| # | Polity | Coded Value | Tags | Year(s) | Edit | Desc |
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Not until later. Uruk phase c3800-3000 BCE: "bureaucracy sent orders to specialised workmen, planned and constructed key infrastructures (such as canals, temples, or walls), and engaged in long-distance trade."
[1]
-- key infrastructures likely to have included some roads along which trade was carried.
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 79) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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Small roads were constructed through Monte Alban, but sources do not suggest there is evidence for a road network linking settlements.
[1]
We asked Gary Feinman about roads in Oaxacan polities and he said: "It depends on what you mean by roads. There are definite roads/accessways within sites. Blanton defines some at Monte Albán and Linda [Nicholas] and I defined some at El Palmillo. These likely were not paved, but they may have been banked and were cleared. Between sites there are known 16th century trails, which were likely used for a long, long time. Again, they likely were not paved, but there were no beasts of burden."
[2]
Coded absent: we do not count accessways within settlements or paths and trails not constructed deliberately as roads.
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. [2]: Gary Feinman, personal communication to Peter Turchin and Jenny Reddish, March 2020. |
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"There are [...] no signs of communal construction activities, and no preserved facilities to store agricultural surplus. [...] It has to be considered that the preservation of features in Nok sites is generally poor and that the amount of data is not too large and regionally restricted to a rather small key study area."
[1]
[1]: (Breunig and Ruppe 2016: 253) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/ES4TRU7R. |
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There were trails, and these could possibly be called “roads” because sections of them were made of stone for easier travel (e.g. over sharp igneous rock)
[1]
.
[1]: Kirch, P. V. 1985. Feathered Gods and Fishhooks: An Introduction to Hawaiian Archaeology and Prehistory. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Pg. 266. |
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Not until later. Uruk phase c3800-3000 BCE: "bureaucracy sent orders to specialised workmen, planned and constructed key infrastructures (such as canals, temples, or walls), and engaged in long-distance trade."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 79) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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Roads were present from Wari times, but it is unknown whether the Late Intermediate polities maintained and used them. According to Alan Covey, this was not the case, and he questions the emphasis put on Wari roads by archaeologists: "Not in Cuzco, and despite the assertions that the Incas used Wari infrastructure to conquer the highlands—which is really an argument for how the Incas could build an empire so quickly, one that is no longer needed with the preponderance of archaeological evidence—the regional archaeology along the route of the Inca road to Chinchaysuyu (which passed through Ayacucho) shows no Wari settlement along it (Belisle and Covey 2010; Belisle 2014). The chronicles state that the route was established in Inca times, when the ninth ruler built the bridge across the Apurimac, but that is also an assertion that requires due scepticism."
[1]
[1]: (Alan Covey 2015, personal communication) |
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Smith et al mention trail and road markers, but no permanent paved roads: ’Other models, each with specific archaeological correlates, could be utilized to examine other relationships. Information on fortifications, boat houses, or the size of dwellings might be used to generate data on the position of farms in political hierarchies. The size and distribution of chapels, cemeteries, and other sacred structures could provide information on religious hierarchies. Other features of the landscape (réttar, þing sites), trail or road markers (Jónsson 1980), boundary markers (Jónsson 1983), and trading or harbor sites (Þorkelsson [Page 195] 1984) could provide information on patterns of regional integration. Modern agricultural data on the productivity of different vegetative communities could also be integrated with archaeological information on farm complexes to estimate their foddering capabilities, their potential productivity, and the degree to which their resources were over- or under-exploited or changed through time (cf. McGovern 1980). The integration of data on economic, political, and ecclesiastic rank, economic strategies, regional integration, and biological productivity should permit detailed analyses of the structure of and changes in regional socioeconomic and political organization and evaluation of the role of different social and ecological factors in causing or directing cultural change.’
[1]
According to Hálfdanarson, roads were absent from Commonwealth-Era Iceland: ’The history of Iceland reflects its harsh ecological conditions in various ways. Although the country is not well suited for agriculture because the short summers render commercial grain growing almost impossible, animal husbandry remained the main occupation of its population for the first millennium of its history. Sheep and cattle were the most important domestic animals; the former raised for their milk, wool, and meat, and the latter primarily for their milk. Horses were used for transportation, but a total absence of roads made the use of wagons or other vehicles almost impossible in Iceland. Icelandic farming took the form of sedentary pastoralism, meaning that extensive mountain pastures were crucial for the feeding of the animals during the summer, while during the winter, farmers and peasants grazed their animals close to their farms and used hay from meadows as fodder for their livestock. In congruence with these economic patterns, the rural population in Iceland was dispersed over the whole inhabitable area. Each farm needed a relatively large tract of land to be economically viable, a fact that made concentration into peasant villages impractical. Rather, the whole countryside was divided between separate farming households living on individual farms. The only common lands were the mountain pastures, which were usually separated from the inhabited lowland.’
[2]
[1]: Smith, Kevin P., and Jeffrey R. Parsons 1989. “Regional Archaeological Research In Iceland: Potentials And Possibilities”, 194 [2]: Hálfdanarson, Guðmundur 2010. "The A to Z of Iceland", 29 |
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The Via Salaria, “salt road,” was in existence from the beginning of the Roman Kingdom.
[1]
The first paved road was the probably the Appian Way which dates to 312 BCE. However, at this time the Via Salaria probably did not exist or if a track did exist it had no polity to provide maintenance on it.
[1]: (Cornell 1995, 48, 96) |
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Icelanders continued to use trails rather than roads: ’The horse was mainly used for transport. (After the exemption that permitted eating of horsemeat, mentioned in the last chapter, was abolished in the 11th century, horses were no longer a source of food.) Carts were almost unknown, however, and Iceland had no roads, except for tracks gradually trodden by the hooves of horses, cattle and sheep. Horses were necessary, both to carry riders and as beasts of burden, and a good horse was always a master’s pride and joy.’
[1]
[1]: Karlsson, Gunnar 2000. ’A Brief History of Iceland", 13 |
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"There are [...] no signs of communal construction activities, and no preserved facilities to store agricultural surplus. [...] It has to be considered that the preservation of features in Nok sites is generally poor and that the amount of data is not too large and regionally restricted to a rather small key study area."
[1]
[1]: (Breunig and Ruppe 2016: 253) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/ES4TRU7R. |
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Morgan describes the system of trails used by the Iroquois: ’The principal villages of the Iroquois, in the days of aboriginal dominion, were connected by well-beaten trails. These villages were so situated that the central trail, which started from the Hudson at the site of Albany, passed through those of the Mohawks and Oneidas; and, crossing the Onondaga valley and the Cayuga country, a few miles north of the chief settlements of these nations, it passed through the most prominent villages of the Senecas, in its route to the valley of the Genesee. After crossing this celebrated valley, it proceeded westward to lake Erie, coming out upon it at the mouth of Buffalo creek, on the present site of Buffalo.’
[1]
’We have thus followed the great Indian trail, Wä-a-gwen[unknown] -ne-yu, through the State, from the Hudson to lake Erie; noticing, as far as ascertained, the principal stopping-places on the route. To convey an adequate impression of the forest scenery, which then overspread the land, is beyond the power of description. This trail was traced through the over-hanging forest for almost its entire length. In the trail itself, there was nothing particularly remarkable. It was usually from twelve to eighteen inches wide, and deeply worn in the ground; varying in this respect from three to six, and even twelve inches, depending upon the firmness of the soil. The large trees on each side were frequently marked with the hatchet. This well-beaten footpath, which no runner, nor band of warriors could mistake, had doubtless been trodden by successive generations from century to century. It had, without question, been handed down from race to race, as the natural line of travel, geographically considered, between the Hudson and lake Erie. While it is scarcely possible to ascertain a more direct route than the one pursued by this trail, the accuracy with which it was traced from point to point, to save distance, is extremely surprising. It proved, on the survey of the country, to have been so judiciously selected that the turnpike was laid out mainly on the line of this trail, from one extremity of the State to the other. In addition to this, all the larger cities and villages west of the Hudson, with one or two exceptions, have been located upon it. As an independent cause, this forest highway of the Iroquois doubtless determined the establishment of a number of settlements, which have since grown up into cities and villages.’
[2]
[1]: Morgan, Lewis Henry, and Herbert M. Lloyd 1901. “League Of The Ho-De’-No-Sau-Nee Or Iroquois. Vol. Ii”, 80 [2]: Morgan, Lewis Henry, and Herbert M. Lloyd 1901. “League Of The Ho-De’-No-Sau-Nee Or Iroquois. Vol. Ii”, 94 |
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not directly mentioned in the literature but cannot be excluded: "Although there were important highways (often called "warpaths") across over- land areas in Historie times, water transportation appears to have been at least as important. Large canoes are documented in historical times, and archaeological finds elsewhere in the Southeast have shown that prehistoric Mississippian people made similar vessels."
[1]
" There was an extensive network of footpaths that crisscrossed Eastern North America as one of your quotes suggests. I wouldn’t really call them roads, though. Most of them paralleled rivers and were unimproved or informal—they simply represented the best route between locations and so were used over and over. They were not part of a formally planned transportation system."
[2]
[1]: (Muller 1997, 366) [2]: (Peter Peregrine 2016, personal communication) |
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Not until later. Uruk phase c3800-3000 BCE: "bureaucracy sent orders to specialised workmen, planned and constructed key infrastructures (such as canals, temples, or walls), and engaged in long-distance trade."
[1]
-- key infrastructures likely to have included some roads along which trade was carried.
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 79) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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Not until later. Uruk phase c3800-3000 BCE: "bureaucracy sent orders to specialised workmen, planned and constructed key infrastructures (such as canals, temples, or walls), and engaged in long-distance trade."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 79) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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Not until later. Uruk phase c3800-3000 BCE: "bureaucracy sent orders to specialised workmen, planned and constructed key infrastructures (such as canals, temples, or walls), and engaged in long-distance trade."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 79) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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Not until later. Uruk phase c3800-3000 BCE: "bureaucracy sent orders to specialised workmen, planned and constructed key infrastructures (such as canals, temples, or walls), and engaged in long-distance trade."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 79) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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According to SCCS variable 14 ’Routes of Land Transport’ only ’unimproved trails’ were used for land transport, not roads. The A’chik initially used trails only. Sinha and Majumdar report roads, but at a later field date than the time period covered here: ‘There is but one cart road running from Bagmara to Damra via Tura, the headquarters of the district. It is a fair-weather road for vehicular traffic. In the rains, however, most of the temporary bridges become unsuitable for traffic. The other short roads run from Tura on to Phulbari and the other to Mankachar, the border region on the north and west of the district. There is a camel track running very close to the central ridge connecting Damra with Tura being linked with Siju. The Assam Trunk Road runs on the north of the district. The inhabitants of the place usually have to walk over the hills following the foot tracks to go from one place to another. Where the rivers or rivulets are sufficiently deep, people use dugout boats to cover the distance when necessary. Towards the centre of the district, boats as a means of conveyance are very risky. The slopes are too steep, and the boulders under the surface of the water are too big for safe plying of boats.’
[1]
‘The village is connected by a road maintained by the Garo Hills District Council, to the district highway passing along the western border of the district. By this road the district highway is 11 miles from the village. An extension of the same road connects the village to another highway which connects Tura with Phulbari, passing almost diagonally half-way through the district in north-westerly direction ( see Map 3). Regular passenger buses ply through both of these highways and the distance from the village to the district headquarters by either is 31 miles. The headquarters of the Selsela Development Block under the Community Development Programme were established in a place about 4 miles away from the village, in 1958, and at present the headquarters of the Development Block are taking the shape of a small township.’
[2]
[There was precious little such infrastructure in the mid 50’s, so I suppose there was not much earlier. There was a one lane gravel/dirt road up to Tura when I was there.]
[1]: Sinha, Tarunchandra 1966. “Psyche Of The Garos”, 1 [2]: Majumdar, Dhirendra Narayan 1978. “Culture Change In Two Garo Villages”, 33 |
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The A’chik initially used trails only. Sinha and Majumdar report roads, but only for the second half of the 20th century: ‘There is but one cart road running from Bagmara to Damra via Tura, the headquarters of the district. It is a fair-weather road for vehicular traffic. In the rains, however, most of the temporary bridges become unsuitable for traffic. The other short roads run from Tura on to Phulbari and the other to Mankachar, the border region on the north and west of the district. There is a camel track running very close to the central ridge connecting Damra with Tura being linked with Siju. The Assam Trunk Road runs on the north of the district. The inhabitants of the place usually have to walk over the hills following the foot tracks to go from one place to another. Where the rivers or rivulets are sufficiently deep, people use dugout boats to cover the distance when necessary. Towards the centre of the district, boats as a means of conveyance are very risky. The slopes are too steep, and the boulders under the surface of the water are too big for safe plying of boats.’
[1]
‘The village is connected by a road maintained by the Garo Hills District Council, to the district highway passing along the western border of the district. By this road the districthighway is 11 miles from the village. An extension of the same road connects the village to another highway which connects Tura with Phulbari, passing almost diagonally half-way through the district in north-westerly direction ( see Map 3). Regular passenger buses ply through both of these highways and the distance from the village to the district headquarters by either is 31 miles. The headquarters of the Selsela Development Block under the Community Development Programme were established in a place about 4 miles away from the village, in 1958, and at present the headquarters of the Development Block are taking the shape of a small township.’
[2]
[1]: Sinha, Tarunchandra 1966. “Psyche Of The Garos”, 1 [2]: Majumdar, Dhirendra Narayan 1978. “Culture Change In Two Garo Villages”, 33 |
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According to SCCS variable 14 ’Routes of Land Transport’ only ’unimproved trails’ were used for land transport, not roads.
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The Ashanti empire relied on a road network: ’A full history of the great-roads ( nkwantεmpon) of Asante has yet to be written. Rather more is known about the southern routes than the northern, since European merchants on the Gold Coast were keenly interested in the matter and made many relevant entries in their journals. Yarak has suggested that the roads from Kumase to Axim via Denkyera, Wasa and Aowin, and from Kumase to Elmina via Denkyera and Twifo, were already in use in the first decade of the eighteenth century. Security was a constant problem on both. L. F. Rømer, a Danish factor on the eastern Gold Coast in the 1730s and 1740s, commented on the matter. In the mid-1740s he thought it likely that, because of marauding, the Asante ‘will create another road to the western forts on the seacoast’. He was later to report that this happened. ‘They have got a road open,’ he wrote, ‘from their country to Elmine [Elmina], Cap Cors [Cape Coast], and the forts which lie west of Elmine.’ It may be that this was the great-road via Asen and the Fante country to Anomabo, whence it was a short journey along the beach to the headquarters of the British at Cape Coast and of the Dutch at Elmina. If so, the Dutch could have regarded it as no more than a temporary solution to their problem of communications with Kumase. In the 1750s the Asante and Dutch authorities were involved in intensive negotiations to improve security on the old westerly routes.’
[1]
Further information on earlier Akan coastal towns is needed. We have provisionally assumed no roads prior to Ashanti rule.
[1]: Wilks, Ivor 1992. “On Mentally Mapping Greater Asante: A Study Of Time And Motion”, 176 |
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According to SCCS variable 14 ’Routes of Land Transport’ ’2’ or ’improved trails, for porters or animal carriers’ were present. We are unsure whether this applies to the late 18th and early 19th centuries as well. The following implies that improved trails and roads were absent prior to colonization: ’The number of the Truk people, taken together, will not exceed 12,000. They live together for the most part in small villages on the seashore. Isolated families also live scattered in the mountains on their plantings. Thanks to the German government, there are good roads around the island. On the mountain slopes, on the other hand, one finds only narrow Kanaka paths, which lead from hut to hut, from planting to planting. They are usually in such a condition that only a native can venture to walk on them.’
[1]
[1]: Bollig, Laurentius 1927. “Inhabitants Of The Truk Islands: Religion, Life And A Short Grammar Of A Micronesian People”, 249 |
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According to SCCS variable 14 ’Routes of Land Transport’ only ‘1’ or ’unimproved trails’ were used for land transport, not roads. The Shuar relied on concealed pathways: ’The Jíbaros never live united in villages. Their homes are found scattered in the middle of the forest. These settlements are never permanent; in fact, the savages change their residence frequently, every six years on the average( ). The dwelling is always located near a stream, in the middle of a little cultivated land; no defined road leads to it, and only the Indians are able to recognize the trace of a pathway invisible to strangers in the labryinth of trees and thick underbrush.’
[1]
’As has already been mentioned, Mácas lies deep in the territory of the Jívaros. Everywhere in the forest, indeed hardly a quarter of an hour away from Mácas, lie their large tambos. Narrow paths lead through the dense forest, and, following them, one quite suddenly and without any previous signs of civilization comes upon the open plaza surrounding the house. Each house lies alone by itself, as though lost in the forest, and is usually inhabited by only one family, rarely by several. In approaching, certain precautionary measures must be observed to ensure a friendly reception. The visit is announced from a great distance by shouting, but in the immediate vicinity of the house one marches in absolute silence. This is done in order to demonstrate peaceful intent, since during an attack the Jívaro steals quietly through the forest, but then rushes with a loud war whoop across the open plaza to the house.’
[2]
[1]: Rivet, Paul 1907. “Jivaro Indians: Geographic, Historical And Ethnographic Research”, 583 [2]: Reiss, W. (Wilhelm) 1880. “Visit Among The Jivaro Indians”, 7 |
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According to SCCS variable 14 ’Routes of Land Transport’ only ‘1’ or ’unimproved trails’ were used for land transport, not roads. The Shuar relied on concealed pathways: ’The Jíbaros never live united in villages. Their homes are found scattered in the middle of the forest. These settlements are never permanent; in fact, the savages change their residence frequently, every six years on the average( ). The dwelling is always located near a stream, in the middle of a little cultivated land; no defined road leads to it, and only the Indians are able to recognize the trace of a pathway invisible to strangers in the labryinth of trees and thick underbrush.’
