Mongol Era

The Mongol expansion throughout the Asian continent from around 1215 to 1360 helped bring political stability and re-establish the Silk Road. In the late 13th century, a Venetian explorer named Marco Polo became one of the first Europeans to travel the Silk Road to China. Westerners became more aware of the Far East when Polo documented his travels in Il Milione. He was followed by numerous Christian missionnaries to the East. Luxury goods were traded from one middleman to another, from China to the West, resulting in high prices for the trade goods.

Many technological innovations from the East seem to have filtered into Europe around that time. The period of the High Middle Ages in Europe saw major technological advances, including the adoption through the Silk Road of printing, gunpowder, the astrolabe, and the compass.

Chinese maps and Islamic mapmaking seem to have influenced the emergence of the first practical world maps. Large Chinese junks were also observed by these travelers and may have provided impetus to develop larger ships in Europe.

However, with the disintegration of the Mongol Empire also came discontinuation of the Silk Road’s political, cultural and economic unity. Turkmeni marching lords seized the western end of the Silk Road — the decaying Byzantine Empire. After the Mongol Empire, the great political powers along the Silk Road became economically and culturally separated. Accompanying the crystallization of regional states was the decline of nomad power, partly due to the devastation of the Black Death and partly due to the encroachment of sedentary civilizations equipped with gunpowder.

The Silk Road stopped serving as a shipping route for silk around 1400.