Secrets of Ancient Empires_2of5_The First Merchants
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00:00In the age of the Internet, we buy and sell across the globe at the push of a button.
00:18The great technological advances which gave birth to the World Wide Web are constantly
00:23driven forward by the needs of commerce and trade.
00:27But this is nothing new.
00:34Archaeologists are still uncovering the secrets of international trade between the ancient
00:39empires of our past.
00:41Even in ancient societies, it seems that trade was the driving force behind change and progress.
01:41Drugs have become the scourge of the modern world.
01:54The terrible cycle of addiction, dependency and despair is depressingly familiar in every
02:00society.
02:07Trafficking in drugs is a global offence.
02:14But new findings point to the fact that drugs like opium may have been traded since the
02:18very earliest of times.
02:21There is now clear evidence to suggest that in ancient societies, there was already a
02:26highly developed trade in cocaine and heroin.
02:34This is just one of the many secrets of trade between ancient empires which are now being
02:39discovered.
02:44In the next hour, we will explore the new breakthroughs in archaeology which are reshaping
02:49our view of ancient merchants.
02:52We explore the trade in obsidian knives and uncover the amazing story of the shipwreck
02:59at Ulu Burun.
03:01We investigate astounding new evidence of an ancient trade across continents.
03:07We also look into the beginnings of trade in silk, the most luxurious of materials,
03:13and how it became a vital link between East and West in ancient times.
03:20There's no doubt that trade and exchange are not only one of the great measures of the
03:29development of society, but also clearly one of the great driving forces.
03:35I think the reason trade's been so important for the growth of civilisation is because
03:40when people trade, they meet. So people would see new things, talk about new things, exchange
03:48news and obviously exchange wives and husbands and so on as well.
03:52And that has meant that they have developed large groups of people working with each other.
03:59But they went on to make artefacts in very complicated ways which lead us to understand
04:05very directly how they ran a bureaucracy.
04:09So every reason to think of trade as being one of the essential requirements for any
04:14kind of expanded urban civilisation, because you have to distribute it, the form that that
04:19trade takes of course may vary.
04:50Archaeologists of the Victorian era assumed that ancient trade was made up largely of
04:55necessities. Bulky items such as grain and livestock. They thought that ancient man would
05:03have been too preoccupied with survival to trade in luxury goods.
05:13But recent evidence of widespread trading dating back as far as the Stone Age has turned
05:18these ideas on their head.
05:21People I don't believe actually behave like this. Their priorities are not always, I must
05:26have my bread first or I must grow my grain first. So I think that the kind of motivations
05:33behind civilisation and trade were not as perhaps as sensible and rational and logical
05:40and utilitarian as they're supposed to be.
05:48Just about the earliest evidence we have for trade is the black stone called obsidian,
05:57which is volcanic product, volcanic glass and it was used in the same way as flint.
06:02And it's got such a sharp edge that it's actually literally sharper than steel and is still
06:08used today by heart surgeons when they want to avoid having a scar tissue as a result
06:14of the operations.
06:16And these sorts of blades are found all over the Middle East dating back to 5 or 6,000
06:21BC and yet they only appear naturally, they occur in just a few locations.
06:27These knives were highly durable, relatively lightweight and almost certainly commanded
06:32a good price. It is intriguing to speculate just how much prestige a noble would gain
06:38from owning one. It seems odd to think of a Stone Age luxury trade. Archaeologists don't
06:44always consider obsidian knives as luxuries. This is because of their obvious functions
06:50as tools or weapons. But in modern terms they certainly represented a top-of-the-range model.
06:59Stone Age man would have recognised this just as much as we do.
07:07Their desirability grew. It seems anyone who had heard of them and could afford one, wanted
07:13one. They were carried across land and sea to sell to eager buyers.
07:21One of the places where obsidian could be found naturally was in ancient Anatolia, present-day
07:27Turkey. Anatolia was also home to the town of Çatalhöyük.
07:35This ancient settlement is thought by archaeologists to be one of the very first sites of civilisation.
07:41Çatalhöyük basically, a lot of people would surmise, actually built up its size and its
07:47reputation as a centre by being a sort of middleman between the volcanic regions where
07:55the stone was quarried and distributing it to other parts of the country.
