Silk Road
Worksheets
Free Sample
Thank you so much for downloading the sample resource.
We hope it has been useful for you in the classroom and that your
students enjoy the activities.
KidsKonnect is a very small family run business and we are proud
that we can offer education to over 40 countries globally. The more
support we have from our Premium members the more resources
we can release.
If you want the more comprehensive and detailed worksheet
collection then please upgrade to our Premium plan and support
our quest to make education affordable for all.
Don’t forget to come back and download the new material we add
every week!
Thanks for supporting KidsKonnect. We can provide teachers with
low-cost, high-quality teaching resources because of our loyal
subscribers and hope to serve you for many years to come.
- The Entire KidsKonnect Team :)
Silk Road Facts
Include image
source in the
speaker notes
below.
.
The Silk Road was an ancient network of trade routes which
connected Europe and Asia. These connections resulted in the
trading of goods, notably silk, and the spread of ideas and diseases.
It started near the end of the second century during the reign of
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. China's interest in European horses
and its monopoly in silk manufacturing, and Rome's obsession with
silk opened a trading network between Asia and Europe.
ORIGIN OF THE NAME “SILK ROAD”
★ Silk was a highly valued commodity in Rome
as it became an indication of social status.
★ The Silk Road was the only way to procure silk
in China as the country had the monopoly on
manufacturing it.
★ The term was coined by a German traveller
and geographer, Ferdinand von Richthofen, in
1877 CE, who called it 'Seidenstrasse' (silk
road)
★ Marco Polo, a European explorer, described
the trades that happened on this road but
never mentioned its name.
KIDSKONNECT.COM
Silk Road Facts
TRADING OF GOODS
★ The Silk Road comprises multiple
routes that span five thousand
miles from different parts of Europe
and Asia.
★ It was established when the Han
Dynasty opened trade with the
west.
★ But before it was opened, there
were already trades happening
with Persia and Europe. They
called the route the Persian Royal
Road.
★ The Silk Road was established when China traded their silk with other
countries and it became a high-value commodity
★ China had a monopoly on silk for a long time. Its production process was
tightly guarded.
★ Aside from silk, many other goods were traded on the Silk Road. Marco
Polo and Ferdinand von Richthofen listed gold, bronze, glassware, and
textiles, to name a few.
★ China’s motivation in opening the country for trading was having access to
European horses.
★ Horses had become a necessity in China for transporting goods and for
war, especially as their enemies in the north were also using horses.
★ Countries like India were able to trade cotton, fabrics, spices,
semi-precious stones, dyes, and ivory in exchange for gold, furs, fur
animals, bark for skin processing, cattle, manufactured goods, etc.
★ Camels had also been an essential part of trading, either being used to
transport goods or being traded themselves.
★ The Silk Road allowed access not only for trading goods but also for
exchanging innovations, religion, and, unfortunately, disease.
KIDSKONNECT.COM
Silk Road Facts
TRADING OF IDEAS
★ Buddhism, which was starting to deteriorate in India, found a new home
in China and Japan.
★ Traders often create shrines and temples of their religions wherever they
go so that they will be able to practice their religion even when far from
home.
★ Kublai Khan, the leader of the Mongol Empire who controlled the Silk
Road, preferred Buddhism.
★ Christianity and Judaism were spread to some countries by the Western
traders.
★ Intercultural exchange rituals were shared when people ate together or
communicated.
★ The process of making silk was also traded to the Western countries.
The four greatest Chinese inventions spread via the Silk Road: these
were the technologies for papermaking, mechanical printing techniques,
gunpowder, and the compass.
PLAGUES AND DISEASES THROUGH SILK ROADS
★ Sadly, not only goods, cultures, inventions, and religions were exchanged
on the Silk Road. It also became an instrument to spread deadly
diseases.
★ The Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death, mostly affected
rodents and fleas, who transferred it to people. This was said to have
started in China, the largest exporter of silk to Europe.
★ It killed around half of the
European population over
seven years from 1346.
★ Modern research also
mentions a disease called
Chinese liver fluke.
★ People contracted the
parasite by eating infected
fish which they concluded
had come from the modern
Guandong province.
KIDSKONNECT.COM
Silk Road Facts
DECLINE AND LEGACY OF THE SILK ROAD
★ The Silk Road’s most significant contribution is the exchange of ideas and
innovations in technology, science, and architecture and the adoption of
different beliefs, cultures, arts, religions, and philosophies.
★ The system the Silk Road established, with the exchange of ideas, goods,
and culture, can be likened to modern-day globalization or the world wide
web, just on a smaller scale.
★ The Silk Road made the world realize the value of passing on information
and exchanging goods.
★ Its closing was due to merchants being forced to trade by sea, as this was
a much cheaper, safer, and efficient alternative at the time.
★ It also initiated the Age of Discovery because Europe was able to interact
more with other parts of the world and begin a global community.
★ The closure forced Europeans to explore the world and eventually conquer
lands, and laid the foundation of the development of the modern world.
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE SILK ROAD
★ The Silk Road covered a total of over four thousand miles in Europe, Asia,
and Africa.
★ Some of the routes were long but safe, and others were shorter but more
dangerous.
★ Bandits terrorized the Silk Road. They were aware of the luxurious items
the traders were carrying.
★ Very few traders travelled the entire Silk Road. They went into the cities
and traded along the way.
KIDSKONNECT.COM
Name: ________________________________
Most Popular Commodities
The Silk Road was a way for countries to acquire
goods from other countries. Describe why these
goods became essential trades on the Silk Road.
SILK ROAD WORKSHEETS KIDSKONNECT.COM
Most Popular Commodities
ANSWER KEY
Silk became the most Camels became a means of
valuable commodity in Rome transport to transverse the
and for a long time, China desert where the Silk Road
had a monopoly on was located.
manufacturing it.
Horses became a valuable
The idea of Buddhism spread
weapon in war.
in China and Central Asia
because of its teachings.
SILK ROAD WORKSHEETS KIDSKONNECT.COM
Copyright Notice
This resource is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.
You are free to:
● Share — copy and redistribute the material in any
medium or format
● Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
Under the following terms:
● Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide
a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.
You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in
any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or
your use.
● NonCommercial — You may not use the material for
commercial purposes.
For more information on this license, visit the following link:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Where possible, free-use images are sourced from online
repositories such as Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.
References and sources for images are provided in the
speaker notes section of this document.
Thank you!
KIDSKONNECT.COM
