Trans-Saharan Trade
Introduced| English | Meaning |
|---|---|
| camel saddle/ˈkæml ˈsædl/ | A seat that let camels carry heavier loads across deserts. |
| caravans/ˈkærəvænz/ | Groups of merchants and animals travelling together for safety. |
A sea of sand needs a ship
- The Sahara is crossable only with an animal that can go days without water and carry weight.
- The growth of interregional trade was encouraged by innovations in existing transportation technologies — here the camel saddle 骆驼鞍 and organised caravans 商队.
- The saddle is the small technical change that makes the large commercial one possible.
Select all the transportation innovations the CED names here.
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The astrolabe is maritime; paper money is a commercial, not transport, innovation.
The same causal sentence, a third route
- Improved transportation technologies and commercial practices led to an increased volume of trade and expanded the geographical range of existing trade routes, including the trans-Saharan trade network.
- The CED uses this sentence for the Silk Roads, the Indian Ocean and the Sahara.
- So the three networks are variations on one argument — which is exactly what subtopic 2.7 will ask you to compare.
Mali's position mattered because it sat where...
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It taxed the meeting — the Srivijaya logic on land.
Mali and the pull of an empire
- The expansion of empires — including Mali in West Africa — facilitated Afro-Eurasian trade and communication as new people were drawn into the economies and trade networks.
- Mali sat where gold from the south met salt from the north, and taxed the meeting.
- It is the West African counterpart of the Mongol sentence in 2.2 — the same mechanism, a different empire.
Cause, effect, or the complementarity itself?
Sort each item in the trans-Saharan network.
The CED uses the same causal sentence for the Silk Roads, the Indian Ocean and the Sahara.
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The three networks are variations on one argument — which subtopic 2.7 asks you to compare.
The camel saddle is a cause, not a curiosity. The CED lists it as one of the innovations in existing transportation technologies that encouraged interregional trade — a small technical change that made a continental commercial change possible, exactly as the bill of exchange did on the Silk Roads.
Trans-Saharan trade ran on a genuine ____: the south had gold and lacked salt.
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That is why the route persisted without needing a luxury fashion to sustain it.
Gold going out, salt coming in
- Trans-Saharan trade ran on a genuine complementarity: the south had gold and lacked salt; the north had salt and wanted gold.
- That is why the route persisted for centuries without needing a luxury fashion to sustain it.
- It also pulled Islam southward with the merchants, which is why 2.5's cultural consequences include sub-Saharan Africa.
Select all the effects of trans-Saharan trade growth.
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The saddle is a cause, not an effect.
Causes and effects again
- Causes: the camel saddle, caravan organisation, commercial practices, and imperial expansion.
- Effects: greater volume, wider range, the drawing-in of new peoples, and the spread of Islam along the route.
- The objective names causes and effects, so an answer that gives only one side has answered half.
Gold from the forest zone and salt from the desert mines meet at Mali's markets. Mali taxes both directions and pays for an army with the proceeds, which protects the route, which brings more traffic. It is the Srivijaya logic on land — control the meeting place, not the goods.
Innovations in transportation technologies — the camel saddle and organised caravans — plus commercial practices increased the volume of trade and expanded the range of the trans-Saharan network. Mali's expansion facilitated trade and communication as new people were drawn into the networks. Gold and salt were genuinely complementary.
Write from gold going north
- A camel caravan crossed the Sahara.
- West African gold moved one way and salt the other.
Which way did gold and salt move?
The Sahara trade swapped gold for salt.
Which way did West African gold move?
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Gold left the savanna. Salt entered it.