The Silk Road
Jan. 14th, 2010 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceebeegeeSo, I got my Columbia ID the other day, yay! Very exciting strolling across the campus and picking up Columbia newspapers. They had an option for new students where you could upload your own picture as long as it was head-on, in color and showed your shoulders. I thought about uploading some of my yellow bikini pictures...
I've been looking at this new exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History--The Silk Road. It's about the system of routes between Europe and the near and far East traveled by merchants (mostly), statesman, explorers, etc. Marco Polo went to Asia via the Silk Road. I'm especially interested because the bubonic plague entered the European continent via the Silk Road, and some of the cities along the Road were the first hit, like Caffa and Genoa.
We have this image of late-medieval Europe as being so isolated and insular, and certainly it was compared to the High Middle Ages, when the Crusades were in full swing. By the 1300s Europe was slouching towards a Malthusian disaster that came riiiight on schedule. But even against that terrible background...merchants were still making the arduous overland journey to Damascus and Baghdad, to Samarkand, to unnamed Asian cities that glittered in the distance, eager to share their riches.
Anyway, I was gloomily checking out the suggested AMNH admission price--$16, which frankly is a lot for one exhibit, for me anyway. I is po right now. And I'm not even sure if the Silk Road exhibit is extra. Then it occurred to me--the suggested student price is $12!
I've been looking at this new exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History--The Silk Road. It's about the system of routes between Europe and the near and far East traveled by merchants (mostly), statesman, explorers, etc. Marco Polo went to Asia via the Silk Road. I'm especially interested because the bubonic plague entered the European continent via the Silk Road, and some of the cities along the Road were the first hit, like Caffa and Genoa.
We have this image of late-medieval Europe as being so isolated and insular, and certainly it was compared to the High Middle Ages, when the Crusades were in full swing. By the 1300s Europe was slouching towards a Malthusian disaster that came riiiight on schedule. But even against that terrible background...merchants were still making the arduous overland journey to Damascus and Baghdad, to Samarkand, to unnamed Asian cities that glittered in the distance, eager to share their riches.
Anyway, I was gloomily checking out the suggested AMNH admission price--$16, which frankly is a lot for one exhibit, for me anyway. I is po right now. And I'm not even sure if the Silk Road exhibit is extra. Then it occurred to me--the suggested student price is $12!