08:03Çatalhöyük and its peoples thrived for over 1,500 years. Archaeological evidence shows
08:09us that at its height more than 7,000 people were living and trading there.
08:20Wherever this precious black glass was found, trade and population flourished.
08:29One of these sites was the Greek island of Milos. But the ancient obsidian trade here
08:35had other secrets to give up.
08:38Because it's found in only a limited number of places, and because by analysis, by scientific
08:44analysis, you can confirm that if you find this bit of obsidian on the Greek mainland,
08:48you can confirm this piece had to have come from Milos, so you can establish the trading
08:53pattern.
08:58There is an uncanny resemblance between this old world trade and its new world counterpart.
09:03In the region of what is now southern Mexico lived the ancient Olmec peoples.
09:13They also worked with obsidian. But there was none to be mined where they lived.
09:20It could be found in Guatemala, 250 miles to the south, in the Valley of Mexico, 250
09:26miles to the north, and from the Pachuco region, 300 miles to the north.
09:33To do so required endurance testing marches through dense jungle. It was a price worth
09:39paying.
09:43In time, the Olmecs gave way to the people of the city of Teotihuacan, near the site
09:48of modern Mexico City.
09:50It was from this city of pyramids that trade in obsidian tools took off in the ancient
09:55societies of Central America.
09:59The city was laid out in a grid pattern, just like modern New York. It housed many
10:05specialist craft workshops. The making and marketing of obsidian tools became as basic
10:11to their economy as the steel industry has been to modern nations.
10:18Such was the demand for these goods that the city of Teotihuacan imported obsidian from
10:23as far as 500 miles away. The leaders of the city consolidated their power by controlling
10:30the trade. Obsidian tools were traded for luxury items such as cacao, the source of
10:35chocolate.
10:37In ancient times, an important trade in obsidian tools grew up on both sides of the Atlantic.
10:46The traders' goal was to supply a strong demand for high-quality goods that could not
10:51be met locally.
10:53The ancients took long, perilous journeys to fill this gap in the market. The first
10:59merchants must have needed grit and determination, as well as good sense, to succeed. They also
11:06needed new forms of transport.
11:22Development of trade has always been a great stimulus to travel, obviously, and so I suppose
11:37it could be argued that ship design has always benefited because ship design improves, no
11:45doubt, through increasingly long voyages, and those increasingly long voyages have generally
11:52been motivated by trading objectives. I think in most early civilizations there aren't really
11:59very many good reasons to go on long sea voyages other than to get the stuff you need, the
12:05exotic stuff which you're going to get from somewhere else.
12:15The secrets of ancient sea traders have recently been uncovered. The discovery of a shipwreck
12:26at Ulu Burun, off the coast of southern Turkey, has revolutionized thinking about Bronze Age
12:32trade.
12:45The ship sank about 1300 BC, making it the oldest excavated shipwreck. It lies nearly
13:01200 feet below the surface of the sea. The project team from the Institute of Nautical
13:07Archaeology have made 22,500 dives to it in 10 years of research. What their divers have
13:14brought up from the wreck has stunned scholars worldwide.
13:23The Ulu Burun wreck has proved itself one of the greatest archaeological finds of all
13:27time. Tons of artifacts have been recovered. The exquisite beauty and craftsmanship of
13:34some of the items have few equals, if any. The wreck truly merits the description of
13:40a treasure ship.
13:48The variety and richness of the materials recovered simply amazed the project team.
13:55On board were ebony logs from tropical Africa, amber beads from northern Europe, a bronze
14:02sword from Italy, a seal carved in Mesopotamia, pottery from Cyprus, ceramics from Greece,
14:07tin from the Middle East, and even a bronze sword.
14:12The project team have been working on the wreck for a long time.
14:26The wreck has been excavated in many parts of the world.
14:30The wreck has been excavated in many parts of the world.
14:37Also on board were 175 ingots of glass, some cobalt blue, some turquoise, along with one
14:44unique example, coloured lavender. There were four faience drinking cups, one in the shape
14:51of a woman. Ostrich eggshells were found, which were probably used as receptacles. The
14:57shells of tortoises destined to become sounding boxes for lutes. Two duck-shaped ivory cosmetic
15:04containers were brought to the surface. Even an ivory trumpet was discovered. The list
15:10of luxuries seems almost endless.
