Good morning, I am going to move forward in time and look at the documentary on the Silk Road. This is coming from the Get Factual channel. This documentary has a run time of 52:14. The documentary is called How The Silk Road Made the World.
For thousands of years, people traveled the trade route known as the Silk Road. The distance is as daunting now as it was in the past. It was a profitable trade route. The Silk Road helped make and break empires. Goods were exchanged. Technology flowed across the road. Ideas traveled along the Silk Road. Conquering armies would use the road to conquer and explore. It brought the East and West together. It was a source of conflict. So how did the Silk Road make the world? This is the first episode of the series, and it is called War. Two thousand years ago, Rome ruled the world. Europe was conquered and Roman armies were being sent into the Middle East. However, the Roman Empire would not go unchallenged. The Roman Army would a formidable force at Carrhae. It was an army of Parthians and it seemed that the Romans would win the day. However, the Parthian army did not fight on foot – they fought on horse and were expert bowmen. The Romans would fight from a fixed position and the Parthians went around the Roman Legions. The Roman legions did not have a chance against the Parthian Army and it was one of Rome’s worse military defeats. Roman historians would blame the dazzling silk banners of the Parthians instead on superior tactics. Long before this battle was fought, trade already had an impact on people’s lives. The Parthian style of warfare that had evolved over the years. A transportation revolution developed along the Silk Road. The people of the Silk Road were using horses for transportation. When horses were domesticated, they were used for warfare. Soldiers used horses with chariots which would eventually lead to cavalry warfare. One historian comments that he was confused over chariot warfare developing before cavalry warfare. Tune into this section to discover why cavalry warfare developed after the chariot. This section reminded me of the Secrets of the Dead the Amazon Warrior Women episode. The recurve bow was developed by the people of the Silk Road. A military historian talks about what it took to make the recurve bow. This section was very interesting to watch because of all the pieces that were required to make a bow. Who knew the bladder of the sturgeon fish had such an impact on bow-making? The military historian that did the presentation was very good and very enthusiastic about his presentation too. I would watch this documentary for him because he was really into his presentation. Additional to this discussion on the development of the bow, there was a good discussion on the development of the arrowhead. It was surprising to hear that there was a mold used to create the arrowhead. It reminded me of Secrets of the Castle and how Ruth gathered all the materials to get a bolt created for a crossbow. The development of both a bow and arrow would have a huge impact on the world and a big impact on warfare. Anyway, the arrowheads would have been traded over thousands of miles. Thousands of arrowheads were discovered in graves. The grave good arrowheads hint that the arrows were mass-produced. The Chinese were also pushing their empire’s borders. However, they would encounter mounted soldiers who would challenge them. It is at this section that Agnes from the Tomb series I did makes an appearance. She does a good job in this section talking about the mounted warriors from the Asian steppes. How would the Chinese handle these riding warriors? In what other ways did the Silk War impact warfare? Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more. I did not know how this documentary would go, however, the information was very well presented. The military historian was cool and very informative about the military technology available. I also enjoyed seeing Agnes in this type of thing rather than on location. So far so good with this documentary and I would put it into a potentially show to a history class column.
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