[1]
’As has already been mentioned, Mácas lies deep in the territory of the Jívaros. Everywhere in the forest, indeed hardly a quarter of an hour away from Mácas, lie their large tambos. Narrow paths lead through the dense forest, and, following them, one quite suddenly and without any previous signs of civilization comes upon the open plaza surrounding the house. Each house lies alone by itself, as though lost in the forest, and is usually inhabited by only one family, rarely by several. In approaching, certain precautionary measures must be observed to ensure a friendly reception. The visit is announced from a great distance by shouting, but in the immediate vicinity of the house one marches in absolute silence. This is done in order to demonstrate peaceful intent, since during an attack the Jívaro steals quietly through the forest, but then rushes with a loud war whoop across the open plaza to the house.’
[2]
[1]: Rivet, Paul 1907. “Jivaro Indians: Geographic, Historical And Ethnographic Research”, 583 [2]: Reiss, W. (Wilhelm) 1880. “Visit Among The Jivaro Indians”, 7 |
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"After A.D. 500, drastic shifts began to occur in Costa Rican Precolumbian cultures. Circular houses became the norm and were indicative of a probable shift in cos- mology or “world view.” New ceramic styles including resist painting proliferated; tomb forms and burial customs changed; cobble-paved roads within and between sites appeared; and metallurgy supplanted jade carving as the principal supplier of political and religious badges of power and authority."
[1]
"Following the catastrophic environmental crisis of the sixth century the SNSM witnessed extremely rapid population growth and colonization in the northern and western drainage. Terrace systems permitted the construction of small towns on sheer mountain slopes that were linked by a network of steep roads."
[2]
[1]: (Bray 2003, 327-9) [2]: (Oyuela-Caycedo 2008, 419) |
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In the subsequent Longshan period: "There also was an early-period city road system. A survey by the geologist Li Rongquan 李荣权 showed that the small southern gully Xiaonan Gou 小南沟, the large southern gully Danan Gou 大南沟, and southern gully Nan Gou 南沟 were all roads used during the city’s occupation."
[1]
However, that "road was not entirely straight or as developed as roads in later Chinese cities"
[1]
so whether it was a beaten trail or a properly maintained "road" might be open to question. Given the question marks over the later period, this still earlier period we could infer absent.
[1]: (He 2013, 264) |
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Morgan describes the system of trails used by the Iroquois, but fails to mention roads and other more permanent structures: ’The principal villages of the Iroquois, in the days of aboriginal dominion, were connected by well-beaten trails. These villages were so situated that the central trail, which started from the Hudson at the site of Albany, passed through those of the Mohawks and Oneidas; and, crossing the Onondaga valley and the Cayuga country, a few miles north of the chief settlements of these nations, it passed through the most prominent villages of the Senecas, in its route to the valley of the Genesee. After crossing this celebrated valley, it proceeded westward to lake Erie, coming out upon it at the mouth of Buffalo creek, on the present site of Buffalo.’
[1]
’We have thus followed the great Indian trail, Wä-a-gwen[unknown] -ne-yu, through the State, from the Hudson to lake Erie; noticing, as far as ascertained, the principal stopping-places on the route. To convey an adequate impression of the forest scenery, which then overspread the land, is beyond the power of description. This trail was traced through the over-hanging forest for almost its entire length. In the trail itself, there was nothing particularly remarkable. It was usually from twelve to eighteen inches wide, and deeply worn in the ground; varying in this respect from three to six, and even twelve inches, depending upon the firmness of the soil. The large trees on each side were frequently marked with the hatchet. This well-beaten footpath, which no runner, nor band of warriors could mistake, had doubtless been trodden by successive generations from century to century. It had, without question, been handed down from race to race, as the natural line of travel, geographically considered, between the Hudson and lake Erie. While it is scarcely possible to ascertain a more direct route than the one pursued by this trail, the accuracy with which it was traced from point to point, to save distance, is extremely surprising. It proved, on the survey of the country, to have been so judiciously selected that the turnpike was laid out mainly on the line of this trail, from one extremity of the State to the other. In addition to this, all the larger cities and villages west of the Hudson, with one or two exceptions, have been located upon it. As an independent cause, this forest highway of the Iroquois doubtless determined the establishment of a number of settlements, which have since grown up into cities and villages.’
[2]
We are unsure about the infrastructural changes brought about by white settlers in the area.
[1]: Morgan, Lewis Henry, and Herbert M. Lloyd 1901. “League Of The Ho-De’-No-Sau-Nee Or Iroquois. Vol. Ii”, 80 [2]: Morgan, Lewis Henry, and Herbert M. Lloyd 1901. “League Of The Ho-De’-No-Sau-Nee Or Iroquois. Vol. Ii”, 94 |
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"The Indus civilization flourished for around five hundred to seven hundred years, and in the early second millennium it disintegrated. This collapse was marked by the disappearance of the features that had distinguished the Indus civilization from its predecessors: writing, city dwelling, some kind of central control, international trade, occupational specialization, and widely distributed standardized artifacts."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2008, 91-92) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Civilization. Oxford; Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio. |
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Sources do not suggest there is evidence for a road system in this period.
[1]
Gary Feinman
[2]
told us that "Between sites there are known 16th century trails, which were likely used for a long, long time. [...] they likely were not paved, but there were no beasts of burden." However, we do not count paths and trails not constructed deliberately as roads.
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. [2]: Gary Feinman, personal communication to Peter Turchin and Jenny Reddish, March 2020. |
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Not clear from this source, but it seems not to view the two-foot wide paths as meeting the definition of roads: “Practical administrative details such as communications and transport, routes, refuges, and dangerous "hot spots" have not been mapped. We know that some main "roads" were sometimes scarcely two-feet wide in places - so how did large bodies of troops or traders pass?”
[1]
[1]: Last, Murray. “Contradictions in Creating a Jihadi Capital: Sokoto in the Nineteenth Century and Its Legacy.” African Studies Review, vol. 56, no. 2, 2013, pp. 1–20: 2. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5RUPN5VI/collection |
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Small roads were constructed through Monte Alban, but sources do not suggest there is evidence for a road network linking settlements.
[1]
We asked Gary Feinman about roads in Oaxacan polities and he said: "It depends on what you mean by roads. There are definite roads/accessways within sites. Blanton defines some at Monte Albán and Linda [Nicholas] and I defined some at El Palmillo. These likely were not paved, but they may have been banked and were cleared. Between sites there are known 16th century trails, which were likely used for a long, long time. Again, they likely were not paved, but there were no beasts of burden."
[2]
Coded absent: we do not count accessways within settlements or paths and trails not constructed deliberately as roads.
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. [2]: Gary Feinman, personal communication to Peter Turchin and Jenny Reddish, March 2020. |
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Sources do not suggest there is evidence for a road system in this period.
[1]
Gary Feinman
[2]
told us that "Between sites there are known 16th century trails, which were likely used for a long, long time. [...] they likely were not paved, but there were no beasts of burden." However, we do not count paths and trails not constructed deliberately as roads.
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. [2]: Gary Feinman, personal communication to Peter Turchin and Jenny Reddish, March 2020. |
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According to SCCS variable 14 ’Routes of Land Transport’ only ‘1’ or ’unimproved trails’ were used for land transport, not roads. The Orokaiva intially relied on trails: ’(a) As an Identity Token. So far I have not mentioned the uses of the plant emblem. If one asks a native what he actually does with his heratu, he will assuredly answer: ‘I place it on the track so that others who may follow may know I have passed that way.’ This, indeed, though not the only use for the heratu, is the commonest. At the juncture of two paths I have come upon eight different kinds of leaves or grass, placed there during the morning and as yet scarcely wilted. My boys, who were inhabitants of the district, were able to identify each clan by its heratu; the owners of them had passed this spot at intervals, all bound for one village as guests to a feast and dance. The stem of the leaf, the root of the grass, or the butt of the branch, should point in the direction which its owner has taken, but apparently this rule is not observed with strictness.’
[1]
[1]: Williams, F. E. (Francis Edgar), and Hubert Murray 1930. “Orokaiva Society”, 115 |
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Not enough data, though it seems to reasonable infer absence.
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Only limited evidence for roads has been found (in earlier phases at Monte Alban), and these appear to have been restricted to within settlements. We asked Gary Feinman about roads in Oaxacan polities and he said: "It depends on what you mean by roads. There are definite roads/accessways within sites. Blanton defines some at Monte Albán and Linda [Nicholas] and I defined some at El Palmillo. These likely were not paved, but they may have been banked and were cleared. Between sites there are known 16th century trails, which were likely used for a long, long time. Again, they likely were not paved, but there were no beasts of burden."
[1]
Coded absent: we do not count accessways within settlements or paths and trails not constructed deliberately as roads.
[1]: Gary Feinman, personal communication to Peter Turchin and Jenny Reddish, March 2020. |
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Sources do not suggest there is evidence for the construction of roads during this period.
[1]
Gary Feinman
[2]
told us that "Between sites there are known 16th century trails, which were likely used for a long, long time. [..] they likely were not paved, but there were no beasts of burden." However, we do not count paths and trails not constructed deliberately as roads.
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. [2]: Gary Feinman, personal communication to Peter Turchin and Jenny Reddish, March 2020. |
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Small roads were constructed through Monte Alban, but sources do not suggest there is evidence for a road network linking settlements.
[1]
We asked Gary Feinman about roads in Oaxacan polities and he said: "It depends on what you mean by roads. There are definite roads/accessways within sites. Blanton defines some at Monte Albán and Linda [Nicholas] and I defined some at El Palmillo. These likely were not paved, but they may have been banked and were cleared. Between sites there are known 16th century trails, which were likely used for a long, long time. Again, they likely were not paved, but there were no beasts of burden."
[2]
Coded absent: we do not count accessways within settlements or paths and trails not constructed deliberately as roads.
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. [2]: Gary Feinman, personal communication to Peter Turchin and Jenny Reddish, March 2020. |
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wooden tally slips used as shipping labels
[1]
suggest good deal of valuable trade which would have been carried along roads or tracks, which would have likely been maintained.
[1]: (Ikawa-Smith 1985, 396) Ikawa-Smith, Fumiko in Misra, Virenda N. Bellwood, Peter S. 1985. Recent Advances in Indo-Pacific Prehistory: Proceedings of the International Symposium Held at Poona, December 19-21, 1978. BRILL. |
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Built-up transport infrastructure was introduced in the early Russian period (see next sheet).
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The Via Salaria, “salt road,” was in existence from the beginning of the Roman Kingdom.
[1]
The first paved road was the probably the Appian Way which dates to 312 BCE. However, at this time the Via Salaria probably did not exist or if a track did exist it had no polity to provide maintenance on it.
[1]: (Cornell 1995, 48, 96) |
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Not until later? Uruk phase c3800-3000 BCE: "bureaucracy sent orders to specialised workmen, planned and constructed key infrastructures (such as canals, temples, or walls), and engaged in long-distance trade."
[1]
-- key infrastructures likely to have included some roads along which trade was carried.
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 79) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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"Although there were important highways (often called "warpaths") across over- land areas in Historie times, water transportation appears to have been at least as important. Large canoes are documented in historical times, and archaeological finds elsewhere in the Southeast have shown that prehistoric Mississippian people made similar vessels."
[1]
"The specifics regarding overland transportation before the early 1800s in Illinois are not well documented, however. Only recently have we have begun to recognize the importance of such trails in the formation of early American settlements, and in particular, the importance of a single trail that formed a link between the old French villages in the American Bottom and the fur trading communities at Peoria Lake. Before his death in 1907, Springfield historian Zimri Enos began writing an article about an “old Indian trail” that passed immediately east of Springfield (figure 3.6). He remembered faint trace of the trail from his childhood in the 1830s. Former Illinois governor and early pioneer John Reynolds had provided the best period description of the trail, when he wrote of its use in a campaign against the Kickapoo and Potawatomi during the War of 1812. It was from this campaign that the trail became known as Edwards’ Trace after Territorial Governor Ninian Edwards, who led the militia up the old road. In the late nineteenth century, Enos was able to plot its course from Edwardsville (on the northern edge of the American Bottom) to just north of Springfield. He knew, as Reynolds and others had remembered, that the trail ultimately found its way to Peoria. Finally, in 1986, historian John Mack Faragher reminded us of the importance of the road, along which the first settler of Sangamon County (Robert Pulliam) had built a cabin in 1817.12In the late 1980s, I began to look at the land purchase and county court records of Sangamon County, and I found that the trail crossed through the heart of the earliest settlements associated with the San- gamo Country.13 The fledging county government also recognized that the road’s improvement was one of the first orders of business upon the creation of Sangamon County. Clearly, the old Indian trail not only predated American settlement of the region, but it actually helped shape that settlement." [2] "There were no formal “ports”, although rivers were major transportation routes. There was an extensive network of footpaths that crisscrossed Eastern North America as one of your quotes suggests. I wouldn’t really call them roads, though. Most of them paralleled rivers and were unimproved or informal—they simply represented the best route between locations and so were used over and over. They were not part of a formally planned transportation system." [3] [1]: (Muller 1997, 366) [2]: (Mazrim 2007, 58) [3]: (Peregrine 2016, personal communication) |
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Hmong communities mostly relied on footpaths and trails rather than roads: "The streets of a [village] zigzag up and down, with tiny alleys on both sides. In each alley there are a few families. The alleys are interconnected. The Miao chais are not located along lines of communication but in the deep mountains and valleys accessible only by small paths. Although visible at a distance, they often cannot be reached".
[1]
The various Chinese administrations constructed stone roads,
[2]
[3]
but here we are mostly interested in the Hmong themselves.
[1]: Ling, Shun-sheng, Yifu Ruey, and Lien-en Tsao 1947. “Report On An Investigation Of The Miao Of Western Hunan”, 59 [2]: Ling, Shun-sheng, Yifu Ruey, and Lien-en Tsao 1947. “Report On An Investigation Of The Miao Of Western Hunan”, 70 [3]: Graham, David Crockett 1954. “Songs And Stories Of The Ch’Uan Miao", 1 |
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The Duranni ’state’ was not in a position to maintain infrastructure. It was a very loose institution. What maintenance or road building that was done was at the local level. In areas that were conquered these assets had been maintained by the previous state in areas like the Sind and India.
[1]
[1]: Noelle, Christine. State and Tribe in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan, 1826-1863. Psychology Press, 1997. section 4 , Dost Muhammed Khan’s Occupation of Qandahar and His Administration source is unpaginated. |
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“Among recent studies, the only systematic attempt to confront the problem of African wheel-lessness is that offered by A. G. Hopkins in his Economic History of West Africa. Hopkins argues that even in those areas of West Africa where potential draught animals were available wheeled transport was uneconomic because ’its greater cost was not justified by proportionately greater returns’, and more particularly because ’the poor quality of the roads would have greatly reduced the efficiency of wheeled vehicles, and the cost of improving the road system would have been prohibitive’. He concludes that ’pack animals predominated because they were relatively cheap to buy, inexpensive to operate and well suited to the terrain’ (Hopkins, 1973:74-5; cf also Fage 1978:19”
[1]
[1]: Law, Robin. “Wheeled Transport in Pre-Colonial West Africa.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, vol. 50, no. 3, 1980, pp. 249–62: 250. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/3AEMSZPK/collection |
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Only limited evidence for roads has been found (in earlier phases at Monte Alban), and these appear to have been restricted to within settlements. We asked Gary Feinman about roads in Oaxacan polities and he said: "It depends on what you mean by roads. There are definite roads/accessways within sites. Blanton defines some at Monte Albán and Linda [Nicholas] and I defined some at El Palmillo. These likely were not paved, but they may have been banked and were cleared. Between sites there are known 16th century trails, which were likely used for a long, long time. Again, they likely were not paved, but there were no beasts of burden."
[1]
Coded absent: we do not count accessways within settlements or paths and trails not constructed deliberately as roads.
[1]: Gary Feinman, personal communication to Peter Turchin and Jenny Reddish, March 2020. |
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Small roads were constructed through Monte Alban, but sources do not suggest there is evidence for a road network linking settlements.
[1]
We asked Gary Feinman about roads in Oaxacan polities and he said: "It depends on what you mean by roads. There are definite roads/accessways within sites. Blanton defines some at Monte Albán and Linda [Nicholas] and I defined some at El Palmillo. These likely were not paved, but they may have been banked and were cleared. Between sites there are known 16th century trails, which were likely used for a long, long time. Again, they likely were not paved, but there were no beasts of burden."
[2]
Coded absent: we do not count accessways within settlements or paths and trails not constructed deliberately as roads.
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. [2]: Gary Feinman, personal communication to Peter Turchin and Jenny Reddish, March 2020. |
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Mud roads linked towns.
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Roads present close to Paris Basin region between 475-400 BCE.
[1]
[1]: (http://www.chronocarto.ens.fr/gcserver/atlas#) |
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Roads built to facilitate both commerce and the Hajj.
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Nebuchadnezzar II "He also constructed large sewers lined with a mixture of bitumen, clay and gravel. He laid down the first paved streets by setting stone slabs in bitumen-mortar." (Bilkadi, Z. 1984. Bitumen: A History. Saudi Aramco World. November/December. pp 2-9. EXTERNAL_INLINE_LINK: https://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198406/bitumen.-.a.history.htm )
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In an effort to establish a quick postal service, Adud al-Daula concentrated on improving the roads between Baghdad and Shīrāz.
[1]
[1]: Busse, H. 1975. Iran under the Būyids. In Frye, R. N. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Iran. Volume 4. The period from the Arab Invasion to the Saljuq’s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p.283 |
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"Other major administrative achievements of the Elamites included ... the construction and maintenance of numerous public works and enterprises, such as roads, bridges, cities and towns, communication centers, and economic and commercial centers"
[1]
[1]: (Farazmand 2009, 22) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. |
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continuity with preceding and succeeding periods.
