Silk Road Surprises

• There was no single "Silk Road." It was a complex network of trade routes.
  
  
• People often traveled at night to avoid scorching desert heat.
  
  
• It takes about 2,500 silkworms to produce one pound of silk, enough for one robe.
  
  
• Merchants sometimes packed melons and other fruit in lead containers filled with snow and ice from the mountains before sending them along the Silk Road.
  
  
• Used in military insignias, hats, fans, and brushes, bird feathers were important trade items on the Silk Road.
  
  
• Both one-humped and two-humped camels hauled goods along the Silk Road. Camel humps don't store water. They store fat, which provides energy.
  
  
• When glass first reached China, it was treated as the rarest of jewels.
  
  
• The "Arabic" numerals we use today were based on an Indian system and popularized by an Islamic mathematician in the early 800s.