ANCIENT ROADS

In this post we will deal with pointing out and briefly describing the most important physical roads that have been traveled to a greater extent by the human being, from the most remote times.

We must clearly differentiate between what are the paths that have been built in history and what the individuals, men and women, comment on walking and what their particular objectives have been.

Traducido al Español

Well we can divide the roads in those of Antiquity that goes back to us several thousands of years in time and those that have a less remote past, around 1000 years before our era. Both can be subdivided according to the type of use to which they were destined: commercial (goods, animals and slaves), religious (pilgrimage, crusades, processions, penances, celebrations, ceremony), military (conquest and invasion), migrations, transit and circulation of persons, funerary and mortuary (death, funeral, mourning), etc.

There are several important regions and countries in the world that merit mention for their distinction in the construction of roads that were made in antiquity about their territory, which were distinguished by their extraordinary features in their lattices and configurations, by their design, stroke, amplitude, architecture and construction. China and India are the most outstanding nations in this line, in the most remote periods. In the most recent epoch, of 1000 years b. C., we can point to the ancient nation of the Mayans, the Inca roads with the Chaskis, and those built by the Roman Empire on the many lands conquered.

The great roads were initiated by the need to exchange merchandises and goods between nations. Originally they were performed on foot (pedestrians, walkers), however, they were incorporating to those crossings the animals of load, and later, with the invention of the wheel (3000 years b. C. in Mesopotamia) a greater exchange was achieved by using carts thrown away for animals. The world civilization advanced as the need to transport and market large volumes of merchandise among the peoples increased, so that road communication had the imperative destiny to develop mostly.

There are records that from the sixth century b. C., in the territory of Persia, they began to connect certain cardinal roads with others, arriving to have important networks that communicated commercial zones separated by 1500 to 2000 miles of distance. With the invention of the wheel, in the 3rd millennium b. C., there was a considerable increase in the connection of these roads and the construction of new ones in the region of Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley (Pakistan, Afghanistan and part of India).

The most important route, probably, was the one that was built for the commercialization of silk, in China, in the 11th century b. C. Likewise, in this same nation, in the third century b. C., the most important road system was developed, allowing a network of communications throughout the country.

Already in a closer time (2nd century b. C. to 3rd century AD), the Romans built a network of road communications, the famous Roman Roads, which united all the provinces and peoples conquered with their city-state Rome, which allowed them to have the administrative and governing control of all of them. The total development of Roman roads was 55 thousand miles, equivalent to 80 thousand kilometers, joining together all of Europe along with North Africa.

In America, during the second millennium of our era (Empuaries Huari and Puquina), one of the most important road networks was built, the Inca Roads, which communicated large areas of land in the south of the continent, from Peru to Chile and Argentina, including intermediate countries such as Ecuador and Bolivia, which had an extension of 7500 miles of development. It is important to note that the rugged geography that it had in some parts of its route (rivers, ravines, canyons), forced to build hanging bridges.

In the same American continent, in its central part, the ancient Mayans built a network of roads (1st millennium AD), called “White Roads” (in Maya Sacbé or Cuxan-Sum). Unlike the Roman Roads, the Mayan Roads were not defined to address a hegemonic center, because there was not, but obeyed the strict communication needs for the flow of people and goods, among all the villages and housing centers of this nation.

Let us praise those ancient roads by daily practicing our walks along the paths near the neighborhood.

Traducido al Español

2 Replies to “ANCIENT ROADS”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.