It’s a chapter of history nearly forgotten: Intrepid merchants and explorers traveled thousands of miles, not along storied caravan routes, but across the great blue expanse of the Indian Ocean, exchanging goods and ideas, forming bonds and challenging our notions about the ancient world.
“People think that it must have taken a long time to get anywhere, that it must have been difficult to travel long distances, but that is not true,” says archaeologist Marilee Wood, whose research focuses on the network’s glass bead trade. “This [field of study] is about opening that all up.”
In fact, by the time Marco Polo set out to explore East Asia in the 13th century, communities across Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean had been exchanging their wares for thousands of years in a vast network driven by the monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean.