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Roads had existed and been maintained since Roman times.
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The Roman road network was still in use, with some upkeep carried out by the papacy.
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Road building under Augustus.
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“The core of the Khmer Empire (ninth to fifteenth centuries AD) was controlled from the capital of Angkor through the extensive river network and over 1000km of raised earthen roads fitted with support infrastructure (masonry bridges, ’resthouse’ temples, water tanks) (Figure I)."
[1]
[1]: (Hendrickson 2010, 481) |
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Phoenician cities conducted overland trade as well as by sea.
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Possible that roads ran through the 12 gateways to Karabalghasun, but this is not confirmed by the sources.
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Ibn Battuta (14th century) on the African interior said: "there is no need to travel by caravan, for the roads are that secure."
[1]
road from Ghana (city) to Ghiyaru
[2]
[1]: (Diop 1987, 140) Diop, Cheikh Anta. Salemson, Harold trans. 1987. Precolonial Black Africa. Lawrence Hill Books. Chicago. [2]: (Al-Bakri 1068 CE in Levtzion and Spaulding 2003, 17) |
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Town roads.
[1]
The Persian road network had served as an example of the importance of a large scale transport infrastructure, and was a network maintained by the Greek successor kingdoms. There was also the precidence of royal roads under the Mauryan empire. However, very little evidence of Indo-Greek infrastructure, apart from the street plans of some urban centers, has been found during this period.
[1]: Higham, Charles, Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations, Facts of File,2009 p. 344 |
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The Russian administration constructed some roads that were reliable year-round: ’Outside the City of Yakutsk, the use of the wheeled cart, adopted from the Russians, is very limited throughout the Province. Roads suitable for wheeled transport are rare. They extend only 1036 kilometers: from Yakutsk to Viliuisk (600 km.) and from Viliuisk to Suntar (436 km.). I myself had the opportunity to use a wheeled cart when traveling from Yakutsk about sixty miles to the east to the Churupcha settlement.’
[1]
Russians and Sakha relied on sledges and waterways where roads were absent or not passable: ’All the other roads are swampy and in summer were passable only on horseback; even this means of transportation is very difficult, particularly in the northern districts. In winter sledges are everywhere drawn by horses; in the northern districts reindeer and dogs are also used. Many Tungus, Lamut, and Yukaghir use the reindeer for riding, particularly in the mountainous districts between the great rivers. In summer small steamers ply the Lena and Viliui rivers. On the Yana, Indighirka, and Kolyma rivers and their tributaries large boats are used for carrying freight as well as for passengers. During the winter freight carried on pack-horses or by reindeer sledges from the shores of the Okhotsk Sea (Okhotsk, Yamsk, Ayan or Ola) over the mountains to the upper course of the Kolyma River, is floated down on pontoon-like rafts consisting of two large boats covered with a bridge. Such rafts are provided with a rudder and are propelled with long poles. As they cannot be poled up the river they are sold to the inhabitants of Nishne Kolymsk, who make boats of different sizes from them. Recently I learned that a steamer coming through Bering Strait now visits Nishne Kolymsk every summer, bringing flour and other commodities for sale or exchange for furs.’
[1]
’Of the large wooden objects used, the Yakut boat, sleigh, and wagon carry so many traces of various later influences in their shape and workmanship that it is extremely difficult to determine their original forms and trace the extent of each outside influence. All these are recent Yakut acquisitions. In many places the wagon is unknown to the present day. It was only with difficulty that I could explain the idea of the wheel to the Kolymsk Yakut, and they could not discern any difference in transportation along the ground between a wagon and a sleigh, on which they carry loads even in summer. Even sleighs are little used by the Yakut in these remote northern regions, and then only with dogs and reindeer. The use of the yoke and the shaft-bow is unknown to the Yakut, and when they infrequently have to harness horses for some traveling government officials, they harness them to those same reindeer narty - using the same reindeer straps which are thrown over the saddle. Then the coachman gets on this horse, or on the one in front of it. It is understandable that both the horse and those riding in the sleigh become extremely fatigued from the constant jerking and shaking.’
[2]
The use of harness dogs was also common: ’In West Siberia the harness is very strange: the breech-band is put on the body in front of the breast bone, and a belt issuing from the breech-band is placed between the legs of the animal, so that it pulls with its pelvis. The east-siberian harness is of the breast variety: the breechband is placed on the breast of the dog and belts from it cover the sides of the animal towards the alik (the hauling belt which takes the place of theconnecting pole). On the road each dog carries between 2 and 2 1/2 pouds. The full team consists of twelve dogs with the thirteenth acting as leader. In travel the dogs are fed with raw, frozen and dried fish. At home special dog food is made for them. No matter how hungry they may be the Yakut dogs will not eat bread: on smelling it they will move away as if it were a stone. At the same time they eat cowberry, golubitsu, and currant, picking them directly from the bushes,--and some varieties of grass and roots. However, it is not difficult to get them used to eating bread by mixing flour in small quantities with the fish soup. Between 50 and 70 herrings are to be provided for a harness team of 12 dogs, the number depending on how well-fed the animals are. In autumn, before the beginning of the travel, the Yakuts always train and put into shape th n the beginning, the dogs are given a rest every 5 viersts. The young dogs are trained by harnessing them up with the experienced ones: the most intelligent and best trained dog must be selected as leader. Trips of several thousand viersts can be made with good dogs but travelling in such cases is not fast. Using twelve dogs with a burden of 20 pouds one may in spring, travelling over a short distance and on a compact, smooth road--cover between 150 and 200 viersts a day. The usual ride does not exceed 60-70 viersts, and on a bad road the travelled distance does not exceed 30 or 40 viersts a day.’
[3]
[1]: Jochelson, Waldemar 1933. “Yakut”, 187 [2]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 606 [3]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 296 |
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inherited and still maintained?
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There was a main street at Ai Khanoum.
[1]
town roads.
[2]
The Persian road network had served as an example of the importance of a large scale transport infrastructure, a network maintained by the Greek successor Kingdoms.
[1]: (Holt 1999, 42) Holt, F L. 1999. Thundering Zeus: The Making of Hellenistic Bactria. University of California Press [2]: Higham, Charles, Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations, Facts of File,2009 p. 344 |
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"the former nomadic invaders came into possession of vast territories inhabited by settled agricultural peoples with a culture and traditions dating back many centuries, just as had been the case with the Tokharians ... who created the Kushan Empire. It seems likely that the administrative and government structure created by the Kushans was left largely intact under the Kidarites."
[1]
[1]: (Zeimal 1996, 132) Zeimal, E. V. The Kidarite Kingdom In Central Asia. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.123-137. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf |
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The Purushapura-Bactra Highway. This connected Gandhara "with important Buddhist cultural and commercial centers in Central Asia in the Kushan Period."
[1]
Conningham reinforces this code of present by attesting to the roads within Taxila
[2]
[1]: (Samad 2011, 96) Samad, R. U. 2011. The Grandeur of Gandhara: The Ancient Buddhist Civilization of the Swat, Peshawar, Kabul and Indus Valleys. Angora Publishing. [2]: Conningham, Robin, pers. comm. Interview with Harvey Whitehouse and Christina Collins, Jan 2017 |
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"The cluster of rammed-earth foundations and the remains of public buildings situated more or less at the center of the site are known in the literature as the palace city or palatial area (gongcheng 宫城; Zhongguo 2003). This area was established during phase II, and its most impressive buildings were constructed in phase III. The palace city was about 11 ha and, during phase IV, was enclosed by rammed-earth walls about 2 m wide and surrounded by four large roads (Fig. 4). At least seven earthen platforms, ranging in size from about 300 to 9,600 m2, have been found inside this enclosure."
[1]
[1]: (Shelach and Jaffe 2014, 344-345) |
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The Russian Empire had a growing and increasingly complex road network. The most notable was the Siberian Route, a vast network connecting European Russia with Siberia and eventually to China. This route, beginning in Moscow and traversing cities like Kazan, Perm, and Yekaterinburg, was pivotal for the movement of people, goods, and resources across the vast territories of the empire.
[1]
[1]: Index of Roads of the Russian Empire. Part 1, n.d., accessed December 14, 2023, https://www.prlib.ru/en/node/459675. Zotero link: DSAZV2VN |
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"To be sure, civic life continued, but on a much smaller scale. Walls, roads, and aqueducts continued to be maintained well into the early Middle Ages, at least in Rome. But by the 6th century this had become a matter of private initiative more so than public policy."
[1]
[1]: (Lafferty 2016: 157) Lafferty, S. The Law. In Arnold, Bjornlie and Sessa (eds) A Companion to Ostrogothic Italy pp. 147-172. Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/VQ8MC72F/item-list |
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"The primary purpose of the dedicatory inscription on the building is to record that in the time of Mihira Bhoja an official named Alia, the warden (kottapala) of the fortress, established this temple (bhavana). That was in Vikrama year 932 (a.D. 875-6). In describing the temple, the inscription mentions that it was set "on the descent of the roadway of Sri Bhojadeva" (sribhojadevapratolyavalare). This expression refers to the steep road (pratoli) cut into the cliff face and shows that it was made, or substantially expanded, by Mihira Bhoja.”
[1]
[1]: (Willis 1995, 355) Willis, M. D. 1995. Some Notes on the Palaces of the Imperial Gurjara Pratīhāras. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Nov., 1995, Third Series, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Nov., 1995), pp. 351-360. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/willis/titleCreatorYear/items/S55RV7NG/item-list |
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“Emperor Shizong of Later Zhou, Chai Rong, started to make the plan to reconstruct Dongjing. Chai thought that Dongjing had “the worries of mud, fire, coldness and disease.” As a result, he decided to broaden roads, dredge rivers and plant trees to make the city bigger. The renovation measures of Chai were prominent in the Chinese history. It had broken the traditional practice that palaces were taken as what mattered most in the construction of the capital construction. On the contrary, Chai paid much attention to solve the practical problems in urban development. ”
[1]
[1]: (Fu and Cao 2019: 188) Fu, C. and W. Cao. 2019. Cities During the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms Period, and the Turning Point of Chinese Urban History. In Fu and Cao (eds) Introduction to the Urban History of China pp. 185 - 196. Palgrave Macmillan. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TJXI5EU4/library |
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"Land routes, collectively known as the Silk Road, facilitated trade with distant lands and extended from the Central Plain to Guanzhong, the Hexi corridor, and the Western Regions that lay beyond. There were two routes along the northern and southern edges of the Taklamakan desert. Later, a third route was opened that skirted the northern slopes of the Tianshan mountains. All three routes were operational in Cao-Wei times."
[1]
[1]: (Xiong 2019: 322) Xiong, V. C. 2019. The Northern Economy. In Dien and Knapp (eds) The Cambridge History of China Volume 2: The Six Dynasties 220-589 pp. 309-329. Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/KZB84M8U/library |
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Greco-Bactrians had streets.
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Organised state would likely have maintained some tracks, for example, going in and out of the settlement through the gate.
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“Alberoni’s factory for woolens at Guadalajara was intended to end a shameful dependence on England for cloth, and a considerable cotton industry was stimulated by the prohibition of the import of foreign calicoes in 1718. Not since Fernando and Isabel was so much money and effort spent on creating a network of prime arteries, in this period a star of wagon roads from Madrid to key ports matching the governmental centralization in the capital.”(Bergamini 1974: 75) Bergamini, John D. 1974. The Spanish Bourbons: The History of a Tenacious Dynasty. New York: G. P Putnam’s Sons. https://archive.org/details/spanishbourbons00john. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5A2HNKTF
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The quote below suggest that roads were likely present. During the reign of Gawi Nechocho (1845CE -1854 CE) new trade routes were established. “It is said that, because of his daughter’s marriage to the king of Gera, a trade route was opened up to Gondar.”
[1]
[1]: (Orent 1970, 279) Orent, Amnon. 1970. ‘Refocusing on the History of Kafa Prior to 1897: A Discussion of Political Processes’. African Historical Studies. Vol. 3:2. Pp 263-293. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2A389XGK/collection |
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“Road making as practiced in Hawaii in the middle of the nineteenth century was a very superficial operation, in most places consisting of little more than clearing a right of way, doing a little rough grading, and sup- plying bridges of a sort where they could not be dispensed with. Because the roads were not well constructed, repairs and maintenance absorbed most of the available funds. There were serious obstacles that prevented the development of a good highway system: lack of a general understanding of the importance of good roads; lack of over-all planning and co- ordination between different districts; lack of engineering skill and competent supervision; and lack of funds with which to finance a thorough- going road program. At one period, the road supervisors in the various districts were elected by the voters of those districts.”
[1]
[1]: (Kuykendall 1938: 26) Kuykendall, Ralph Simpson. 1938. The Hawaiian Kingdom. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. http://archive.org/details/hawaiiankingdom0002kuyk. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/QJ4Z7AAB |
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Roads were present across the Empire and continued to be improved and added to for trade and communication purposes, especially from the early twelfth century.
[1]
[2]
[1]: Wilson 2016: 491-2, 581. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/N5M9R9XA [2]: Power 2006: 10. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/4V4WE3ZK |
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According to a note in one late Ming commonplace book, the network of official roads extended 10,900 li (6,278 km or 3,900 miles) east to west, and 11,750 li (6,768 km or 4,200 miles) north to south. A modern scholar estimates that the total length of official land and water routes in the Ming amounted to 143,700 li (84,200 km or 52,300 miles).
[1]
[1]: (Brook, 2010, p.30) |
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Road network emerged with development of irrigation systems. Excavated soil was piled by the side of ditches, these formed embankments which were used as paths and roads. Generally not paved. An exception was the 11.5 km paved straight road (flagstones and petrified wood) discovered in the Fayyum. Artefacts date it to c2494-2184 BCE.
[1]
[1]: (Partridge 2010) |
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Present in Ramesside period.
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Sully (1560-1641), as superintendant of finances, improved the transport system: "under his control a higher proportion of royal expenditure went on roads, canals, and port facilities than at any other time during the century." However, "after his dismissal in 1611 progress was minimal."
[1]
[1]: (Briggs 1998, 65) |
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“There were elaborate gates at K’ank’ati, Ancano, Gembe, Danku, and Abelti, on the roads to Kafa, Kullo, Gomma, Limmu and Shoa.”
[1]
[1]: (Lewis 2001, 108) Lewis, Herbert S. 2001. Jimma Abba Jifar, an Oromo Monarchy: Ethiopia, 1830-1932. Lawrenceville, New Jersey: The Red Sea Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/NRZVWSCD/collection |
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“Moreover, the province was the only channel of communication with the fast-developing Muslim commercial states in the hinterland of Zeila, from where long distance trade routes went into the Ethiopian interior in various directions.”
[1]
[1]: (Tamrat 2008, 130) Tamrat, Taddesse. 2008. ‘Ethiopia, the Red Sea and the Horn’ In the Cambridge History of Africa: c. 1050 – c.1600 vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp 98-182. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Tamrat/titleCreatorYear/items/A68FCWWI/item-list |
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“The security of the trade route to Shoa depended on the close co-operation between the emirs and the Shoan rulers and on the fact that Galla and Somali merchants stood to lose to the Afar if the route was closed.”
[1]
[1]: (Rubenson 2008, 88) Rubenson, Sven. 2008. The Cambridge History of Africa c. 1790 – c. 1870. Edited by John E. Flint. Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp 51-98. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Rubenson/titleCreatorYear/items/VRU64Q8P/item-list |
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“The main road runs along its western side and I later heard that on this road were bridges constructed in ancient times by the Arabs, which I should much like to have inspected.”
[1]
[1]: (Thesiger 1935, 16) Thesiger, Wifred. 1935. ‘The Awash River and the Aussa Sultanate.’ The Geographical Journal. Vol. 85:1. Pp 1-19 Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/APBB7BBK/library |
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“The king also enjoyed extensive rights of disposition over the property and persons of his subjects. He levied taxes on all goods sold in markets or carried along the roads of the kingdom, and on fish taken in the coastal lagoons, and received a share of his subjects’ agricultural crops.”
[1]
[1]: Law, Robin. “‘The Common People Were Divided’: Monarchy, Aristocracy and Political Factionalism in the Kingdom of Whydah, 1671-1727.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 23, no. 2, 1990, pp. 201–29: 205. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection |
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“A road from Bornu to Gwanja (Gonja in modern Ghana) is said to have been opened in the 1450s.”
[1]
“This relative exposure to the wider commercial and intellectual world - the fact that traders and mallams from afar could and did travel the roads of Hausaland and sojourn in its cities - would have been significant, even though the volume of foreign goods in the market, and likewise the number of mosque attenders, would have been small.”
[2]
[1]: Niane, D. T., & Unesco (Eds.). (1984). Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century. Heinemann; University of California Press: 272. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ERZKPETN/collection [2]: Sutton, J. E. G. “Towards a Less Orthodox History of Hausaland.” The Journal of African History, vol. 20, no. 2, 1979, pp. 179–201: 184. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/AJQ6EGCH/collection |
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The following quote suggests creation, control and maintenance of transport infrastructure, at least in terms of interior roads. "Sometimes rulers in the interior, such as Sattan Lahai in Kambia on the Great Scarcies River in the northwest, deliberately blocked trade routes to secure some political advantage. Neither such action nor political wars had any strong impact on trade. Such stoppages, when they did occur, were temporary, and alternative routes were quickly developed in areas where such trade interdictions were likely to last a long time. In 1877, for example, the Limba of Yagala destroyed the way station at Kabala on the important Kabala-Bumban-Port Loko trade route. The ruler of Kabala, Boltamba, quickly teamed up with Suluku of Biriwa Limba to establish an alternative route."
[1]
[1]: (Fyle and Foray 2006: xxxii) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM. |
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The existing transport infrastructure in the UK was developed throughout the Empire at great expense.
