(people.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-12-22 18:46

Chinese archeologists believe Persian-style silver basins, ivory, glass bowls and crystal-bead strings unearthed from a leud tomb dating back to the Warring States Period (475 BC-221 BC) in south China's Guangzhou City, suggested China's marine trade with the Middle and West Asia began much earlier than that through the ancient "Land Silk Road".

The "imported commodities" came to China in the third century Before Christ. However, the ancient "Silk Road" that starts from Xi'an City in western China was explored some 200 years later in 119 BC, said Chinese historians.

Chinese official historical records show that foreign trade through the "marine silk road", so to speak, to other Asian countries started as early as the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-24 AD).

Chen Bojian, a renowned historian, said that business may start much earlier than what the records say, because most of the sea trade was done by private businesses rather than officials. Although there is no indication that Guangzhou is the starting point of the "marine silk road", archeological researches have come to prove it a distributing center for cargo exports via the Indian Sea, said Chen who has been devoted to the study for more than a decade.

"Guangzhou is a de facto departure station of the sea trade," he said.

According to Chen, boats steaming from Guangdong Province would sail southwestward along the coastline to load goods or replenish freshwater at ports in Guangdong Province and the neighboring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and then depart for the west or the southeast Asia.

Unlike the ancient "Land Silk Road" that virtually non-existed after the Tang Dynasty (618-907), because of harsh geographic conditions and political turmoils, the "marine silk road" has been in use all along, said Chen.