15:14But this was not all. Folding wooden writing tables were found. These tables had their
15:20insides covered in beeswax. Writing or accounts were then scored into the soft material.
15:29It has been said that had the beeswax not been washed away by the sea, the wreck would
15:33have given us the world's oldest books.
15:38Most interestingly, the ship was carrying ten tonnes of copper and one tonne of tin,
15:44the constituents of bronze. These were in the form of ingots, solid metal bars. This
15:51was enough bronze to equip an ancient army with weaponry. There were also animal-shaped
15:56stone weights. The weights are of particular interest as they were used by merchants to
16:02assess the value of traded ingots.
16:07The discovery of the ingots and the weights points distinctly to the likelihood of the
16:10ship being part of a complex commercial operation.
16:21The extraordinary variety of items on the ship leads us away from the idea that it was
16:25loaded full at one port only. It stored in its hold goods from three continents. Some
16:32of these goods had travelled great distances even to get to the port where they were taken
16:37aboard.
16:40It seems likely that the ship plied a circular route around the Mediterranean. For this reason,
16:45it is difficult to place the ownership of the craft. The personal effects of the crew
16:50suggest they came from across the region.
17:11The great ports of the Egyptian pharaohs would have certainly been a port of call for seafaring
17:18traders. There's plenty of evidence for their extravagant tastes in fine garments and beautifully
17:25crafted utensils of all kinds. But recent research into their use of drugs and other
17:34means of transport has shown that the Egyptian pharaohs were not the only ones who were involved.
17:39The Egyptian pharaohs were not the only ones who were involved.
17:45But recent research into their use of drugs has thrown the most basic assumptions about early trade into doubt.
17:57People often think that drugs are a kind of modern thing almost, but certainly we know
18:02that people were trading in drugs for thousands of years. One very clear example of this was
18:08that Cyprus was sending a lot of opium to Egypt during the time of Tutankhamun.
18:21The story of the ancient Egyptian drug trade begins in Cyprus. It seems that a major cultivation
18:28took place on the island of a highly valued flower. It was a plant known for both its
18:35medicinal uses. It was the opium poppy. Opium was reputed to cure or alleviate a multitude
18:43of ailments. It was used as a sedative painkiller for wounds and abscesses. It was also considered
18:50a powerful aphrodisiac. This idea undoubtedly increased its value considerably.
18:58But opium had religious uses as well. By drinking the juice of the poppy, a devotee could induce
19:05a trance in which they might encounter the gods.
19:12The Cypriot traders in opium had the advantage that their product was lightweight, but they
19:17had a difficulty. They traded across large distances that meant language barriers had
19:22to be overcome. Their solution was ingenious and elegant.
19:30This was very much a good example of international trade and the logistics of how international
19:36trade worked because obviously a lot of the people that were trading didn't understand
19:41each other's languages. And one of the best ways of, as it were, advertising the product
19:48that was being imported was the shape of the vessels in which it was carried. And what
19:55they did was they made these special juglets that were actually shaped like an opium poppy
20:01so that people could see what was inside it.
20:06These vessels, known as base ring juglets, have been found in tombs all across the Near
20:11East. Scientific tests on the residue found inside juglets discovered in Egypt have shown
20:17that they once contained opium.
20:23If further evidence were needed that the pharaohs used opium, the tomb of Pharaoh Tutmore III
20:28supplies it. Here, an opium poppy capsule was found inside his last resting place.
20:36These revelations may seem extraordinary enough, but new findings from Germany are causing
20:42a seismic shift in the theories of early drug trade.
21:06Dr Svetlana Balabanova, one of the world's most highly respected toxicologists, tested
21:12one of the Egyptian mummies at the Munich Museum for traces of drugs. This was the 3,000
21:18year old mummy, Hennut Tuwi, the Lady of the Two Lands.
21:26She examined hair and tissue using the same methods used in criminal courts.
21:32When the test results came back, Dr Balabanova was so astonished she was sure there must
21:38be an error. The Lady, Hennut Tuwi, had tested positive for nicotine and cocaine.