[1]
[1]: ( Porter 1999: 129, 254-56, 351, 529, 660, 685, 702) Porter, Andrew, ed. 1999. The Oxford History of the British Empire: The Nineteenth Century, vol. 3, 5 vols. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/GTF9V4CG |
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Ifat territory was situated by important trade routes linking the Gulf of Aden to the Ethiopian interior. “It derived this position of strength mainly from its geographical location in the north-eastern foothills of the Shoan plateau, an area through which the most important route from Zeila passed to the Central Christian provinces of Amhara and Lasta.”
[1]
[1]: (Tamrat 2008, 143) Tamrat, Taddesse. 2008. ‘Ethiopia, the Red Sea and the Horn’ In the Cambridge History of Africa: c. 1050 – c.1600 vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp 98-182. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Tamrat/titleCreatorYear/items/A68FCWWI/item-list |
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“Nineteenth-century European visitors to the kingdom of Dahomey were not easily impressed, certainly not by any infrastructural refinement. So when one after another perceived grandeur in the Cana-Abomey road, it was no small compliment. For French travellers the road was "magnifique," "superbe," a "merveille," "fort belle," "vraiment belle," or "des plus belles." For British travelers "splendid" or-perhaps the ultimate accolade-as broad as any thoroughfare in England. This remarkable road was the last leg of the regular route from Dahomey’s Atlantic port of Whydah to the royal capital at Abomey. Its basic purpose was not to impress foreigners on their approach to the capital, as one might imagine, but to allow the kings of Dahomey to travel to and from Cana in style.”
[1]
“The royal road would seem to have predated Gezo though I have found no eyewitness testimony earlier than his reign. Forbes gathered, in 1849-50, that Gezo’s grandfather Kpengla (1774-89), "died the M’Adam of Africa, leaving roads leading to his capital as broad as Pall Mall." This may dovetail with a report by Lionel Abson, longtime head of the English fort at Whydah, as transcribed by Dalzel, that in 1779 Kpengla ordered all his subjects to set about clearing the paths, giving each caboceer a string, measuring ten yards, the intended width of roads. Thus a spacious communication was opened, not only between each town and the capital, but all the way down to the beach [at Why-dah]. With incredible labour and fatigue, a passage was cut through the wood at Apoy; the gullies were filled up, and the hurdle bridges, over the swamps, were widened.When this work was completed, the King said, with a vainglorious air, If any one be desirous of paying me a visit, he shall not have it to say, that thorns or briars impede his march.’”
[2]
[1]: Alpern, S. B. (1999). Dahomey’s Royal Road. History in Africa, 26, 11–24: 11–12. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J4ZASAV6/collection [2]: Alpern, S. B. (1999). Dahomey’s Royal Road. History in Africa, 26, 11–24: 13. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J4ZASAV6/collection |
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In section on period 1440CE–1600CE: “[I]t was not only in war that the strategy and logistical principles were given considerations. It was also reflected in the plans for the defence of Benin City, with fortified walls and moats, which afforded maximum control of the road networks that led to the nine gates of the City.”
[1]
[1]: Osadolor, O. B. (2001). The Military System of Benin Kingdom, c.1440–1897. University of Hamburg, Germany: 119. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/N4RZF5H5/collection |
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“Many of these slaves must have moved north along the trans-Saharan route which ran along the Atlantic littoral up to Wad Nun in the Moroccan Sahara the point at which the slaves moved into the control of Moroccan traders. In the late 1840s, a trade spur opened that linked the Kajoor with Wad Nun via the Adrar and apparently supplemented the costal route.”
[1]
[1]: (Webb Jr 1993, 244) Webb Jr, James L.A. 1993. ‘The Horse and Slave Trade between the Western Sahara and Senegambia.’ Journal of African History. Vol. 34:2. Pp 221-246. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/JDZFX3SC/collection |
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The following quote discusses ancient slave routes through the Kingdom of Baol. “Beyond these royal capital, secondary political centers developed, such as Kaba in Baol. This village was crossed by one of the ancient slave routes that started in Portudal, the principal trading point for the area, and ended at Lambaye, the chief town of the kingdom. Kaba reached its apogee under the rule of the Guedj. The fara kaba, of slave origin, commander of the armies of Baol, lived there.”
[1]
[1]: (Gueye 2003, 54) Gueye, Adama. 2003. ‘The Impact of the Slave Trade on Cayor and Baol: Mutations in Habitat and Land Occupancy’ In Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies. Edited by Sylviane A. Diouf. Athens: Ohio University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/RBB5G77X/collection |
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"One of the first things that impressed visitors to Buganda [in the 19th century] was that a road was what they found themselves walking on - not a winding track from one village to the next, but a wide well-maintained thoroughfare with causeways over the many swamps. All such roads led to the capital, which at this time was at a place called Bandabalogo just to the east of modern Kampala."
[1]
[1]: (Wrigley 2002: 59) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/DNKVW9WZ/collection. |
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"The two main axes of communication, which structured the whole region, were the road between Kabagari and Bwishaza along the shores of lake Kivu through the Rugabano pass, and another road that, starting in central Rwanda, crossed a mountain pass in Ndiza, and then followed the Mukungwa upstream to the lava plain around the volcanoes and regions beyond. These roads were frequented by hawkers who, no doubt, already carried salt from Lake Edward, hoes from Bugoyi, and perhaps raffia bracelets (amatega) from north Kivu."
[1]
[1]: (Vansina 2004: 114) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. |
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“Transport of commodities was a problem in those days. Roads within urban limits were maintained by local authorities like ur or sabha. Trunk roads were not officially the concern of anybody but were maintained by their users especially traders. We hear of toll-gates and accountants who maintained the accounts of the tolls. The travelling merchants had their guards in arms.”
[1]
[1]: (Soundaram 2011, 77) Soundaram, A. 2011. ‘The Characteristic Features of Early Medieval Tamil Society: An Overview’ In History of People and Their Environs: Essays in Honour of Prof. B.S. Chanrababu Edited by S. Ganeshram and C. Bhavani. Chennai: Indian Universities Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/CISI5MVX/collection |
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“The roads and highways were maintained and guarded to prevent robbery and smuggling.”
[1]
[1]: (Jankiraman, 2020) Jankiraman, M. 2020. Perspectives in Indian History: From the Origins to AD 1857. Chennai: Notion Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/N3D88RXF/collection |
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“In addition to military forces, the palaykkars kept up police establishments called the ‘kaval’. The ‘Kavalkars’ protected private property and places of public resort like roads and markets.”
[1]
[1]: (Ramaswami 1984, 79) Ramaswami, N.S. 1984. Political History of Carnatic Under the Nawabs. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/PTIS9MB4/collection |
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“The Pallavas were also known for their commercial enterprise, increased production, and economic expansion. Both internal and external trade increased under the Pallavas. Internally, urban centers featured markets, while a good road system allowed villagers to transport goods to market.”
[1]
[1]: (Bush Trevino 2012, 46) Bush Travino, Macella. 2012. ‘The Pallava Dynasty’ In Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia and Africa: An Encyclopedia. Vol.4 Edited by Carolyn M. Elliot. Los Angeles: Sage. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/4RPCX448/collection |
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“The Chinese pilgrim Fa Hian, who visited Anur dhapura in the 5th century AD and stayed there for two years, was clearly impressed with the city, and his account is perhaps the most detailed description of cities visited by him. He noted that there were in all four principal streets. All the streets and lanes were well-maintained and were ‘smooth and level’ (Fa Hian 1957, p. 47). However, as in the case of the city wall, in their layout the streets appear to have belied their origins. For instance, the main street, called the Ceremonial Street, started at the southern gate near the Th p r ma, and it is said to have veered eastwards and then northwards ( 1931, pp. 572–3). Clearly it followed the casual and meandering path of an unplanned street.”
[1]
[1]: (Gunawardana 1989, 156). Gunawardana, R.A.L.H. 1989. ‘Anurādhapura: ritual, power and resistance in a precolonial South Asian city’. Domination and Resistance edited by Daniel Miller, Michael Rowlands, Chris Tilley. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/G8CWKJ2U/collection |
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“The Chinese pilgrim Fa Hian, who visited Anur dhapura in the 5th century AD and stayed there for two years, was clearly impressed with the city, and his account is perhaps the most detailed description of cities visited by him. He noted that there were in all four principal streets. All the streets and lanes were well-maintained and were ‘smooth and level’ (Fa Hian 1957, p. 47). However, as in the case of the city wall, in their layout the streets appear to have belied their origins. For instance, the main street, called the Ceremonial Street, started at the southern gate near the Th p r ma, and it is said to have veered eastwards and then northwards ( 1931, pp. 572–3). Clearly it followed the casual and meandering path of an unplanned street.”
[1]
[1]: (Gunawardana 1989, 156). Gunawardana, R.A.L.H. 1989. ‘Anurādhapura: ritual, power and resistance in a precolonial South Asian city’. Domination and Resistance edited by Daniel Miller, Michael Rowlands, Chris Tilley. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/G8CWKJ2U/collection |
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“Zayla gave access to the caravan routes in the Horn of Africa as far as Bali in the Upper Juba valley, and connected the trade routes across the Red Sea to southern Arabia and Southeast Asia.”
[1]
[1]: (Mukhtar 2016, Encyclopedia of Empire) Mukhtar, Mohamed H. 2016. ‘Adal Sultanate.’ In J. Mackenzie Encyclopedia of Empire. Seshat URL: Wiley. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/FM8D55XW/library |
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“Due to the commercial activity and wealth of Mogadishu, “Cerulli has rightly concluded that the traffic in gold and horses particularly indicates the possible trade relations between Mogadishu and the interior of Africa. Perhaps this also included the Ethiopian interior, where Muslim merchants had been involved in long-distance trade for many centuries.”
[1]
[1]: (Tamrat 2008, 59) Tamrat, Taddesse. 2008. ‘Ethiopia, the Red Sea and the Horn’ In the Cambridge History of Africa: c. 1050 – c.1600 vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp 98-182. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Tamrat/titleCreatorYear/items/A68FCWWI/item-list |
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The following quote suggests that roads were likely present as the Habr Yunis had caravan routes and thriving trade networks. The population numbers are an approximation and do not represent a definitive number. “The dimensions of Zeila Burton compares to Suez, sufficient to hold a few thousand inhabitants, and provided with six mosques, a dozen large white-washed stone houses, and two hundred or more thatched mud – and-wattle huts. The ancient wall of coral rubble and mud defending the town was no longer fortified with guns, and in many places had become dilapidated. Drinking water had to be fetched from wells four miles from the town. Yet trade was thriving: to the north caravans plied the Danakil country, while to the west the lands of the ‘Ise and Gadabursi clans were traversed as far as Harar, and beyond Harar to the Gurage country in Abyssinia. The main exports were slaves, ivory hides, horns, ghee, and guns. On the coast itself Arab divers were active collecting sponge cones and provisions were cheap.”
[1]
[1]: (Lewis 2002, 34) Lewis, Ioan M. 2002. A Modern History of the Somali: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/KHB7VSJK/collection |
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The capital Afgoy was situated at the crossroads of major caravan routes suggesting that there were important roads within the Geledi Sultanate. “Afgoy was the crossroads of caravans bringing ivory, leopard skins, and aloe in exchange for foreign fabrics sugar, dates, and firearms.”
[1]
[1]: (Mukhtar 2003, 28) Mukhtar, Mohamed H. 2003. Historical Dictionary of Somalia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Mukhtar/titleCreatorYear/items/J8WZB6VI/item-list |
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The following quote suggests that roads were likely present in the Harla Kingdom due the existence of long-distance trade networks. “In contrast, Harlaa was at least partially Islamised and its inhabitants participated in long distance trade in the 12th -13th centuries.”
[1]
[1]: (Insoll 2017, 208) Insoll, Timothy. 2017. ‘First Footsteps in Archaeology of Harar, Ethiopia’. Journal of Islamic Archaeology. Vol 4:2. Pp 189-215. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/VQ38B374/collection |
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The Roman roads built centuries before were maintained and still used as the major thoroughfares, but as the population of the time did not travel much, little effort was made to create new roads.
[1]
[1]: (Prestwich 2005: 24) Prestwich, Michael. 2005. Plantagenet England 1225-1360. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XTBKFDCI |
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The following quote suggests that roads were likely present as the Hadiya Sultanate contributed to the slave trade and imported slaves into the Sultanate. “Hadeya was much involved in the slave trade, for it imported slaves from the ‘country of infidels’, presumably nearby Christian or ‘pagan lands’.”
[1]
[1]: (Pankhurst 1997, 79) Pankhurst, Richard. 1997. The Ethiopian Borderlands: Essays in Regional History from Ancient Times to the End of the 18th Century. Lawrenceville, New Jersey: The Red Sea Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/F5TE8HH5/collection |
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The following quote suggests that roads were likely present due to various trading routes and the caravan trade. “The medieval capital of central Eritrea, Debarwa is situated in the fertile Tselima district of Seraye on the headwaters of the Mareb, where the trade route from Hamasien to northern Tigray cross the river. This strategic location made it a caravan stop and regional market in the 15th century, when it was chosen as the capital for the Bahre Neashi, the Ethiopian-appointed governor of Mar-eb Mallash.”
[1]
[1]: (Connell and Killion 2011, 162) Connell, Dan and Killion, Tom. 2011. Historical Dictionary of Eritrea. Second Edition. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/24ZMGPAA/collection |
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The quote below infers that roads were likely present with the presence of trade routes. “However, there periodically emerged throughout Somali history regional sultanates whose leaders claimed authority over many clans and over large tracts of territory. Examples include the medieval Sultanates of Adal, Ifat and Harar on the eastern fringes of the Ethiopian highlands; the Ajuraan Sultanate in the sixteenth century; The Majeerteen Sultanate in the extreme northeast which arose in the eighteenth century; and the nineteenth-century Sultanates of Hobya and Geledi. While it is impossible to determine with any precision the boundaries of these pastoral polities, it is apparent that they encompassed well sites, trade routes, and market towns shared by many different clans.”
[1]
[1]: (Cassanelli 1982, 70-71) Cassanelli, Lee. V. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TKPH7Z89/library |
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The following quote suggests that roads were likely present. “A caravan route linked Gondar with Sennar and Egypt.”
[1]
[1]: (Holt 2008, 43) Holt, P.M. 2008. ‘Egypt, the Funj and Darfur’ In The Cambridge History of Africa c. 1600 – c.1790. Edited by Richard Grey. Vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/WC9FQBRM/collection |
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The following quote suggests that roads were likely present in the Kingdom of Gumma. “Trade between the north and the southwest passed through Jimma, much of it carried on by Jimma merchants. Through Hirmata (where the modern town of Jimma is situated) passed caravans to the southwest (to Kafa, Maji, Gimira); the south (Kullo, Konta, Uba, and elsewhere); to the west (Gomma, Guma, Gera Ilubabor); and north to Limmu, Nonno, Shoa, Wollo, and Gondar.”
[1]
[1]: (Lewis 2001, 49) Lewis, Herbert S. 2001. Jimma Abba Jifar, an Oromo Monarchy: Ethiopia, 1830-1932. Lawrenceville, New Jersey: The Red Sea Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/NRZVWSCD/collection |
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The following quote implies road maintenance on the part of Ife as well as neighbouring polities. "Protecting the trade routes on which these valuables traveled was an important concern for all the trading partners along the “Bead Road,” which stretched from Ilé-Ifè to the Moshi-Niger area and as far as the Niger Bend in present-day Mali."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 108) |
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There was extensive trade throughout the Oyo Empire and beyond (trans-Saharan, overseas). “Elaborate trade routes to the coast were established and maintained.”
[1]
[1]: Ejiogu, EC. ‘State Building in the Niger Basin in the Common Era and Beyond, 1000–Mid 1800s: The Case of Yorubaland’. Journal of Asian and African Studies vol.46, no.6 (1 December 2011): 605. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2H2CJNHP/collection |
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The following quote suggests that roads were likely present due to Waalo’s importance in the slave trade with the Western Sahara Desert. “These estimates of slave exports suggest that in the early years of the French presence at Saint-Louis the number of slaves exported from Senegambia across the Atlantic was a small percentage of the slaves which passed from Senegambia into the desert. Exports from Waalo alone to the Sahara and North Africa may have equalled or surpassed the export of slaves from the entire Senegambia, including the Senegal and Gambia river basins, into the Atlantic sector.”
[1]
[1]: (Webb Jr 1993, 235) Webb Jr, James L.A. 1993. ‘The Horse and Slave Trade between the Western Sahara and Senegambia.’ Journal of African History. Vol. 34:2. Pp 221-246. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/JDZFX3SC/collection |
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The following quote suggests that roads used for trade were likely present. “The Senegambia’s link to the expansive interior trade incorporated several commercial complexes that were connected to the major empires in West Africa besides Mali to the north and Jolof to the east, allowing the flow of a variety of foreign commodities into the region. Part of this conglomerate of networks made use of the Gambia River to gain salt, rice, grasses, and dried fish that would be bartered for iron, cloth, kola, and in all likelihood luxury items (a notable portion of which were of European origin) that until that time could only be obtained from interior markets.”
[1]
[1]: (Gijanto 2016, 31-32) Gijanto, Liza. 2016. The Life of Trade: Events and Happenings in the Niumi’s Atlantic Center. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/7XNBIF95/collection |
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The following quote suggests that roads were likely present due to the presence of trade networks. “Hitherto, the trading season had been limited to the month immediately following the rains. When the season ended the traders burned their huts and returned home. The peanut trade however, gave rise to the practice of traders advancing goods on credit to subtraders who remained in business all year long.”
[1]
[1]: (Klein 1972, 425) Klein, Martin A. 1972. ‘Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution in Senegambia.’ The Journal of Africa History. Vol. 13:3. Pp 419-441. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZJRN8UJ8/collection |
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The following quote suggests that roads were likely present due to the presence of caravan routes. “The main trade routes throughout this period of history were the trans-Saharan caravan routes of the interior through which gold, salt, and slaves passed.”
