The Silk and Spice Routes - Inventions and Trade

• ©UNESCO

Over the centuries, the exchange of technologies -from the horse's bit and the wheel to the microchip and the computer- hasinspired new developments and improvements. It is through trade that much of this exchange has taken place. This book explains how the Silk and Spice Routes across Asia played an important role in bringing together different peoples and ideas that favoured new technologies and inventions in many fields: health and medicine, alchemy and chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, spinning and weaving. glass and ceramics, metalwork and agriculture, to mention just a few.