Silk Road

So there are ancient maps all the way dating back to the 1500s where the Ark was still visible.

So Silk Road travelers documented would take detours to the Ark to take pieces of the wood and pitch and then they'd make good luck charms out of them and sell them on the Silk Road.

So it disappeared for centuries.

Like it was gone.

The life-size replica is the centerpiece of an ongoing exhibition at the Chinese Traditional Cultural Museum in Beijing.

The exhibition by the Chinese National Academy of Arts reviews a decade of research into ancient Chinese murals along the Silk Road.

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But the Khazar theory is very interesting, and maybe it partially explains some of the Ashkenazi identities or sort of the questions that Kessler brings up in his book.

But the Khazar empire, you have to remember, this is during the time of the Silk Roads.

In the Silk Road, we're experiencing all this trade from East Asia all the way to Western Europe.

And Constantinople was kind of in a privileged position right there.

I went to Almaty.

I was going to travel along the Silk Road, but my three-year-old was having no parts of it.

She needed stability.

And women in Almaty were working five days a week.

Well, you know, it's a mystery, the history of the dumpling.

To have dumplings, you first need noodles.

And the oldest evidence of noodles has been found in Xi'an, China, which is at the eastern end of the Silk Road.

And it's also where dungans come from.

But many traveled by horse or by camel.

But what was east of that was the Silk Road that led all the way out to China, which was functioning for decades.

3,000 years.

And the civilizations farther to the east were the civilizations of the Chinese valleys.

But people are not displaying a big gold medallion.

They're wearing a silk tie.

And that whole tradition of wearing silk and displaying silk shows that knowledge of the Silk Road and of distant civilizations.

Silk is not made in the United States.

and they were down in russia and they did find out that they could kind of put some uh arm on some of these guys and they started developing um trading what they called straightens trading centers there was four trading centers one in dublin two in Russia, and one in York, Dublin, Ireland, and York, England.

And these were centers where the Vikings were such good boat people, they would go to the Silk Road, they would go to China, and they would pick up things and bring them back and sell them or trade them in Europe.

And that's where they realized that that was a great way to go and build them up.

And they were the only group that could really do that because they had these incredible, what they called fast boats.

So the idea of networks is that, in my mind at least, and I know that this exists, there are maps.

of the expansion of Buddhism with big arrows that start in northeast India and go through the Silk Road to China and over to Japan.

And another arrow that goes from the same location up to Tibet.

And another arrow that goes down to Sri Lanka and to Southeast Asia.

Now, the Mongols were fierce warriors, but they also encouraged trade, communication and lots of cultural exchange across their territories.

And of course, the famous Silk Road flourished under their protection.

After Genghis Khan's death in 1227, his descendants continued expanding and ruling the empire.

However, over time, the vast empire split into separate regions and Mongol power gradually declined.