[1]
[1]: (McLaughlin 2008, 83) McLaughlin, Fiona. 2008. ‘Senegal: The Emergence of a National Lingua Franca’. In Languages and National Identity in Africa. Edited by Andrew Simpson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/7VBFQ96V/collection |
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The following quote suggests that roads were present in the Early Cholas kingdom during the Sangam period. “During the Sangam period, hereditary monarchy was the form of government. The king was assisted by a wide body of officials who were categorized into five councils. They were ministers (amaichar), priests (anthanar), envoys (thuthar), military commanders (senapathi), and spies (orrar). The military administration was efficiently organized and a regular army was associated with each ruler. The chief source of the state’s income was land revenue while a custom duty was also imposed on foreign trade. The major source of filling the royal treasury was the booty captured in wars. The roads and highways were maintained and guarded to prevent robbery and smuggling.”
[1]
[1]: (Jankiraman, 2020) Jankiraman, M. 2020. Perspectives in Indian History: From the Origins to AD 1857. Chennai: Notion Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/N3D88RXF/collection |
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The following quote suggests that roads were likely present in the Thanjavur Maratha Kingdom, as they would have fostered the existence of trading caravans. “Parallel to, and frequently working with, the banjara caravans were specialist merchant castes, who used their own internal organizations to develop trade over long distances. Most prominent, down the south-east coast, were Telugu Komatis who specialized in chilli, turmeric, and tobacco, grown in Andhra, but were also involved in the cloth and rice trades. The spread across many of the casbahs in the Tamil and Kannada countries but kept their identity and cohesion through maintenance of their language and, also, worship at their own sectarian temples.”
[1]
[1]: (Washbrook 2010, 276) Washbrook, David. 2010. ‘Merchants, Markets, and Commerce in Early Modern South India’. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. Vol. 53:1/2 Pp 266-289. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/7ZBUUSJN/collection |
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There were roads across the region. The first king, Artaxias I, had many new roads built in order to strengthen trade and movement across the empire.
[1]
Some of the roads in the region were impassable during winter.
[2]
[1]: Khachikyan 2010: 38. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/CB68XVCZ [2]: Hovannisian 2004: 58. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/8B4DBDFU |
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“Land routes homed in on Prague from all sides. From the north, there were roads from Zittau, Chlumec (Serbian) and Most; from the west the Via Magna and from Domažlice. From the south-west, there was the well known Gold Road, also named the Via Aurea, from Austria the Austrian road. From Prague to the east, there were the main routes to Poland (the Kłodzko road, or Silesian, the Polish or the Náchod road); to the south-east to Brno, named the Trstená road; and through Jihlava, the Habry road.”
[1]
[1]: (Pánek and Oldřich 2009: 41) Pánek, Jaroslav and Oldřich, Tůma. 2009. A History of the Czech Lands. University of Chicago Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/4NAX9KBJ |
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Roads were present across the US since preceding period. The government financed the building and maintaining of roads during this period as part of political promises to stimulate trade and migration.
[1]
[1]: Volo and Volo 2004: 304-306. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/SIB5XSW97. |
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“The Chaco roads were originally ten to thirty feet wide and had raised shoulders… Most Chacoan roads ran straight and did not curve with the terrain. Stone steps were cut into unavoidable cliff faces and detours were often marked by double grooves chiselled in bedrock. Some road segments were dual, like divided highways. In places these were also marked by stone grooves. To date, the great ‘North’ and ‘South’ roads from Chaco Canyon are best known. The former runs north fifty miles to Salmon River near Bloomfield. The other runs south to the Chacoan towns between Grants and Gallup, passing through Kin Ya’a.”
[1]
[1]: (Stuart 2009: 82-83)Stuart, David E. 2009. The Ancient Southwest: Chaco Canyon, Bandelier, and Mesa Verde. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/X4CQDXF9 |
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“Though England had a system of roads emanating from London as first laid down by the Romans, water transportation (around the coast or, internally, via the river system) remained the cheapest and safest way to travel or to ship goods.”
[1]
“In fact, under the later Tudors, the parish became the crucial unit of local government, repairing roads, providing weapons for the militia, and above all assuming responsibility for the poor.”
[2]
“In the years following 1603 a true market economy developed and England’s transportation system was forced to keep up via the dredging of rivers and better roads, carriages, wagons, and carrying services.”
[3]
[1]: (Bucholz et al 2013: 14) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U [2]: (Bucholz et al 2013: 186) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U [3]: (Bucholz et al 2013: 195) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U |
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Roads were built during the Roman occupation of the region and maintained by soldiers.
[1]
[2]
“Any exemptions granted in the ninth century did not, of course, include remission from the three ‘common burdens’ of military service, upkeep of roads and bridges and fortresswork which were compulsory for the whole Mercian people.”
[3]
[1]: (Yorke 1990: 5, 19) York, Barbara. 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203447307. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/YXTNCWJN [2]: (Higham 2004: 9) Higham, Nick. ‘From Sub-Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England: Debating the Insular Dark Ages’, History Compass 2, no. 1 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2004.00085.x. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XZT7A79K [3]: (Yorke 1990: 125) York, Barbara. 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203447307. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/YXTNCWJN |
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“Industry and trade in cities like Brünn / Brno, Pest, and Trieste / Trst also benefited from new links created by Austria’s growing transportation infrastructure, which in turn stimulated increased economic growth. New highway projects, canals, river regulation, and mountain pass systems produced a rapid increase in continental transport and trade, as well as cutting the time it took to travel between economically linked destinations, often by over 50 percent.19 Between 1815 and 1848 the state constructed 2,240 kilometers (almost 1,400 miles) of roads, while local town governments or noble landowners added another 46,400 (28,830 miles) of privately funded roads.”
[1]
[1]: (Judson 2016: 114-115) Judson, Pieter M. 2016. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, USA; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BN5TQZBW |
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Roads were built during the Roman occupation of the region and maintained by soldiers.
[1]
[2]
“Any exemptions granted in the ninth century did not, of course, include remission from the three ‘common burdens’ of military service, upkeep of roads and bridges and fortresswork which were compulsory for the whole Mercian people.”
[3]
[1]: (Yorke 1990: 5, 19) York, Barbara. 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203447307. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/YXTNCWJN [2]: (Higham 2004: 9) Higham, Nick. ‘From Sub-Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England: Debating the Insular Dark Ages’, History Compass 2, no. 1 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2004.00085.x. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XZT7A79K [3]: (Yorke 1990: 125) York, Barbara. 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203447307. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/YXTNCWJN |
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Present since previous polity. “Industry and trade in cities like Brünn / Brno, Pest, and Trieste / Trst also benefited from new links created by Austria’s growing transportation infrastructure, which in turn stimulated increased economic growth. New highway projects, canals, river regulation, and mountain pass systems produced a rapid increase in continental transport and trade, as well as cutting the time it took to travel between economically linked destinations, often by over 50 percent. Between 1815 and 1848 the state constructed 2,240 kilometers (almost 1,400 miles) of roads, while local town governments or noble landowners added another 46,400 (28,830 miles) of privately funded roads.”
[1]
Roads were present, built and maintained throughout the period.
[2]
[1]: (Judson 2016: 114-115) Judson, Pieter M. 2016. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, USA; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BN5TQZBW [2]: Curtis 2013: 22, 48. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TRKUBP92. |
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The road network in Russia during this period was primarily used for postal services and other essential transportation needs. However, the quality of these roads was generally poor.
One of the earliest examples of a significant road in the Russian Empire is the road from St. Petersburg to Moscow. [1] [1]: Tracy Nichols Busch, “Connecting an Empire: Eighteenth-Century Russian Roads, from Peter to Catherine,” The Journal of Transport History 29, no. 2 (2008). Zotero link: RQI7IDGI |
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The Soviet Union invested heavily in its road infrastructure, especially during the post-World War II era, to facilitate industrial growth, military movement, and improve connectivity across its vast territory.
The economic centralization of the late 1920s and 1930s led to massive and rapid infrastructure development. [1] [2] Examples: R504 Kolyma Highway, M4 highway, Trans-Siberian Highway [1]: R. W. Davies, Mark Harrison, and S. G. Wheatcroft, eds., The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913-1945 (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Zotero link: SQIKYBTN [2]: Шафиркин, Б. И. Единая Транспортная Система СССР и Взаимодействие Различных Видов Транспорта. Москва Высшая школа, 1983. Zotero link: 6MTCGJDC |
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"When Rushd died his Ethiopian mawla, named Husayn b. Salãma, took care of the two Ziyadids (1985: 65 1. 7). While the sovereignty of the Ziyadid was crumbling, he was able to reinforce and to rule over the initial Ziyadid territory for thirty years (1985: 65-66). (20) We owe him several foundations, such as the city of al-Kadrä, a considerable number of constructions on the two roads from Hadramawt to Mecca (1985: 67-73), the foundation of the Great Mosque of Zabïd, and that of the Ashãcir (Ibn al-Daybac 20066: 39 1. 4; Chelhod 1978: 59)."
[1]
[1]: (Peli 2008: 257) Peli, A. 2008. A history of the Ziyadids through their coinage (203—442/818—1050). Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies , 2008, Vol. 38, Papers from the forty-first meeting of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held in London, 19-21 July 2007 (2008), pp. 251-263. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ADM7C94B/library |
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Roads present from earlier periods and maintained during Roman Dominate.
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Present in Mongolian Empire.
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Administration existed to manage roads. "As early as the Shang period, roads were controlled by a special official, and in the Zhou period, traffic had reached such proportions that regulations were introduced for particularly crowded crossroads and reckless driving was prohibited. ... they are said to have put roads into five categories: pedestrian roads for people and pack animals, roads for handcarts, roads for single carts, roads on which two carts could pass, and main roads wide enough to take three vehicles abreast."
[1]
[1]: (Lindqvist 2009) Lindqvist, Cecilia. 2009. China: Empire of Living Symbols. Da Capo Press. |
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"There also was an early-period city road system. A survey by the geologist Li Rongquan 李荣权 showed that the small southern gully Xiaonan Gou 小南沟, the large southern gully Danan Gou 大南沟, and southern gully Nan Gou 南沟 were all roads used during the city’s occupation. Due to flooding during subsequent eras, they became gullies (Li Rongquan, pers. comm., Sept. 2003). Therefore, it appears the early-period city road system ran from southeast to northwest in a linear design. The road stretched from the southern royal cemetery, northwest into the city, and ran between the palace area and lower elite residential area. From the northern and southern portions of the palace area it converged with a large road at Xiaonan Gou, after which it crossed through the residential area for commoners to the hypothesized ritual area (Zhongguo et al. 2005b). The road was not entirely straight or as developed as roads in later Chinese cities."
[1]
[1]: (He 2013, 264) |
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By the end of the Qing Dynasty, road systems in China were organized and classified into hierarchies.
[1]
The Board of Works was responsible for maintaining all official buildings, granaries, official communication routes, dykes, dams, and irrigation systems.
[2]
[1]: (Wang 2016, 108) [2]: (Smith 2015, 103) |
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"As early as the Shang period, roads were controlled by a special official, and in the Zhou period, traffic had reached such proportions that regulations were introduced for particularly crowded crossroads and reckless driving was prohibited. ... they are said to have put roads into five categories: pedestrian roads for people and pack animals, roads for handcarts, roads for single carts, roads on which two carts could pass, and main roads wide enough to take three vehicles abreast."
[1]
[1]: (Lindqvist 2009) Lindqvist, Cecilia. 2009. China: Empire of Living Symbols. Da Capo Press. |
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"After A.D. 500, drastic shifts began to occur in Costa Rican Precolumbian cultures. Circular houses became the norm and were indicative of a probable shift in cos- mology or “world view.” New ceramic styles including resist painting proliferated; tomb forms and burial customs changed; cobble-paved roads within and between sites appeared; and metallurgy supplanted jade carving as the principal supplier of political and religious badges of power and authority."
[1]
"Following the catastrophic environmental crisis of the sixth century the SNSM witnessed extremely rapid population growth and colonization in the northern and western drainage. Terrace systems permitted the construction of small towns on sheer mountain slopes that were linked by a network of steep roads."
[2]
[1]: (Bray 2003, 327-9) [2]: (Oyuela-Caycedo 2008, 419) |
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"The local municipal councils, varying in numbers, were left undisturbed and retained the control of such matters as lighting, roads, local taxation. The police and imperial taxation were in the hands of the Rectors, and they were in constant communication either with the Senate, or, in very grave emergencies, with the Council of Ten."
[1]
[1]: (? 1902, 263) ?. Chapter VIII. Venice. A W Ward. G W Prothero. Stanley Leathes. eds. 1902. The Cambridge Modern History. Volume I. The Renaissance. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. |
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"The socio-political organization of Tairona culture during the early part of the sixteenth century consisted of relatively independent chiefdoms, each including a priestly class and a hierarchy of chiefs as well as specialists in arts and crafts (e.g., gold workers, semiprecious stone engravers, merchants). This arts and crafts specialization, coupled with intensive exchange of agricultural products, was possible because of the regional ecological diversity found in the SNSM. The diversity encouraged the development of centers of specialization and regions of production for items such as ceramics, lithic artifacts, and agricultural products. At last archaeologists are beginning to understand the ancient system as they reconstruct the web of roads and pathways that connected all of the sites (Oyuela-Caycedo 1987a, 1990; Herrera de Turbay 1985; Kurela 1993; Herrera 2000)."
[1]
"Following the catastrophic environmental crisis of the sixth century the SNSM witnessed extremely rapid population growth and colonization in the northern and western drainage. Terrace systems permitted the construction of small towns on sheer mountain slopes that were linked by a network of steep roads."
[2]
[1]: (Oyuela-Caycedo 2008, 423) [2]: (Oyuela-Caycedo 2008, 419) |
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"In a traditional society that lacked the concept of public or municipal agencies, as individuals, the members of this ruling class assumed responsibility for what we would consider public concerns. The mamluks were patrons of art, schools, and mosques; builders of roads, bridges, and markets; and overseers of "public works," morality, and charity."
[1]
[2]
In 1322 CE Simon Simeonis described the streets of Cairo as "narrow, tortuous, dark, rich in recesses, full of dust and other refuse, and unpaved."
[3]
[1]: (Dols 1977, 152) [2]: (Oliver 1977, 65) [3]: (Raymond 2000, 154) |
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Roads "maintained right up until the end of Mamluk rule".
[1]
In 1322 CE Simon Simeonis described the streets of Cairo as "narrow, tortuous, dark, rich in recesses, full of dust and other refuse, and unpaved."
[2]
"In a traditional society that lacked the concept of public or municipal agencies, as individuals, the members of this ruling class assumed responsibility for what we would consider public concerns. The mamluks were patrons of art, schools, and mosques; builders of roads, bridges, and markets; and overseers of "public works," morality, and charity."
[3]
[1]: (Oliver and Atmore 2001, 21) Oliver R and Atmore A. 2001. Medieval Africa 1250-1800. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [2]: (Raymond 2000, 154) [3]: (Dols 1977, 152) |
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"In a traditional society that lacked the concept of public or municipal agencies, as individuals, the members of this ruling class assumed responsibility for what we would consider public concerns. The mamluks were patrons of art, schools, and mosques; builders of roads, bridges, and markets; and overseers of "public works," morality, and charity."
[1]
[1]: (Dols 1977, 152) |
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Improvements made by the Egyptians to the north—south route 2000—1780 BCE. Nubian Corridor "the principal artery between Africa, the lower Nile valley and the Mediterranean world: the navigable channels through the First Cataract were kept clear, a doilkos - a track for hauling boats over land - was constructed parallel to the impassable rapids of the Second Cataract, and a dam was built at Semna to facilitate navigation of the minor rapids of Batn el-Hagar."
[1]
Road network emerged with development of irrigation systems. Excavated soil was piled by the side of ditches, these formed embankments which were used as paths and roads. Generally not paved. (An exception was the 11.5 km paved straight road - using flagstones and petrified wood - discovered in the Fayyum, which artefacts date to Old Kingdom).
[2]
[1]: (Mokhtar ed. 1981, 239) [2]: (Partridge 2010) |
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Western coast road.
[1]
Royal Road at Amarna.
[2]
Reliable road through Sinai had to be developed in order to advance by land into Canaan. Connected east Delta (or Avaris, at Perunefer) to Gaza.
[3]
Road network emerged with development of irrigation systems. Excavated soil was piled by the side of ditches, these formed embankments which were used as paths and roads. Generally not paved. (An exception was the 11.5 km paved straight road - using flagstones and petrified wood - discovered in the Fayyum, which artefacts date to Old Kingdom).
[4]
[5]
[2]: (Arnold 2003, 37) [3]: (Garcia ed. 2013, 435-436) [4]: (Partridge 2010) [5]: (Van Dijk 2000, 287) |
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Western coast road.
[1]
Royal Road at Amarna.
[2]
Reliable road through Sinai had to be developed in order to advance by land into Canaan. Connected east Delta (or Avaris, at Perunefer) to Gaza.
[3]
Road network emerged with development of irrigation systems. Excavated soil was piled by the side of ditches, these formed embankments which were used as paths and roads. Generally not paved. (An exception was the 11.5 km paved straight road - using flagstones and petrified wood - discovered in the Fayyum, which artefacts date to Old Kingdom).
[4]
[2]: (Arnold 2003, 37) [3]: (Garcia ed. 2013, 435-436) [4]: (Partridge 2010) |
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Road network emerged with development of irrigation systems. Excavated soil was piled by the side of ditches, these formed embankments which were used as paths and roads. Generally not paved. An exception was the 11.5 km paved straight road (flagstones and petrified wood) discovered in the Fayyum. Artefacts date it to c2494-2184 BCE.
[1]
[1]: (Partridge 2010) |
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Polities would have maintained infrastructure that first appeared in earlier periods?
|
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"Today a road known as the “Forty Days Road” (so named because of the time it takes to traverse), takes the same route to Egypt as the ancient Meroitic road, and passes right by the cemetery."