21:45Under current thinking, this result was simply impossible. Tobacco and cocaine are New World
21:51drugs. History insists that Sir Walter Raleigh introduced smoking tobacco into Europe in
21:57the 16th century. Cocaine is not thought to have crossed the Atlantic Ocean until the
22:02Victorian period. Certainly, any such cargo to Europe would be unimaginable to historians
22:09before Columbus and the discovery of the Americas.
22:18The doctor understandably thought her results incorrect. She sent samples from the mummy
22:25to three independent labs to do their own objective tests. She was sure they would fail
22:30to corroborate her findings. Surely some fault in her method would be detected.
22:42The independent laboratories confirmed her original findings. Cocaine and nicotine were
22:49present in the tissue of the mummy. The mystery had suddenly deepened dramatically.
23:04Dr Balabanova set about testing other mummies from the Egyptian Empire. She found that about
23:09a third tested positive for nicotine and cocaine. She was stunned.
23:16She wrote a paper on her findings. Its publication proved so controversial that she received
23:23scathing letters from other practitioners in her field. They feared she would bring their
23:28branch of science into disrepute.
23:34Little further research has been done since her earth-shattering findings were made public.
23:40Few scientists are willing to risk their reputations by tackling head-on the astonishing
23:45implications of her discovery. Did the ancient world partake in a transatlantic drug trade?
23:53It is not surprising that few are willing to concede the possibility. And yet, the tests
23:59done on the Munich mummies are generally considered watertight. The questions raised by the doctor's
24:06work hang tantalisingly in the air.
24:10Conspicuous by their absence from the Uluburun shipwreck are coins of any kind. Perhaps the
24:37amber beads or the metal ingots could have served as common measures of exchange, but
24:43most likely the sea traders would have bartered for their goods.
24:47Barter trade was meant bringing a lot of sometimes very bulky goods with you and swapping them
24:53on the spot for other things you wanted. And one of the reasons why barter can actually
24:58be preferred to cash exchange is because if you have very big transportation costs, if
25:05the distances are big, then it makes sense to take with you the things that your customers
25:11will want. So you can on the spot swap something you've got, like animals, for something you
25:17want, like clothes or cloth.
25:26The barter system helped in overcoming language barriers when trading and is still used by
25:31many salesmen throughout the world. Of course today we are more used to credit cards and
25:37cash, but once again it seems that trading with ancient money was far more widespread
25:42than originally thought.
25:47Often in the past other societies have had certain objects which are sort of like money,
25:53but can only buy you a certain type of thing and couldn't possibly be used to buy something
25:59else.
26:00In China, for example, cowrie shells were used as a form of currency very early and
26:07they seem to have been traded from a far away location, the Maldives, they think, was a
26:13location for cowrie shells that found their way to China. Because of their scarcity and
26:17you couldn't reproduce or forge them, they formed as currency too. So various sorts of
26:23currencies, whether or not natural like cowrie shells or minted by political authorities
26:29or powerful merchant corporations, these sorts of currencies became very useful for
26:37trade.
26:40The old theory about coinage was that it was invented by the Greeks in the 7th century
26:44BC. People believed that it spread northwards and was taken all over Europe by the conquering
26:52Romans. Once again recent thinking has its own ideas.
27:00Coinage
27:12Excavations in India have revealed coins minted as far back as the earliest Greek coins.
27:20The gold coins of the Kushana and Gupta dynasties are considered to be among the finest of the
27:26ancient world.
27:30Bronze coins
27:38Bronze coins started to appear in China at about the same time. Some, from central China,
27:44were shaped like knives. Others from the Shandang Peninsula in the east were shaped like today's
27:50coins. They were cast rather than struck and each carried an inscription with the name
27:56of the state and city that produced it. These coins needed to be large to contain this writing.
28:03Later Chinese coins were circular, usually with a square hole in the middle for stringing
28:07them on cord.
28:10This sort of money, if you like, solved some of the problems of barter. Barter trade was
28:17meant bringing a lot of sometimes very bulky goods with you and swapping them on the spot
28:23for other things you wanted. These sorts of currencies facilitated exchange because
28:28you could carry them rather easily, you didn't have to move around with all the products
28:32that you'd use if you were going to barter. And so we can see very early civilisations
28:39as beginning to frame, create the structure, the framework for market economies as we understand
28:47them.
