Paper's Long Road: A Timeline of Three Trade Networks

Follow papermaking, travelers and plague along the Silk Road, the Indian Ocean and the Sahara.

Answer Key

How things traveled

Read the passage. Then answer the questions.

Goods, Skills and Sickness on the Move

1Between about 600 and 1450 CE, three great networks of trade linked Asia, Africa and Europe. Overland Silk Road routes joined China to Central Asia, Persia and the Black Sea. Sea lanes across the Indian Ocean joined China, Southeast Asia, India, Arabia and East Africa. Camel caravans on trans-Saharan routes joined North Africa to West African cities such as Timbuktu. Few traders made a whole journey. A load of silk or pepper usually changed hands many times, city by city.

2Goods could move this way because any trader could carry them. A skill was different. Bolts of Chinese silk reached the Mediterranean long before the method of raising silkworms left China. In the same way, Chinese workers had made paper from tree bark, hemp and old rags since at least the 100s CE, but the method of making it spread only when people who knew it moved and taught others. It reached Korea and Japan by the early 600s and Central Asia in the 700s.

3In the Muslim world, paper caught on quickly. Scribes there had written on papyrus, a reed that grew mainly in Egypt, or on parchment, made from animal skins; a large book could need the skins of dozens of animals. Paper could be made from plant fibers and rags in many places. By about 800, Baghdad had paper mills, and government offices, merchants and scholars used paper for records, letters and books. Papermaking then spread west across North Africa to Muslim Spain. Christian Europe's first paper mills were in Spain and Italy, and caravans later carried paper south across the Sahara to the scholars of Timbuktu.

4Travelers spread ideas too. The Venetian merchant Marco Polo spent years in China under the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan. His book described coal, porcelain and paper money, and some European readers doubted that such things could exist. Muslim merchants who settled in ports around the Indian Ocean helped spread Islam to many coastal towns, and they kept accounts and wrote contracts on paper.

5Diseases moved along the same paths. In 1346 plague broke out among soldiers attacking Caffa, a Black Sea trading port run by merchants from Genoa, Italy, and inside the town as well. Genoese ships soon carried it to Constantinople and to Sicily. Historians think fleas on rats aboard ships and in stored grain, along with sick sailors and travelers, carried it from port to port.

Based on paragraph 3, why did paper replace papyrus and parchment in many Muslim lands?

A. Papyrus plants had died out in Egypt by the 700s.
B. Muslim rulers had banned writing on animal skins.
C. Paper could be made from cheap materials in many places.
D. Paper lasted longer and was stronger than parchment.

Use paragraphs 1 to 4. Sort each thing by how it moved along the trade routes.

Bolts of silkThe method of making paper from ragsPepperHow to raise silkwormsSheets of paper sent to TimbuktuThe teachings of Islam

A good traders could carry and sell	Knowledge that spread when people taught it
Bolts of silk Pepper Sheets of paper sent to Timbuktu	The method of making paper from rags How to raise silkworms The teachings of Islam

Why does the writer of paragraph 2 compare Chinese silk with the method of raising silkworms?

A. To show that silk traders refused to travel to China
B. To show that a product can travel farther than its know-how
C. To show that China sold silkworms to Mediterranean buyers
D. To show that silk was made first in the Mediterranean

Underline the sentence from paragraph 4 that best shows news of Chinese ways reaching Europe.

The Venetian merchant Marco Polo spent years in China under the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan.His book described coal, porcelain and paper money, and some European readers doubted that such things could exist.Muslim merchants who settled in ports around the Indian Ocean helped spread Islam to many coastal towns, and they kept accounts and wrote contracts on paper.

Read the timeline

Use the timeline and the passage to answer.

Timeline: Along the Trade Networks (some dates approximate)
Date (CE)	Route or region	Event
105	China	Cai Lun improves paper (by tradition)
About 751	Silk Road	Papermaking begins in Samarkand*
About 795	Silk Road	Paper mills work in Baghdad
About 1150	North Africa and Spain	Paper made at Xàtiva in Muslim Spain
1271–1295	Silk Road and Indian Ocean	Marco Polo: overland out, home by sea
About 1276	Mediterranean	Paper mills work at Fabriano, Italy
1346–1347	Black Sea and Mediterranean	Plague: Caffa to Constantinople, Sicily
1400s–1500s	Trans-Saharan	Timbuktu scholars use imported paper
1405–1433	Indian Ocean	Zheng He's fleets sail as far as Africa
1415	Indian Ocean	Malindi envoys bring China a giraffe

* Arab writers, centuries after 751, said that Chinese prisoners captured in a battle that year taught papermaking in Samarkand.

Which list shows the order in which papermaking reached these places?

A. Baghdad → Xàtiva → Samarkand → Fabriano
B. Baghdad → Samarkand → Fabriano → Xàtiva
C. Samarkand → Xàtiva → Baghdad → Fabriano
D. Samarkand → Baghdad → Xàtiva → Fabriano

Compare the papermaking rows with the plague row. What does the timeline suggest?

A. Plague moved from the Black Sea to Sicily within about a year, while papermaking took centuries to cross Asia.
B. Papermaking moved faster than plague, since paper mills were built close to busy ports.
C. Plague reached Sicily before papermaking reached Baghdad, since ships were faster than caravans.
D. Plague and papermaking each took about five centuries to travel from Central Asia to Italy.

Using paragraphs 2 and 5, what best explains the difference in speed you found in question 6?

A. Plague traveled with rats and people, but a skill needed a teacher.
B. Paper was too heavy for ships or caravans to carry.
C. Rulers in Asia closed the trade routes to papermakers.
D. Traders on the Black Sea traveled faster than other traders.

Read the note under the timeline. How should a historian use the claim that Chinese prisoners taught papermaking in Samarkand?

A. As a fact, since it appears on a timeline of events
B. As a story to check, since it was written down long after
C. As proof that papermaking reached Baghdad before Samarkand
D. As proof that paper first reached Samarkand by sea

Use the timeline.

Paper mills were working at Fabriano, Italy, about 481 years after paper mills were working in Baghdad.

10.

Marco Polo went to China overland and came home mostly by sea. What does his journey best show about the trade networks?

A. The overland routes were closed to Europeans after 1271.
B. Ships from China sailed straight to Venice without stopping at ports.
C. One traveler could link the Silk Road and the sea lanes in a single trip.
D. The Indian Ocean routes reached the gold fields of West Africa.

11.

Claim: Along the trade networks, skills such as papermaking spread much more slowly than goods or diseases. Do you agree? Use at least one row of the timeline and one paragraph of the passage as evidence, and explain your reasoning.

I agree. The timeline shows papermaking in Samarkand about 751, Baghdad about 795, Xàtiva about 1150 and Fabriano about 1276, so it took more than five centuries to cross from Central Asia to Italy. The plague row shows the disease moving from Caffa to Constantinople and Sicily in 1346–1347, about a year. Paragraph 2 explains why: a skill spread only when people who knew it moved and taught others, while silk could be carried by any trader and plague rode with rats and travelers (paragraph 5). Goods and germs only needed a ship or caravan; a skill needed a teacher.