented in China, eventually reached Europe by the same long road.
8Great cities like Samarkand and Bukhara grew fabulously rich by welcoming merchants from every direction.
9Sadly, diseases also travelled with the goods, and deadly plagues followed the caravans toward the west.
10When sea routes became safer and cheaper, the old overland roads slowly fell into silence.
11Today, quiet museums and ruined desert towns still whisper their stories of those astonishing journeys.