28:50It is now thought the world's earliest coinage came from Lydia, which is today part of Turkey.
28:56Lydia was rich in gold and also in electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver. The Lydian
29:03kings used this to make coins and the coinage was well known by the time of King Croesus
29:08in the mid-6th century BC. The Lydian capital Sardis was in contact with Greek city-states
29:16and merchants. It now seems likely that the Greeks got the idea of coinage from central
29:21Turkey.
29:24The development of early currencies undoubtedly facilitated trade in that period. Minting
29:31precious metals into coins that bore the mark of the political authority that issued them
29:38of course was a very important step in generating a much more commoditised form of trade because
29:45it allowed a kind of more abstract measurement of value and it, from then on, gold and silver,
29:52precious metals, became the essential marks of value for much of Europe.
29:59The firm establishing of trade produced stability and wealth, but it was also the bringer of
30:04change. Ancient peoples did reach out to discover each other because they wanted to exchange
30:10what they produced for what they did not have. Very often, what they did not have were
30:16luxury goods. As the objects found with the Ulub-Urun shipwreck have shown, the trade
30:24in luxury goods became a widespread and lucrative business.
30:30Luxuries and trade in luxuries seems to have happened very early and there are some very
30:35practical reasons for that. Moving around items that aren't very heavy and not very bulky but are
30:42very valuable is obviously the sort of trade that can be more easily undertaken over large distances.
30:49Because if you're carrying a sort of rucksack full of flint over a couple of sets of hills to trade
30:55it, that's hard work. It would be much better if you've got a medicinal plant, for example, which is
31:02quite rare in some areas but everyone recognises it has certain uses, like it's an anaesthetic or it's a stimulant.
31:09If you fill your rucksack up with that, you can make a lot more business doing that kind of thing.
31:18The highly profitable trade in luxuries was a truly international business. The new merchants dealt
31:24not in perishable goods, but in those items that were the most beautiful, the most exotic, the most
31:30exquisite and rare. Thankfully for us, they also dealt in artefacts that have survived the passing years.
31:39Without these, we would know far less about the remarkable and extensive trade routes that supplied the ancient world.
31:50It tends to bring different cultures together. It's a kind of international language, I suppose.
31:58People simply like to see things they haven't seen before. It's a sort of insatiable cycle.
32:05It's demanding constantly new things in the same way people are always wanting to go to new exotic places
32:12or new restaurants or whatever. People are always looking for something different.
32:17You can see that these are one of the ways in which this other technology, this technology of social control,
32:24a political technology, if you like, began to be developed, because they played a role in showing,
32:30in marking out the elite from the rest.
32:35The elite classes of ancient civilisations soon found new ways of distinguishing themselves from others in society.
32:42They gathered finely crafted goods that adorned their bodies and homes.
32:47They sought out items that would attract the admiration of their peers.
32:55In some societies, the rulers maintained a large part of their prestige and esteem
33:02by controlling the trade in prestige goods coming in from outside,
33:08and they could then bestow these on their retinue, who would therefore be of very high prestige.
33:14So they were able to enhance their power by controlling the trade, particularly in valuables and high prestige goods.
33:22And often they came from far away, so they also spoke about and symbolised the way in which
33:28locally important people were in some kind of distant diplomatic or some other sort of political relationship
33:36with distant, powerful figures.
33:53The Silk Road
33:58The Silk Road
34:21The story of the Silk Road is one of transcontinental trade in the ancient world.
34:29It is also fascinating to realise that it was China that first sent explorers west to discover new cultures and to trade.
34:39In the past, historians thought that the great civilisation of China developed with little or no contact with western cultures.
34:48Between China and India lies the virtually impassable barrier of the Himalayan mountains.
34:55Further north lies the ferociously hostile environment of the desert of Taklimakan.
35:01The temperature in this desert can reach over 50 degrees Celsius.
35:06So arid is it there that a local people named it the Land of Death.
35:12The Taklimakan is flanked by high mountains to the north and south.
