Before the Silk Road: Amber, Incense, and Imperial Post

The Silk Road gets the fame, but older paths set the patterns. Amber Road carried Baltic resin south for more than 5,000 years, and beads reached the tomb of Tutankhamun.

The Incense Route stretched up to 3,000 kilometers from Dhofar groves to Petra, where Nabataeans tolled every camel. The Royal Road of Persia ran 111 staging posts from Sardis to Susa, its couriers famed in Herodotus for finishing their rounds.

Explore these ancient corridors in the trade route database and see how commerce, taxes, and empires grew together..