Far more important
Far more important than economic exchange was cultural and intellectual exchange. It was along the Silk Road that the world's major religions spread: Buddhism spread from India to China and Japan, while Islam and Christianity found their followers in Central Asia. Scientists, philosophers, doctors, and architects traveled alongside the merchants. Technologies also diffused—the secret of papermaking, invented in China, reached the Arab world via Samarkand, and then radically changed medieval Europe, making mass printing possible.
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