35:18Even so, ancient traders found a way through.
35:23Along its southern and northern fringes there are a series of oases.
35:28These oases were the key to one of the most famed of all ancient trade routes, the Silk Road.
35:36For centuries, before the conquest of the Arabs in 751, this was the basic link between East and West.
35:45And traders of every nationality came here to trade.
35:50They came here to trade with China.
35:53They came here to trade with India.
35:56They came here to trade with China.
35:59This was the basic link between East and West.
36:02And traders of every nationality from central Iran moved eastwards primarily to get hold of silk, but also other goods.
36:13And the Chinese were interested in getting people, musicians, dancing girls, and certain kinds of spices by this route.
36:25This route made famous the names of Tashkent and Samarkand.
36:29The route was never a single road, but several pathways that changed over time to accommodate new political boundaries or to avoid banditry.
36:42Contrary to popular myth, it was not Marco Polo who first used the Silk Road to discover China.
36:49In fact, it was China that long before him first sent emissaries to the West.
36:56The birth of the route was the product of difficult times.
36:59During the Han Dynasty, the Chinese were under attack from the Jiangnu people.
37:10Emperor Wudi decided to send Suankan west to try to gain an alliance against the Jiangnu.
37:17While on his dangerous journey, Suankan was captured and thrown into jail.
37:23He never made the alliance he was sent for.
37:28But eventually, he returned home with something far more valuable.
37:32He had seen marvellous horses that were larger than those available in China at the time.
37:41Horses do not breed well in China. It's too wet and too hot.
37:45But to fight the nomads on horseback, they needed horses.
37:49So for centuries, they would trade with the nomads with bales of silk.
37:54These bales of silk made their way westwards and became what we know as the Silk Route trade.
38:01It didn't take the Chinese long to realise that they had a wonderful product to trade.
38:06Silk became hugely valued, especially as its only source was China.
38:12The Chinese had perfected its production several millennia ago.
38:16The manufacture of silk is very sophisticated in its way.
38:20It involves taking a cocoon and unravelling the silk so that it can be used as an incredibly fine material for making cloth.
38:30It has, like all Chinese crafts, to be done on an enormous scale.
38:34You have to think of millions of worms being turned into silk cloth.
38:39Only the Chinese did this.
38:41And, of course, this beautiful cloth had a sheen and would take lovely coloured dyes.
38:47And these colours made silk even more alluring.
38:51And, of course, silk was a very highly prized and valuable commodity for centuries, for millennia.
38:57And we can see that silk as a luxury good was traded a very long way into the steppe lands of Eurasia.
39:05And various different traders and merchants would pass on this silk until it arrived in Rome.
39:17In the West, the Roman Empire emerged as the dominant power.
39:23The Romans first encountered Chinese silk on campaign against the Parthians.
39:28Understandably, they were deeply impressed by the beauty and texture of the material.
39:37Silk soon became fashionable in Rome.
39:46The Parthians quickly realised there was a lucrative trade to be had in bringing the silk to the West.
39:58Trade
40:02Trade by way of middlemen through the Parthian and Persian Empires, who straddled the trade routes, was very ancient.
40:12And was continuing, for example, throughout the time of the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty in China.
40:19These two great states never exchanged diplomatic embassies or made any formal political contact,
40:27but they did exchange enormous amounts of silk and other luxury goods of gold and silver coinage,
40:34which flowed via the Persian civilisation in the middle.
40:40The Romans knew silk was not made by the Parthians.
40:44It was not long before they sent their own agents east to find the source of silk.
40:52The Romans quickly found that the Chinese would not easily part with the secret of silk.
41:01The silk route which they used to get to the West was called the Silk Route.
41:07The Silk Route, which took silk from China to the West, was economically very important to the Chinese state.
41:15And because they had the monopoly on silk, they very jealously guarded it.
41:19So, for example, it's said that there was a death penalty for anybody who smuggled the silkworm out of China.
41:26I mean, one of the things about trade, obviously, is that you don't want other potential rivals to know your sources, if possible.
41:34You want to keep it secret where it's coming from and how it's made and all these kinds of things.
41:39And, of course, you can see it today.
