Silk Road

The compendium name for the routes by which silk and other valuable trade goods were transported from China to the West. By sea, the route tended to go via modern-day Malaysia, through the Indias, and then via Arabia to the Egyptian markets.
Overland the silk tended to be caravanned across southern Mongolia and the edges of the Gobi, and from thence to trade points such as Samarkand, before heading for Constantinople via one or other side of Turkey.