Land-based+routes+across+the+Sahara,+Eurasia,+and+Europe

Economic Recovery Sparks Change In Europe

The Revival of Trade and Travel  In the 1100s, trade improved in Europe and warfare declined. Demand for goods increased and trade routes expanded. The Crusaders brought back goods to Europe from the Middle East. Trade centers arose along trade routes. Along these routes, merchants traded local goods for those from distant markets in the Middle East and more farther east into Asia.
 * Trade Routes Expand**

In Constantinople, merchants bought various items. They shipped these products by sea to Venice. Traders there then filled their merchandises onto pack mules and headed to Flanders up north. There, other traders bought the products at trade markets and sent them to England and lands beside the Baltic Sea. Northern Europeans paid for these products with other products they had.

Muslim Civilization's Golden Age

Social and Economic Advances Muslim civilization prospered under the Abbasids. Their empire stretched into Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and even Europe.

**Muslims Build an International Trade Network** Merchants crossed the Sahara and the Silk Road to China, and sailed across the sea to India and Asia. New products and ideas were exchanged, and the religion of Islam was introduced to many areas. Muslim, Jewish, and Christian traders traveled the Silk Road toward China and were a vital link in the exchange of goods between East Asia and Europe. All this greatly helped the Muslim economy, leading to the development of partnerships and the use of a credit and banking system.

Kingdoms and Trading States of East Africa

Axum: Center of Goods and Ideas

**Trade Brings Wealth** Around A.D. 350, the kingdom of Axum defeated Nubia. The port of Adulison on the Red Sea and the upland capital city of Axum are two main cities of Axum, which profited them because of their strategic location. Descended from people of the Middle East and African farmers, were the peoples of Axum. Axum was in charge of a rich trade network connecting India, Africa, and the Mediterranean, around A.D. 400. During their travels, traders exchanged various cultural influences.

In these two cities, a wide variety of enslaved people and goods funneled in and out of the markets. Traders brought animal hides, ivory, and gold to the markets of Axum in Africa. Products from farther south along the African coast came to the harbor of Adulis on the Red Sea. From there, the markets provided spices, cotton cloth from India and other lands further away than the Indian Ocean, precious stones, and iron. Using the Red Sea, ships transported these goods, where they gathered goods from Europe and countries along the Mediterranean.

**Axum Converts to Christianity** In the 300s, Axum grew into a Christian kingdom. In the beginning, this helped build up ties with other Christian countries: North Africa and the Mediterranean world. However, in the 600s, when Islam started to move across North Africa, Axum lost power and turned isolated from its own trade network. Axum weakened due to economic decline and civil war.

Ethiopia: A Christian Outpost

**An Isolated Ethiopia** Axum’s legacy remained alive for centuries in a part of present-day Ethiopia. There, Christianity was a unifying effect that helped give Ethiopia a distinct identity among Muslim neighbors. In Ethiopia, a distinct culture formed. Under King Lalibela’s orders, Christian churches were carved below ground into mountain rocks in the 1200s.

Ethiopian Christians managed to hold onto ties with the Holy Land; making some pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Over time, Ethiopian Christianity consumed local customs.