[1]
[1]: (Powell, E A. 2013. Monday, June 10. Miniature Pyramids of Sudan. http://www.archaeology.org/issues/95-1307/features/940-sedeinga-necropolis-sudan-meroe-nubia) |
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Spain had a well-developed road system.
[1]
Improvements of roads and mountain passes were made under Charles III
[2]
[1]: (Casey 2002, 23) Casey, James. 2002. Early Modern Spain: A Social History. New York: Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/2SNTRSWT [2]: (Casey 2002, 15) Casey, James. 2002. Early Modern Spain: A Social History. New York: Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/2SNTRSWT |
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‘Each water-based feature fulfilled several functions. Barays provided agricultural and domestic water, and fish and plant foods. Canals channeled water for public sanitation, and transport arteries. Embankments and dikes were usually oriented east-west following the contours and acted both as levees ti control floods and elevated causeways for roads. Moats surrounding temples, monuments, and inhabited areas also fulfilled several functions: they served as sacred boundaries, they were a source of domestic water and food, and they provided fill for foundations to raise the level of the terrain for drainage and protection. Access to domestic water was provided by tanks and basins dug into the water table.’
[1]
’In spite of a century of Angkorian research, the study of the great system of highways that tied together the provinces of the Classic Khmer Empire has hardly begun.’
[2]
’[Jayavarman VII] saw to the construction of many other buildings across his empire, including roads with guesthouses every 9.3 miles (15 km) that linked Angkor with viceregal centers such as Phimai.’
[3]
’Highways were built—straight, stone-paved roads running across hundreds of kilometers, raised above the flood level, with stone bridges across rivers and lined with rest houses every 15 kilometers.’
[4]
[1]: (Engelhardt 1995, p.25) [2]: (Coe 2003, p. 151) [3]: (Higham 2012, p. 186) [4]: (Vickery 2004b, p. 696) |
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According to SCCS variable 14 ’Routes of Land Transport’ ’2’ or ’improved trails, for porters or animal carriers’ were present. Gladwin relates a story that implies road construction in the colonial period: ’Later Paul went to Susan, whom he says he really wanted to marry. He says that three other men were trying to marry her but she consistently rejected them. Of Paul, however, she approved. He approached her family but found her father’s “brother,” with whom she was living at the time, opposed. Thwarted, Paul went to four Japanese who were living on the island supervising road work; Paul had already told them of his intention of marrying Susan. They offered to help and the next day told her father’s “brother” that if he did not permit the marriage he would get all the dirty jobs from then on. He was, however, adamant and Paul had to give it up. Having had intercourse twice in one night during the negotiations “because we did not know how it would work out later” this time they had intercourse three times and he left.’
[1]
Bollig also refers to road construction undertaken by colonial authorities: ’The number of the Truk people, taken together, will not exceed 12,000. They live together for the most part in small villages on the seashore. Isolated families also live scattered in the mountains on their plantings. Thanks to the German government, there are good roads around the island. On the mountain slopes, on the other hand, one finds only narrow Kanaka paths, which lead from hut to hut, from planting to planting. They are usually in such a condition that only a native can venture to walk on them.’
[2]
[1]: Gladwin, Thomas, and Seymour Bernard Sarason 1953. “Truk: Man In Paradise”, 334 [2]: Bollig, Laurentius 1927. “Inhabitants Of The Truk Islands: Religion, Life And A Short Grammar Of A Micronesian People”, 249 |
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|
"Clearly there must have been routeways along which people traveled, if only to move their animals or visit their neighbors. But were these ways formalized? Were their surfaces prepared to facilitate the passage of animals and vehicles? Only rarely is it possible to answer that question. The most famous cases are where wooden tracks were laid down across wet or boggy ground, as above all in the Somerset Levels of south-west England, but also in several other parts of Britain, in Ireland, Holland, and north-west Germany."
[1]
[1]: (Harding 2002, 311) |
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|
Roads are present in earlier times, so we could infer that they were still in use in the Late Neolithic. "Use of carts suggests the presence of roads. As previously mentioned, a cart track was found under a Funnel Beaker megalithic tomb at Flintbek, near Kiel in Germany in 1989 (Zich 1993) which can be dated typologically to around 3630/3500 BC. A number of scholars have attempted to reconstruct Neolithic roadways. Bakker(1976:66-67)notes that "the difference between the prehistoric major routes in the North European Plain and those of the early Middle Ages was very slight" Also, the existence of trackways in bog areas may be connected with the appearance of carts around 3500 BC. Wooden trackways, 4 m wide and made of oak, pine, alder and ash, dated to the Third millennium BC have been found in bogs in northern Germany (Hayen 1985). Trees from an estimated 40 ha of forest were needed to construct 1 km of trackway. The trackway at DUmmer, dated to the mid-third millennium BC, is 2.5 km long and used 15,000 planks from 2,500 trees, mostly alder, for its construction. Not all trackways were suitable for wheeled transport as has been shown by Coles (1975). The track built of split alder trunks at Abbot’s Way in England is over 1200 m long, but only 1-1.5 m wide, with an irregular surface. Such constructions indicate that members of Neolithic communities could be mobilized from time to time for communal activities."
[1]
[1]: (Milisauskas and Kruk 2002, 214) |
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|
By early 14th century Paris had paved streets. Roads around Ile de France region also improved.
[1]
Royal toll stations, e.g. at Bapaume.
[2]
Mud roads linked towns. Major towns paved through-fares.
[3]
The Saint-Gothard pass, 1237 CE. Enabled overland travel "between northern Italy and Flanders via the Rhine, eliminating passage through Champagne."
[3]
[1]: (Spufford 2006, 101) [2]: (Spufford 2006, 162) [3]: (Reyerson 1995, 1740-1741) |
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|
Via Belgica "Still, it is possible - perhaps even likely- that the Merovingian kings and queens repaired the roads. It is due to these maintenance efforts of later rulers that the road is still recognizable on many places and is usually still in use. It has been listed by UNESCO as World Heritage."
[1]
Via Regia "After the Thuringian kingdom’s fall in 531/534, the territory through which the road passed was under Merovingian domination".
[2]
[1]: (http://www.livius.org/place/chaussee-brunehaut-via-belgica/) [2]: (http://www.via-regia.org/eng/viaregiageschichte/versuch.php) |
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|
Via Belgica "Still, it is possible -perhaps even likely- that the Merovingian kings and queens repaired the roads. It is due to these maintenance efforts of later rulers that the road is still recognizable on many places and is usually still in use. It has been listed by UNESCO as World Heritage."
[1]
Via Regia "After the Thuringian kingdom’s fall in 531/534, the territory through which the road passed was under Merovingian domination".
[2]
[1]: (http://www.livius.org/place/chaussee-brunehaut-via-belgica/) [2]: (http://www.via-regia.org/eng/viaregiageschichte/versuch.php) |
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|
Via Belgica "Still, it is possible -perhaps even likely- that the Merovingian kings and queens repaired the roads. It is due to these maintenance efforts of later rulers that the road is still recognizable on many places and is usually still in use. It has been listed by UNESCO as World Heritage."
[1]
Via Regia "After the Thuringian kingdom’s fall in 531/534, the territory through which the road passed was under Merovingian domination".
[2]
[1]: (http://www.livius.org/place/chaussee-brunehaut-via-belgica/) [2]: (http://www.via-regia.org/eng/viaregiageschichte/versuch.php) |
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|
Roads known as present close to Paris Basin region from 250 BCE. 400-250 BCE period unknown. Previously present 475-400 BCE.
[1]
Cities organised in network of oppida (fortified urban settlements) which were linked by well-defined routes."
[2]
[1]: (http://www.chronocarto.ens.fr/gcserver/atlas#) [2]: (Kruta 2004, 115) |
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|
Cities organised in network of oppida (fortified urban settlements) which were linked by well-defined routes."
[1]
Network of streets at Vertault, and road network at Villeneuve-Saint-Germain. Paved road at Caudebec-en-Caux.
[2]
[1]: (Kruta 2004, 115) [2]: (http://www.oppida.org/page.php?lg=fr&rub=00&id_oppidum=168) |
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|
"In Sheng-tsung’s early years (984-9) serious attention was given to building roads and bridges to provide easier passage for carts and to improving the courier system, which was essential to the rapid transmission of orders and information. In 1027 a strip of land thirty double paces wide on either side of official highways was ordered to be kept cleared for security purposes."
[1]
[1]: (Twitchett, D.C. and K. Tietze. 1994. The Liao. In Franke, H. and D.C. Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China Volume 6: Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368 pp. 43-153. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. P. 95) |
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|
The great Royal road laid down during the period forms the basis of an road network linking Bangladesh to the Punjab and Kabul.
[1]
[2]
For a comparative perspective on transport infrastructure, see Monica Smith’s work.
[3]
[1]: Craig, Graham, Kagan, Ozment, Turner, The Heritage of World Civilizations (2011), p. 134 [2]: Kirk, William. "Town and country planning in ancient India according to Kautilya’s Arthasastra." The Scottish Geographical Magazine 94, no. 2 (1978): 67-75 [3]: Smith, Monica L. "Networks, territories, and the cartography of ancient states." Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95, no. 4 (2005): 832-849. |
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|
According to SCCS variable 14 ’Routes of Land Transport’ only ’unimproved trails’ were used for land transport, not roads. ’A full history of the great-roads ( nkwantεmpon) of Asante has yet to be written. Rather more is known about the southern routes than the northern, since European merchants on the Gold Coast were keenly interested in the matter and made many relevant entries in their journals. Yarak has suggested that the roads from Kumase to Axim via Denkyera, Wasa and Aowin, and from Kumase to Elmina via Denkyera and Twifo, were already in use in the first decade of the eighteenth century. Security was a constant problem on both. L. F. Rømer, a Danish factor on the eastern Gold Coast in the 1730s and 1740s, commented on the matter. In the mid-1740s he thought it likely that, because of marauding, the Asante ‘will create another road to the western forts on the seacoast’. He was later to report that this happened. ‘They have got a road open,’ he wrote, ‘from their country to Elmine [Elmina], Cap Cors [Cape Coast], and the forts which lie west of Elmine.’ It may be that this was the great-road via Asen and the Fante country to Anomabo, whence it was a short journey along the beach to the headquarters of the British at Cape Coast and of the Dutch at Elmina. If so, the Dutch could have regarded it as no more than a temporary solution to their problem of communications with Kumase. In the 1750s the Asante and Dutch authorities were involved in intensive negotiations to improve security on the old westerly routes.’
[1]
[1]: Wilks, Ivor 1992. “On Mentally Mapping Greater Asante: A Study Of Time And Motion”, 176 |
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|
There were trails, and these could possibly be called “roads” because sections of them were made of stone for easier travel (e.g. over sharp igneous rock)
[1]
.
[1]: Kirch, P. V. 1985. Feathered Gods and Fishhooks: An Introduction to Hawaiian Archaeology and Prehistory. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Pg. 266. |
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|
Most roads were worn dirt paths, with some stone reinforcement; but it is reasonable to suppose that given the importance of caravan trade, the regime would have spent effort maintaining the vital coastal route Via Maris at least.
|
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|
There was a good system of roads which were maintained by governors, such as the road between Dhar and Delhi which made a 24 day journey marked by kroh minars all the way.
[1]
[2]
"Apart from the Royal Road from Peshawar to Sonargaon, Muhammad bin Tughlaq also built a highway connecting Delhi to Daulatabad."
[3]
[1]: Qureshi, I. H. 1958. The administration of the Sultanate of Delhi. Karachi, Pakistan Historical Society. p213. [2]: Grewal, J. S. (2006). The state and society in medieval India (Vol. 7). Oxford University Press, USA, pp. 397. [3]: (Ahmed 2011, 102) Ahmed, Farooqui Salma. 2011. A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century. Pearson Education India. |
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|
"To prepare for his arrival, Mas’fid-beg, Arqan-aqa, and other Mongol officials situated along Hule’u’s line of march were instructed to prepare. They repaired roads, bridged rivers, and established ferries where there were no bridges. They also had to find and reserve pasturage of the flocks following Hule’u’s army."
[1]
[1]: (Buell 2003, 51) |
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|
"The Satavahanas realised the need of building roads and communications to facilitate trade wherever necessary", for example, "[t]here was an easy and well trodden road from Broach leading to the cities of the north (via) Ujjain and Vidisa and finally connected to Pataliputra. In the Deccan itself, a road started from Broach linking Surat with the Salsette parts of the south, where it joined the great road to the North running across the ghats to Junnar, Paithan and Ajanta"
[1]
.
[1]: C. Margabandhu, Archaeology of the Satavahana Kshatrapa Times (1985), p. 59 |
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|
The vast network of routes to facilitate the religious journey of the Hajj best exemplify the types of road networks maintained by the Abbasid Caliphate. Whereas the previous Hajj route had originated in Damascus, the rising importance of Baghdad saw a development of guard post, paved roads and watering stations across the deserts between that city and Mecca.
[1]
[2]
[1]: Petersen, Andrew. Dictionary of Islamic architecture Routledge, 2002., pp. 29-30 [2]: Bloom, Jonathan M., and Sheila Blair, eds. The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture p. 334 |
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|
Sargon built roads.
[1]
Ensi city governors "responsible for upholding security and law and order in their cities. Maintenance of roads, canals, and major buildings was another of their duties."
[2]
Bassetki, a settlement close to the town of Dohuk excavated by archaeologists from the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies: "There’s proof of extensive road networks that were built in 1800 BCE. Uncovered during the dig, these roads would have connected to the city to Anatolia and Mesopotamia."
[3]
[1]: (Baizerman 2015) Baizerman, Michael. 2015. Dawn and Sunset: A Tale of the Oldest Cities in the Near East. AuthorHouse. [2]: (Foster 2016, 41) Foster, Benjamin R. 2016. The Age of Agade. Inventing Empire In Ancient Mesopotamia. Routledge. London. [3]: 5,000 year old city from the Akkadian Empire found in northern Iraq. 18th December 2016. The Vintage News. http://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/12/18/5000-year-old-city-from-the-akkadian-empire-found-in-northern-iraq/ |
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|
"Paved roads were rare outside the cities; the major highways and many minor ways were, nevertheless, genuine roads, created by leveling and compacting the ground, and regularly repaired after damage by rain and other natural hazards. Army engineers preceded military expeditions to identify the most appropriate line of march, check and clear or repair existing roads, and, where necessary, construct new ones."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 189) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
"Paved roads were rare outside the cities; the major highways and many minor ways were, nevertheless, genuine roads, created by leveling and compacting the ground, and regularly repaired after damage by rain and other natural hazards. Army engineers preceded military expeditions to identify the most appropriate line of march, check and clear or repair existing roads, and, where necessary, construct new ones."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 189) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
"Paved roads were rare outside the cities; the major highways and many minor ways were, nevertheless, genuine roads, created by leveling and compacting the ground, and regularly repaired after damage by rain and other natural hazards. Army engineers preceded military expeditions to identify the most appropriate line of march, check and clear or repair existing roads, and, where necessary, construct new ones."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 189) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
"Paved roads were rare outside the cities; the major highways and many minor ways were, nevertheless, genuine roads, created by leveling and compacting the ground, and regularly repaired after damage by rain and other natural hazards. Army engineers preceded military expeditions to identify the most appropriate line of march, check and clear or repair existing roads, and, where necessary, construct new ones."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 189) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
"Paved roads were rare outside the cities; the major highways and many minor ways were, nevertheless, genuine roads, created by leveling and compacting the ground, and regularly repaired after damage by rain and other natural hazards. Army engineers preceded military expeditions to identify the most appropriate line of march, check and clear or repair existing roads, and, where necessary, construct new ones."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 189) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
Royal road from Susa in Elam (near the Persian Gulf) to Sardis in Lydia (near the Aegean sea).
[1]
Paved road building ordered by Darius I. High quality and suitable for wheeled vehicles. Royal road is the best known of a number of roads built to facilitate the speedy movement of troops, royal inspectors and trade caravans. Other roads included Babylon to Persepolis via Susa, Babylon to Bactria via Ecbatana, and Issus to Sinope. The Royal road was 2,600 km long and had 111 royal post stations.
[2]
[1]: (Farazmand 2002) |
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|
"The revenue of the Aq Qoyunlu came from taxes and dues levied on the sedentary population of Armenians, Kurds, and Arabs, as well as tolls collected along the main trade routes through eastern Anatolia."
[1]
[1]: (Quiring-Zoche 2011) Quiring-Zoche, R. 2011. Aq Qoyunlu. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/aq-qoyunlu-confederation |
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|
"Other major administrative achievements of the Elamites included ... the construction and maintenance of numerous public works and enterprises, such as roads, bridges, cities and towns, communication centers, and economic and commercial centers..."
[1]
-- which period?
[1]: (Farazmand 2009, 22) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. |
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|
"Elymais coined its own money, conducted its own public works programs"
[1]
"Elymais’ emergence as an independent state was paralelled by the rise of Characene (also called Mesene), and Arab state at the head of the Persian Gulf and centered at the city of Spasinu Charaz. Both Elymais and Characene controlled important trade routes connecting the Iranian plateau and Mesopotamia with sea and land routes from India and China."
[1]
"massive capital investments in dams, roads, and canals"
[2]
[1]: (Wenke 1981, 306) Wenke, Robert J. 1981. Elymeans, Parthians, and the Evolution of Empires in Southwestern Iran. Journal of the American Oriental Society. Vol. 101. No. 3. Jul-Sep. American Oriental Society. pp. 303-315. http://www.jstor.org/stable/602592 [2]: (Wenke 1981, 314-315) Wenke, Robert J. 1981. Elymeans, Parthians, and the Evolution of Empires in Southwestern Iran. Journal of the American Oriental Society. Vol. 101. No. 3. Jul-Sep. American Oriental Society. pp. 303-315. http://www.jstor.org/stable/602592 |
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|
Ibn Battuta (14th century) on the African interior said: "there is no need to travel by caravan, for the roads are that secure."
