With this Jackdaw, students will learn what it was like to travel and trade along the Silk Road, a 5,000 mile-long route over unmarked desert tracks and the highest mountains in the world, which served as the main highway between China and the west from the 1st century B.C. to the 14th century A.D. Using an enchanting narrative style that is certain to engage students, the four broadsheet essays and 10 illustrated exhibits describe how and why the Silk Road began, why silk was so mysterious and so valuable, the excitement and dangers of caravan life, the importance of spices, the languages Silk Road merchants used to communicate, and the astonishing variety of goods, inventions, and ideas that were exchanged between the vastly different worlds of China and the west. Historian: Robert Sugar. The contents of this Jackdaw feature:

Broadsheets

• The Silk Road
• Silk: The Great Secret
• Technology Travels the Silk Road
• The Languages of the Silk Road

Silk Road Timeline

Exhibits

• Map of Silk Road routes and what was traded
• Life cycle of the silkworm
• Caravans
• Translation of Pegolotti’s Merchant Handbook, Chapter II
• Spices
• Lost mail on the Silk Road: a Sogdian letter
• Constantinople
• Technology photo-poster
• Marco Polo
• Panels from the Catalan Atlas

Reproducible Student Activities