41:41I mean, we have all kinds of corporate espionage now,
41:44which is really just an elaboration of what's been going on throughout history.
41:52Despite the attentions of the West, the secret of silk remained in Chinese hands for centuries.
41:59In the 6th century, about 550 AD, the Byzantine emperor managed to get his hands on some silkworms
42:07that were allegedly smuggled out of China by some monks who had put them in hollow staffs.
42:13And, eventually, in the Roman West, or the Byzantine West, silk industries were established.
42:20And silk was woven in Western Europe, in Lyon, but never, ever was it smuggled out of China.
42:27And never, ever was it made on scale that is made in China.
42:57Gold, ivory, gems and glass headed east to be traded for silk, furs, ceramics and jade.
43:13It would be intriguing to know at what rate Western gold was exchanged for Eastern jade.
43:19Gold was the most highly-valued commodity in the West, whereas jade was in the East.
43:33Jade doesn't come all over China.
43:35It's found in two areas in what we would call the Neolithic period.
43:39It's found in the north, and it's found in the south.
43:43It doesn't come all over China.
43:45It's found in two areas in what we would call the Neolithic period, that is, pre-the use of metal.
43:50It occurs around Shanghai and in the far north, north of Peking.
43:56And that is significant because it means that Chinese don't get into gold.
44:01Whereas our cultures are based on gold and light,
44:05we have huge numbers of metaphors about the role of spirit, spirituality,
44:11which is related metaphorically to gold and light.
44:14In China, that is missing because they didn't get into gold.
44:18They got into jade.
44:20And having got into jade, they stayed in it.
44:24Interestingly, China was not the only civilisation
44:28that valued jade more highly than gold.
44:42When the Spaniards conquered the Aztecs,
44:45gold was the most valuable commodity in the world.
44:50When the Spaniards conquered the Aztec Empire,
44:53their lust for gold was insatiable.
44:56This led many scholars to assume
44:59that it was the most highly prized material in ancient Central America.
45:08The Aztecs had many gold objects that were melted down by the Spanish conquistadors,
45:14but many jade objects survived.
45:20Jade was also more highly valued than gold
45:23by the more ancient civilisations of Mexico,
45:26which the Aztecs had brutally suppressed.
45:32In the Olmec era, which lasted from about 1450 BC to 100 BC,
45:38many remarkable lifelike figures were made of serpentine and jade.
45:43Most Olmec objects are made from blue-green jade,
45:47but a few are of the transparent, dark-green jade
45:51that is so highly prized in China.
46:00For the Olmecs, jade was not just a precious stone,
46:04but also a symbol for the heart of the Earth.
46:07Their cult of Earth God led them to bury many jade objects
46:11as soon as they were made,
46:13which is why so many have been so well preserved.
46:18Other cultures in Central America used jade for axes, chisels and weapons,
46:23but the Olmecs seemed to have used their jade
46:26mainly for objects of art and devotion.
46:29These were widely traded around the large area that is now Mexico.
46:34The two main thrusts of Olmec expansion,
46:37across Mexico to the north-west and towards Guatemala to the south-east,
46:41can be explained by the need to guarantee their supplies of jade.
46:48It's possible that the continued fondness of native peoples
46:52for jade, serpentine and turquoise
46:55may have reduced their opposition to the Spanish removal of gold.
47:10Over and again,
47:12new discoveries have pushed back the date of the start of trading.
47:16Furthermore, trade routes have been shown to be more extensive
47:20and complex than previously thought.
47:24I think there was a lot more contact, even in prehistoric times,
47:28let alone ancient times,
47:30between different cultures than perhaps we've realised.
47:34A lot of the goods were traded over quite long distances.
47:39Now, it's not like you can get something sent by DHL
47:43from one country to another or something like that,
47:46where something from a very faraway place
47:48gets to another very faraway place very quickly.
47:51It didn't have an international trade in the way that we understand it,
47:55but there were a lot of middlemen along the way,
47:58and it's not very long before you can trace things over hundreds of kilometres
48:02or perhaps thousands in some instances, very, very far back in time.
48:07As the voyage of discovery goes on,
48:10scholars know each new find raises as many questions as it answers.
48:15The search for the marvellous secrets of ancient civilisations continues.
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