[1]
road from Ghana (city) to Ghiyaru
[2]
[1]: (Diop 1987, 140) Diop, Cheikh Anta. Salemson, Harold trans. 1987. Precolonial Black Africa. Lawrence Hill Books. Chicago. [2]: (Al-Bakri 1068 CE in Levtzion and Spaulding 2003, 17) |
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|
"Other major administrative achievements of the Elamites included the development and use of a binary weight system, which had a major influence on the fraction systems of the whole Mesopotamia; a massive number of administrative and business documents; major architectural works; the development and management of a gigantic system of underground canals (Qanat) for irrigation, an Iranian invention that turned the arid land into an agricultural land; the construction and maintenance of numerous public works and enterprises, such as roads, bridges, cities and towns, communication centers, and economic and commercial centers; and the development and use of an advanced legal system - Elamite Penal Law, Civil Law, and Administrative Law. In addition, Elamites were the first to introduce the role of witnesses in the elaborate judicial proceedings with and ’ordeal trial’."
[1]
Choga Zanbil (Middle Elamite I settlement): " Within the temenos were distinct roadways leading from the northeast gate and the northwest gate (the so-called ‘Susa gate’) towards the ziggurat, but the rest of the interior seems not to have been built upon."
[2]
[1]: (Farazmand 2009, 22) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. [2]: (Potts 1999, 222) |
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|
"At Tepe Farukhabad, 60 km northwest of Susiana in the Deh Luran plain, part of a rampart overlooking the banks of the Mehmeh River and dating to the first centuries of the second millennium has been excavated. THis installation may have controlled traffic moving along the foothill road linking Susiana and central Mesopotamia."
[1]
"Other major administrative achievements of the Elamites included ... the construction and maintenance of numerous public works and enterprises, such as roads, bridges, cities and towns, communication centers, and economic and commercial centers"
[2]
[1]: (Carter and Stolper 1984, 148) [2]: (Farazmand 2009, 22) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. |
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|
Roadways mentioned in the account of the Babylonian foray into Susiana at the end of the Middle Elamite period. "An initial Babylonian foray into Susiana ended disastrously by the banks of the Karkheh (Uqnu) river, where Nebuchadnezzar’s army was struck by plague (Brinkman 1968: 106). As one text written in the first person tells us, ‘Erra, mightiest of the gods, decimated my warriors . . . a demon was killing my fine steeds. I became afraid of death, did not advance to battle, but turned back. With heavy . . . I camped, stupefied, at the city Kar-Dur-Apil-Sin . . . the Elamite [advanced] and I withdrew before him. I lay on a bed of misery and sighs . . .’ (Foster 1993/I: 295). An account by Sitti-Marduk, a chari- otry commander who styled himself as ‘head of the house of Bit-Karziabku’, a Kassite family and tribal unit (Brinkman 1968: 253), tells us that an attack was launched from Der in July, ‘With the heat glare scorching like fire, the very roadways were burning like open flames . . . The finest of the great horses gave out, the legs of the strong man faltered’ (Foster 1993/I: 297)."
[1]
[1]: (Potts 1999, 252-253) |
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|
In the year 694 BCE Hallusu-Insusinak invaded Babylonia using the usual road and took Sennacherib’s son as prisoner.
[1]
"Other major administrative achievements of the Elamites included ... the construction and maintenance of numerous public works and enterprises, such as roads, bridges, cities and towns, communication centers, and economic and commercial centers"
[2]
[1]: (Diakonoff 1985, 21) [2]: (Farazmand 2009, 22) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. |
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|
"Other major administrative achievements of the Elamites included ... the construction and maintenance of numerous public works and enterprises, such as roads, bridges, cities and towns, communication centers, and economic and commercial centers"
[1]
[1]: (Farazmand 2009, 22) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. |
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|
Persian Royal Road. "the Arsacids succeeded in maintaining this network of roads and expanding it to the north-east to include their major cities of Rhagae and Nisa."
[1]
Trade with India by land "via southern Iran or from Merv by the southeast portion of the ’royal way’ leading to India via Sistan and Kandahar."
[2]
[1]: Rezakhani, Khodadad. 2016. Arsacid Society and Culture. Accessed 06.09.2016: https://iranologie.com/the-history-page/the-arsacid-empire/arsacid-society-and-culture/ [2]: (Koshelenko and Pilipko 1994, 134) Koshelenko, G. A. Pilipko, V. N. Parthia. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizatins 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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|
Persian Royal Road. "the Arsacids succeeded in maintaining this network of roads and expanding it to the north-east to include their major cities of Rhagae and Nisa."
[1]
Trade with India by land "via southern Iran or from Merv by the southeast portion of the ’royal way’ leading to India via Sistan and Kandahar."
[2]
[1]: Rezakhani, Khodadad. 2016. Arsacid Society and Culture. Accessed 06.09.2016: https://iranologie.com/the-history-page/the-arsacid-empire/arsacid-society-and-culture/ [2]: (Koshelenko and Pilipko 1994, 134) Koshelenko, G. A. Pilipko, V. N. Parthia. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizatins 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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|
Few passable roadways (suggesting there were some).
[1]
In Tehran: "the initiatives taken under the Qajar government in respect of urbanisation, traffic management and public hygiene, laid the foundations of an urban infrastructure worthy of a modern city."
[2]
[1]: (Martin 2005, 15) Vanessa Martin. 2005. The Qajar Pact: Bargaining, Protest and the State in Nineteenth-Century Persia. I. B. Tauris. London. [2]: (Bosworth ed. 2007, 511) ???. Tehran. C Edmund Bosworth. ed. 2007. Historic Cities of the Islamic World. BRILL. Leiden. |
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|
"Abbas I developed the communications network, secured roads, and invested in the infrastructure."
[1]
Road building.
[2]
[1]: Mousavi, Mohammad A. “The Autonomous State in Iran: Mobility and Prosperity in the Reign of Shah ’Abbas the Great (1587-1629).” Iran & the Caucasus 12, no. 1 (January 1, 2008):32 doi:10.2307/25597352. [2]: (Keyvani 1982, 130) Keyvani, Mehdi. 1982. Artisans and Guild Life in the Later Safavid Period: Contributions to the Social-economic History of Persia. Klaus Schwarz. Artisans. |
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|
Inferred, as the previous Persian road network would probably have been used and maintained
[1]
, and there is evidence for long-distance trade routes from India to the Mediterranean
[2]
.
[1]: Aperghis, G. G. 2004. The Seleukid Royal Economy: The Finances and Financial Administration of the Seleukid Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p211 [2]: Aperghis, G. G. 2004. The Seleukid Royal Economy: The Finances and Financial Administration of the Seleukid Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p76 |
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|
"At Tepe Farukhabad, 60 km northwest of Susiana in the Deh Luran plain, part of a rampart overlooking the banks of the Mehmeh River and dating to the first centuries of the second millennium has been excavated. THis installation may have controlled traffic moving along the foothill road linking Susiana and central Mesopotamia."
[1]
"Susa’s scribes used Akkadian not only for diplomatic correspondence, but also for local legal texts, a large number of which have been found in Susa and some in Malamir (possibly ancient Huhnur), along the route from Susiana to Fars."
[2]
Connection between cities in the region?
[1]: (Carter and Stolper 1984, 148) [2]: (Leverani 2014, 254) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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|
"the Sumerian civilisation which flourished before 3500 BC... was an advanced civilisation ... administration, and even a postal service."
[1]
-- postal service may imply an interest in the formal maintenance of at least some routes. Uruk phase c3800-3000 BCE: "bureaucracy sent orders to specialised workmen, planned and constructed key infrastructures (such as canals, temples, or walls), and engaged in long-distance trade."
[2]
-- key infrastructures likely to have included some roads along which trade was carried.
[1]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html [2]: (Leverani 2014, 79) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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|
"the Sumerian civilisation which flourished before 3500 BC... was an advanced civilisation ... administration, and even a postal service."
[1]
-- postal service may imply an interest in the formal maintenance of at least some routes. Also, for trade. Proto-Elamite accounting system found as far east as Shahr-e Sukhteh on the Iran-Afghan border. Uruk phase c3800-3000 BCE: "bureaucracy sent orders to specialised workmen, planned and constructed key infrastructures (such as canals, temples, or walls), and engaged in long-distance trade."
[2]
-- key infrastructures likely to have included some roads along which trade was carried.
[1]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html [2]: (Leverani 2014, 79) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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|
Roads had existed and been maintained since Roman times.
|
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|
The Via Salaria, “salt road,” and the Sacra Via in Rome, were in existence from the beginning of the Roman Kingdom.
[1]
The first paved road was the probably the military road to Capua called the Appian Way commissioned by Appius Claudius Caecus around 312 BCE.
[2]
In about 450 BCE the laws of the Twelve Tables, dated to approximately 450 BCE, issued regulations for the dimensions of roads. So at least from 450 BCE the pre-paved roads had maintenance work done of them.
[1]: (Cornell 1995, 48, 96) |
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The first paved road was the probably the military road to Capua called the Appian Way commissioned by Appius Claudius Caecus around 312 BCE.
[1]
Caesar banned vehicles from the centre of Rome to prevent congestion, introduced one-way streets and off-street parking. In 30 BCE the first major hard-rock tunnel was built near Naples.
[2]
[2]: (Lay 1992, 337) |
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The Via Salaria, “salt road,” and the Sacra Via in Rome, were in existence from the beginning of the Roman Kingdom.
[1]
The first paved road was the probably the Appian Way which dates to 312 BCE. In about 450 BCE the laws of the Twelve Tables, dated to approximately 450 BCE, issued regulations for the dimensions of roads. So at least from 450 BCE the pre-paved roads had maintenance work done of them. Due to the importance of the "salt road", however, it is likely this mud track had maintenance work during the Roman Kingdom.
[1]: (Cornell 1995, 48, 96) |
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"The local municipal councils, varying in numbers, were left undisturbed and retained the control of such matters as lighting, roads, local taxation. The police and imperial taxation were in the hands of the Rectors, and they were in constant communication either with the Senate, or, in very grave emergencies, with the Council of Ten."
[1]
[1]: (? 1902, 263) ?. Chapter VIII. Venice. A W Ward. G W Prothero. Stanley Leathes. eds. 1902. The Cambridge Modern History. Volume I. The Renaissance. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. |
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‘The bakufu in time developed a number of other commercial and transport taxes derived from the patronage of merchant guilds, the establishment of toll barriers on highways, and the sponsorship of foreign trade.’
[1]
’During the Warring States period, the road network fell into disrepair and became very fragmented. In some areas, travel was treacherous, if not impossible, due to both the bandits who often found easy prey along the roads, and the barrier stations meant to restrict access and communication into and out of domains.’
[2]
[1]: Yamamura, Kozo (ed). 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 3. Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press [sixth edition].p.223 [2]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.328. |
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’It was only in the late 16th century that military leaders such as Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi recognized the importance of a functioning road system to their quest for the unification of Japan. To this end, they inaugurated efforts to improve the roads and make them safe for travel, and to abolish the barrier system, which hindered both mobility and trade.
[1]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.328-29. |
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’At the same time, there is reason to think that there were already well-established roads leading out of the basin in all directions, making communication with the rest of the country reasonably convenient, and theYodo River in the south gave easy water access to the Inland Sea (Seto Naikai).
[1]
[1]: Shively, Donald H. and McCullough, William H. 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan Volume 2: Heian Japan. Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press.p.99 |
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‘Another threat to shoen profits came from taxes levied to support road building, the reconstruction of state buildings, and the coasts of imperial family journeys and ceremonies.’
[1]
[1]: Mass, Jeffrey P. (ed). 1995.Court and Bakufu in Japan: Essays in Kamakura History. Stanford University Press. p.64 |
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wooden tally slips used as shipping labels
[1]
suggest good deal of valuable trade which would have been carried along roads or tracks, which would have likely been maintained.
[1]: (Ikawa-Smith 1985, 396) Ikawa-Smith, Fumiko in Misra, Virenda N. Bellwood, Peter S. 1985. Recent Advances in Indo-Pacific Prehistory: Proceedings of the International Symposium Held at Poona, December 19-21, 1978. BRILL. |
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The shogunate improved the communications systems and established ‘a five-road system (gokaido) directly maintained by the government. These roads were intended to serve the bureaucratic and military interests of the shogunate by linking the government’s base at Edo with the provinces’.
[1]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.329. |
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Caravans. There must have been established trade routes and possibly roads. "Although disputes continued to break out with Russia over levies of tribute, refugees, and Russian military expansion southward, Zunghar caravans traveled frequently to Semipalatinsk, Tobolsk, and Yamyshev and became a significant presence in Siberian markets.9 (See Table 8.1.)"
[1]
[1]: (Perdue 2005, 306) |
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‘Each water-based feature fulfilled several functions. Barays provided agricultural and domestic water, and fish and plant foods. Canals channeled water for public sanitation, and transport arteries. Embankments and dikes were usually oriented east-west following the contours and acted both as levees ti control floods and elevated causeways for roads. Moats surrounding temples, monuments, and inhabited areas also fulfilled several functions: they served as sacred boundaries, they were a source of domestic water and food, and they provided fill for foundations to raise the level of the terrain for drainage and protection. Access to domestic water was provided by tanks and basins dug into the water table.’
[1]
’In spite of a century of Angkorian research, the study of the great system of highways that tied together the provinces of the Classic Khmer Empire has hardly begun.’
[2]
’[Jayavarman VII] saw to the construction of many other buildings across his empire, including roads with guesthouses every 9.3 miles (15 km) that linked Angkor with viceregal centers such as Phimai.’
[3]
’Highways were built—straight, stone-paved roads running across hundreds of kilometers, raised above the flood level, with stone bridges across rivers and lined with rest houses every 15 kilometers.’
[4]
’In the 1200s, if not earlier, a system of raised highways linked Angkor to Phimai and other key towns.’
[5]
[1]: (Engelhardt 1995, p.25) [2]: (Coe 2003, p. 151) [3]: (Higham 2012, p. 186) [4]: (Vickery 2004b, p. 696) [5]: (Lieberman 2003, p. 230) |
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‘Each water-based feature fulfilled several functions. Barays provided agricultural and domestic water, and fish and plant foods. Canals channeled water for public sanitation, and transport arteries. Embankments and dikes were usually oriented east-west following the contours and acted both as levees ti control floods and elevated causeways for roads. Moats surrounding temples, monuments, and inhabited areas also fulfilled several functions: they served as sacred boundaries, they were a source of domestic water and food, and they provided fill for foundations to raise the level of the terrain for drainage and protection. Access to domestic water was provided by tanks and basins dug into the water table.’
[1]
’In spite of a century of Angkorian research, the study of the great system of highways that tied together the provinces of the Classic Khmer Empire has hardly begun.’
[2]
’[Jayavarman VII] saw to the construction of many other buildings across his empire, including roads with guesthouses every 9.3 miles (15 km) that linked Angkor with viceregal centers such as Phimai.’
[3]
’Highways were built—straight, stone-paved roads running across hundreds of kilometers, raised above the flood level, with stone bridges across rivers and lined with rest houses every 15 kilometers.’
[4]
[1]: (Engelhardt 1995, p.25) [2]: (Coe 2003, p. 151) [3]: (Higham 2012, p. 186) [4]: (Vickery 2004b, p. 696) |
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’Funan seems to have originated in the Mekong delta area, and around 200 AD under Fanzhan’s uncle, Fanshiman, through successive campaigns along the Gulf of Siam, it occupied belts of land of varying length which allowed goods to be transported by road or porterage to the ports on the Indian Ocean side of the peninsula.’
[1]
Furthermore: " It is acknowledged that the pre-Angkorian developments during the Funan and Chenla periods influenced the location of early transport and settlement of the later period (see Vickery 1998)".
[2]
[1]: (Jacques and Lafond 2007, 47) [2]: (Hendrickson 2007, 9) |
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’Funan seems to have originated in the Mekong delta area, and around 200 AD under Fanzhan’s uncle, Fanshiman, through successive campaigns along the Gulf of Siam, it occupied belts of land of varying length which allowed goods to be transported by road or porterage to the ports on the Indian Ocean side of the peninsula.’
[1]
[1]: (Jacques and Lafond 2007, p. 47) |
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’Funan seems to have originated in the Mekong delta area, and around 200 AD under Fanzhan’s uncle, Fanshiman, through successive campaigns along the Gulf of Siam, it occupied belts of land of varying length which allowed goods to be transported by road or porterage to the ports on the Indian Ocean side of the peninsula.’
[1]
’Some have hypothesized that Angkor Borei was Naravaranagara, a capital of Funan in the sixth century. According to Michael Vickery, however, Naravaranagara was probably 60 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Angkor Borei. In any case, Angkor Borei was one of the most impressive sites in early first-millennium Southeast Asia.’
[2]
’The oldest dated inscriptions from Funan (K.557 and K.600), dated 611, have both been found at Angkor Borei. Another recently discovered inscription is believed to date from about 650. This stele mentions that Rudravarman, Funan’s last known ruler, was living in Angkor Borei.’
[3]
[1]: (Jacques and Lafond 2007, p. 47) [2]: (Miksic 2007, p. 19) [3]: (Miksic 2007, p.20) |
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“With regard to inland trade Śilappadikāram mentions three highways that existed connecting Madura with Kodumbalur, possibly Cranganore in Kerala. It is known that goods were brought from the Pandyan kingdom over, or through the passes of, the Western Ghats to Chera desam. It is also believed that trade was carried on over the rugged roads linking north and south India.”
[1]
[1]: (Lewandowski 1977, 187-188) Lewandowski Susan J. 1977. ‘Changing Form and Function in the Ceremonial and the Colonial Port City in India: An Historical Analysis of Madurai and Madras’. Modern Asian Studies. Vol 11: 2. Pp. 183-212 Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/3D6JUUGJ/collection |
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[1]
Royal road administrators.
