History Quiz: The Silk Road

They were large roadside inns that were dotted along the Silk Road, as well as the Achaemenid Empire's Royal Road and the Indian Grand Trunk Road.

At the time it was known as Chang'an and it was once the capital of China.

These routes bypassed the central part of the desert in addition to the salt lake Lop Nur. The desert is known for its extreme temperature differences, from below −20 °C and up to 40 °C.

Timur rebuilt most of the city and populated it with great artisans and craftsmen from across his empire.

It is a rail transport route which connects seaports in the Russian Far East and China to seaports in Europe.

They were protected by the Göktürks and later by the Uyghur Khaganate.

This was after the Abbasid dynasty had built the city. Before this, Damascus had been the most important city.

Central Eurasia was home to many horse riding and breeding communities, and they would use the Steppe Route for trade. While the westernmost sections of the Royal Road may have been built by Assyrian kings, it was the Persian king Darius the Great who reorganised and rebuilt the route, which allowed for rapid communication throughout the Achaemenid empire. The cursus publicus was the courier and transportation service of the Roman Empire.

The Hebrew name is דרך המשי while the Turkmen name is Ýüpek ýoly.

He was a Christian missionary who travelled throughout the Mongol Empire between 1253 and 1255, whereas Marco Polo's travels occurred between 1271 and 1295. Ibn Battuta's travels occurred between 1325 and 1354.

In the west, the Maritime Silk Road went no further north than Egypt.

It consisted of a network of caravan paths winding through the mountains in Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet. It was called the Tea Horse Road because of the commonplace trade of Tibetan ponies for Chinese tea. The route was also important for the role it played in the spread of Buddhism between China and South Asia.

Nestorianism started with the teachings of the Patriarch of Constantinople Nestorius. His teachings were condemned as heretical at the Council of Ephesus in 431, after which many of his supporters relocated to the Sasanian Empire. From here, missionaries travelled along the Silk Road eastwards into Asia.

The ruins can be found in Xinjiang, within the Taklamakan Desert. The ruins of Taxila can be found in Pakistan, within a modern city of the same name, while Nisa can be found eighteen kilometres southwest of Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan.

The city contained many Buddhist monastery temples, until it was captured by an Arab army of the Umayyad Caliphate in the 7th century.