[2]
During imperial period numerous roads widened and expanded due to greater number of people coming and going.
[3]
In Cuzco streets were paved and laid out in a grid (with right angles)
[4]
which owed to the construction of cancha wall compounds around residences.
[5]
At height about 40,000 KM road network, 25,000 of which survives today.
[5]
[1]: (Andrushko 2007, 11) [2]: (Bauer 2004, 22) [3]: (Bauer 2004, 106) [4]: (Bauer 2004, 110) [5]: (Kaufmann and Kaufmann 2012) |
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[1]
[2]
Imperial road system.
[3]
Many highways often "erroneously attributed to the Inca"
[4]
The Wari road network is known as the Warinan.
[5]
[1]: (Covey 2006, 56) [2]: (Covey, Bauer, Bélisle, Tsesmeli 2013, 538-552) [3]: (McEwan ed. 2005, 83) [4]: (Morell 2002 http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/features/world/south-america/bolivia/sun-empires-text/3) [5]: (Lumbreras in Bergh 2012, 3) |
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wooden tally slips used as shipping labels
[1]
suggest good deal of valuable trade which would have been carried along roads or tracks, which would have likely been maintained.
[1]: (Ikawa-Smith 1985, 396) Ikawa-Smith, Fumiko in Misra, Virenda N. Bellwood, Peter S. 1985. Recent Advances in Indo-Pacific Prehistory: Proceedings of the International Symposium Held at Poona, December 19-21, 1978. BRILL. |
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“Although the pomp and circumstance of Santa Anna was and is easy to caricature and malign, his rule was not all tinsel, smoke, and mirrors; it was good for business. During the 1850s, his policies renewed educational and cultural institutions while improving transportation, subsidizing telegraphs, and repairing roads and bridges .”
[1]
“Maximilian’s greatest material legacy was his plan to redesign Mexico City (Chapman 1975, pp. 105–10). Developed in 1866, the 4-phase, 22-item plan traced new avenues, squares, utilities, and many improvements around the city. Of these, Maximilian only laid out the new Paseo de la Emperatriz (today Paseo de la Reforma) evoking Vienna’s Ringstraße. Subsequent regimes have implemented much of this plan, opening avenues west and south of the main plaza (5 de Mayo, Juárez, and 20 de Noviembre avenues), re-paving streets, adding gas lights, meatpacking plants, a ring-road (today’s circuito interior), fire stations, hospitals, cemeteries, and government ministries.”
[2]
“During the 1870s and 1880s American railroad financiers supported the Mexican National Railroad and provided the investment necessary to crisscross the nation in iron. In its totality, Díaz oversaw the construction of a network of roads and railroad concessions that exceeded 8,200,000 acres of right-of-way lands.”
[3]
“Mexico’s development after independence was defined by the railroad. As a visible symbol of capitalist development, railroad projects received high priority, although frequent changes in administrations and difficulties with financing, not to mention several invasions, slowed down any significant advances until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Previous to that, roads served as the primary means of travel and transportation, although their conditions were primitive. In fact, in 1877, half of the federal roads were suitable for animal traffic only.”
[4]
[1]: (Bunker and Macias-Gonzalez 2011: 54) Bunker, Steven B. and Macías-González, Víctor M. 2011. “Consumption and Material Culture from Pre-Contact through the Porfiriato,” in A Companion to Mexican History and Culture, ed. William H. Beezley. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. pp54–82. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/SDIQ5VE7 [2]: (Bunker and Macias-Gonzalez 2011: 56) Bunker, Steven B. and Macías-González, Víctor M. 2011. “Consumption and Material Culture from Pre-Contact through the Porfiriato,” in A Companion to Mexican History and Culture, ed. William H. Beezley. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. pp54–82. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/SDIQ5VE7 [3]: (Wakild 2011: 520) Wakild, Emily. 2011. “Environment and Environmentalism,” in A Companion to Mexican History and Culture, ed. William H. Beezley. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. pp518–37. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BMVQRFNJ [4]: (Garza 2011: 316) Garza, James A. 2011. “Conquering the Environment and Surviving Natural Disasters,” in A Companion to Mexican History and Culture, ed. William H. Beezley. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. 316–27. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TF5GMWVK |
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According to SCCS variable 14 ’Routes of Land Transport’ only ‘1’ or ’unimproved trails’ were used for land transport, not roads. The Orokaiva intially relied on trails: ’(a) As an Identity Token. So far I have not mentioned the uses of the plant emblem. If one asks a native what he actually does with his heratu, he will assuredly answer: ‘I place it on the track so that others who may follow may know I have passed that way.’ This, indeed, though not the only use for the heratu, is the commonest. At the juncture of two paths I have come upon eight different kinds of leaves or grass, placed there during the morning and as yet scarcely wilted. My boys, who were inhabitants of the district, were able to identify each clan by its heratu; the owners of them had passed this spot at intervals, all bound for one village as guests to a feast and dance. The stem of the leaf, the root of the grass, or the butt of the branch, should point in the direction which its owner has taken, but apparently this rule is not observed with strictness.’
[1]
But the colonial authorities carried out a compulsory roadbuilding scheme, conscripting native labour: ’When the Papuan Act was passed in 1905 by the Australian Commonwealth Parliament, it provided a legal framework for the Australian Administration in the whole of the Territory, of which Northern Division was a part. Ordinances whose provisions had a particular relevance for Northern Division were those that imposed a tax and made cash cropping, carrying and roadbuilding compulsory.’
[2]
[Even in colonial settlements, services were of a makeshift character.]
[1]: Williams, F. E. (Francis Edgar), and Hubert Murray 1930. “Orokaiva Society”, 115 [2]: Newton, Janice 1985. “Orokaiva Production And Change", 34 |
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"Straight cardinally orientated main streets generally divided Harappan towns and cities into residential blocks. The impression of the early excavators at Mohenjo-daro, reinforced by excavations at Kalibangan, was that settlements were laid out in a checkerboardlike grid pattern. Although more recent investigations have shown this to be untrue, the layout was nevertheless governed by precise criteria. The main streets ran north-south, diverging from this orientation by no more than 2 degrees. [...] The planned layout, foreshadowed in the Early Harappan period at a few sites such as Harappa, Kalibangan, and Nausharo, was strictly maintained throughout the Mature Harappan period, with wide clear streets. The Late Harappan period, however, saw the abandonment of planning and the encroachment of buildings into the streets."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2008, 231-232) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Valley. Santa Barbara; Denver; Oxford: ABC-CLIO. |
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|
"Straight cardinally orientated main streets generally divided Harappan towns and cities into residential blocks. The impression of the early excavators at Mohenjo-daro, reinforced by excavations at Kalibangan, was that settlements were laid out in a checkerboardlike grid pattern. Although more recent investigations have shown this to be untrue, the layout was nevertheless governed by precise criteria. The main streets ran north-south, diverging from this orientation by no more than 2 degrees. [...] The planned layout, foreshadowed in the Early Harappan period at a few sites such as Harappa, Kalibangan, and Nausharo, was strictly maintained throughout the Mature Harappan period, with wide clear streets. The Late Harappan period, however, saw the abandonment of planning and the encroachment of buildings into the streets."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2008, 231-232) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Valley. Santa Barbara; Denver; Oxford: ABC-CLIO. |
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"Today a road known as the “Forty Days Road” (so named because of the time it takes to traverse), takes the same route to Egypt as the ancient Meroitic road, and passes right by the cemetery."
[1]
[1]: (Powell, E A. 2013. Monday, June 10. Miniature Pyramids of Sudan. http://www.archaeology.org/issues/95-1307/features/940-sedeinga-necropolis-sudan-meroe-nubia) |
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Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
Certain streets paved with marble or other stone.
[2]
Road building, repairing and administration.
[3]
[1]: (Johannes Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Bakirtzis 2008, 376) Jeffreys E, Haldon J and Cormack R eds. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [3]: (Belke 2008, 295-308) Jeffreys E, Haldon J and Cormack R eds. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford University Press. Oxford. |
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The following quote suggests the presence of polity-owned and/or -maintained roads (trade routes). "Ominously for Kaabu’s Mandinka overlords, when the Frenchman Gaspard Mollien travelled through Futa Toro in 1818 he was informed of a "sacred alliance" of Muslims in Futa Toro, Bundu, and the Fula almamate in Futa Jallon to defeat "pagans" and compel them to submit to Islam. One may suppose that domination of trade routes and markets was a linked objective."
[1]
[1]: (Brooks 2007: 56) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/TT7FC2RX/collection. |
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Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
Certain streets paved with marble or other stone.
[2]
Road building, repairing and administration.
[3]
Dromos: "administrative department responsible for foreign affairs and the maintenance of the road network among other duties".
[4]
[1]: (Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Bakirtzis 2008, 376) Jeffreys E, Haldon J and Cormack R eds. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [3]: (Belke 2008, 295-308) Jeffreys E, Haldon J and Cormack R eds. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [4]: (Harvey 2003, xiv) Harvey, Alan. 2003. Economic Expansion in the Byzantine Empire, 900-1200. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. |
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Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
Certain streets paved with marble or other stone.
[2]
Road building, repairing and administration.
[3]
[1]: (Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Bakirtzis 2008, 376) Jeffreys E, Haldon J and Cormack R eds. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [3]: (Belke 2008, 295-308) Jeffreys E, Haldon J and Cormack R eds. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford University Press. Oxford. |
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“Through Lycaonia [an area granted to Cappadocia after Attalus left his kingdom to Rome], an immense region of infertile steppes and salt desert, there passed the highway that led from the Aegean coast of Asia through the Cilician Gates to Syria and the Euphrates.”
[1]
[1]: Sherwin-White, A. N. (1977) Roman Involvement in Anatolia, 167-88 B. C. The Journal of Roman Studies. 67, pp. 62-75. p68 |
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Likely maintained given the value of trade when it had to be carried inland. "Much of what tied this world together remained commercial transactions. Except in Levantine waters, the later 7th and 6th centuries saw a further burgeoning of trade, and the final realization of a Mediterranean-wide market, already partly interdependent and governed by the regime of cheap martime transport costs, specialist production and extensive importation"
[1]
Lydia had a reputation among Greek historians for its luxury and opulence and it is difficult to imagine this without the existence of some maintained roads.
[1]: (Broodbank 2015, 546) Broodbank, Cyprian. 2015. The Making of the Middle Sea. Thames & Hudson. London. |
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Network expanded under Bayezid II (1481-1512 CE)
[1]
In Cairo, according to Jean de Thevenot in 1658 CE "There is not one fine street in Cairo, but a great number of small ones that twist and turn, showing that the houses in Cairo were all built without benefit of a city plan."
[2]
[1]: (Hodgson 1961, 563) [2]: (Raymond 2000, 242) |
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|
Network expanded under Bayezid II (1481-1512 CE)
[1]
In Cairo, according to Jean de Thevenot in 1658 CE "There is not one fine street in Cairo, but a great number of small ones that twist and turn, showing that the houses in Cairo were all built without benefit of a city plan."
[2]
[1]: (Hodgson 1961, 563) [2]: (Raymond 2000, 242) |
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Roads "are best regarded as public works" and initially financed by the State.
|
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[1]
"Roadways link external centers to Cahokia providing a physical connection between them."
[2]
"LiDAR helped to identify a causeway 25m wide from Monks Mound to Rattlesnake Mound."
[3]
"trail networks also are important, and some of the historic east-west ones cross near Cahokia."
[4]
"Emerald, for example, was out on the prairie, and may have been a pilgrimage site, as roadways connected it to Cahokia and to the Southeast."
[5]
[1]: (Peregrine/Pauketat 2014, 28) [2]: (Pauketat 2014, 28) [3]: (Peregrine/Kelly 2014, 23) [4]: (Peregrine/Trubitt 2014, 21) [5]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 13) |
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|
[1]
"Roadways link external centers to Cahokia providing a physical connection between them."
[2]
"LiDAR helped to identify a causeway 25m wide from Monks Mound to Rattlesnake Mound."
[3]
"trail networks also are important, and some of the historic east-west ones cross near Cahokia."
[4]
"Emerald, for example, was out on the prairie, and may have been a pilgrimage site, as roadways connected it to Cahokia and to the Southeast."
[5]
[1]: (Peregrine/Pauketat 2014, 28) [2]: (Pauketat 2014, 28) [3]: (Peregrine/Kelly 2014, 23) [4]: (Peregrine/Trubitt 2014, 21) [5]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 13) |
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"A rock inscription in the Qatabānic language from the third or second century BC, commemorating the construction of a pathway between the Upper Lands of the region of al-Bayḍāʾ (at an elevation of about 2000 m above sea level) and the plain of Lawdar (1000 m below)."
[1]
[1]: (Robin 2015: 101) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In Arabs and Empires before Islam, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www-oxfordscholarship-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654529.001.0001/acprof-9780199654529-chapter-3. |
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"In 806/1403 for instance, the Ma’azibah had in fact caused such anarchy in the Tihamah and made the roads so unsafe for travellers and traders that the effects were even felt on the Indian Ocean trade at Aden."
[1]
[1]: Porter, Venetia Ann (1992) The history and monuments of the Tahirid dynasty of the Yemen 858-923/1454-1517, Durham theses, Durham University, p. 24, Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5867/ |
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The following quote implies some sort of state control over trade routes. "Traders, whether Dioula, Yarse, Maranse, or even Mossi, must also be included among the king’s ‘clients’. Their security along the trading routes depended on protection, and the king accordingly levied a toll on all goods in transit through his country."
[1]
[1]: (Zahan 1967: 159) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/TVIRPGXD/collection. |
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|
[1]
"Roadways link external centers to Cahokia providing a physical connection between them."
[2]
"LiDAR helped to identify a causeway 25m wide from Monks Mound to Rattlesnake Mound."
[3]
"trail networks also are important, and some of the historic east-west ones cross near Cahokia."
[4]
[1]: (Peregrine/Pauketat 2014, 28) [2]: (Pauketat 2014, 28) [3]: (Peregrine/Kelly 2014, 23) [4]: (Peregrine/Trubitt 2014, 21) |
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|
[1]
"Roadways link external centers to Cahokia providing a physical connection between them."
[2]
"LiDAR helped to identify a causeway 25m wide from Monks Mound to Rattlesnake Mound."
[3]
"trail networks also are important, and some of the historic east-west ones cross near Cahokia."
[4]
"Emerald, for example, was out on the prairie, and may have been a pilgrimage site, as roadways connected it to Cahokia and to the Southeast."
[5]
[1]: (Peregrine/Pauketat 2014, 28) [2]: (Pauketat 2014, 28) [3]: (Peregrine/Kelly 2014, 23) [4]: (Peregrine/Trubitt 2014, 21) [5]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 13) |
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|
"Trade was carried on for the most part along heavily travelled land routes, but also along waterways, especially the Amu Darya. For instance, ‘from the Kelif quayside at Termez, where the corn grows well and ripens early’, boats left laden with corn for Khwarazm. As the Bukhara khanate split up into semi- independent principalities, trade was hindered by numerous toll stations on roads, bridges and ferries."
[1]
[1]: (Mukminova 2003, 53) |
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|
"Even though there were a few broad, paved streets, Bukhara, in the tenth century as today, was a warren of winding lanes and alley."
[1]
[1]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. |
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|
"A rock inscription in the Qatabānic language from the third or second century BC, commemorating the construction of a pathway between the Upper Lands of the region of al-Bayḍāʾ (at an elevation of about 2000 m above sea level) and the plain of Lawdar (1000 m below)."
[1]
[1]: (Robin 2015: 101) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In Arabs and Empires before Islam, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www-oxfordscholarship-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654529.001.0001/acprof-9780199654529-chapter-3. |
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This is based on the codes for the Rasulids as ’Sultan ’Amir also appears to have been emulating the high period of Rasulid power a hundred years earlier’
[1]
.
[1]: Porter, Venetia Ann (1992) The history and monuments of the Tahirid dynasty of the Yemen 858-923/1454-1517, Durham theses, Durham University, p. 4 Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5867/ |
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"Apart from provincial revenue, cities had their own revenue from excise (particularly beer and wine) and from duties levied on their markets, ferries, bridges, roads, and streets."
[1]
"According to Pelsaert, Mughal control did not extend beyond the roads and the plains. This was more than enough for the VOC: particularly during the seventeenth century, maintaining a relatively well-functioning road network guaranteed good relations with the all-important sales and production areas in the interior."
[2]
[1]: (t’Hart 1989: 672) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/B9DVQGBS/collection. [2]: (Emmer and Gommans 2020: 327-328) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/AI9PPN7Q/collection. |
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“Although in the rainy season roads become muddy and slippery, caravans and riders can use the roads all year long. Thus Jimma and its neighbors are linked by routes easily travelled by men and animals.”
[1]
[1]: (Hassen 1992, 95-96) Hassen, Mohammed. 1992. ‘Islam as a Resistance Ideology Among the Oromo of Ethiopia’ In In the Shadow of Conquest: Islam in Colonial Northeast Africa. Edited by Said Samatar. Lawrenceville, New Jersey: The Red Sea Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/PJ3UMMX5/collection |
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The quote below suggest that roads were likely present. During the reign of Gawi Nechocho (1845CE -1854 CE) new trade routes were established. “It is said that, because of his daughter’s marriage to the king of Gera, a trade route was opened up to Gondar.”
[1]
[1]: (Orent 1970, 279) Orent, Amnon. 1970. ‘Refocusing on the History of Kafa Prior to 1897: A Discussion of Political Processes’. African Historical Studies. Vol. 3:2. Pp 263-293. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2A389XGK/collection |
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"Contexts that could shed light on the dynamics of social structure and hierarchies in the metropolis, such as the royal burial site of Oyo monarchs and the residences of the elite population, have not been investigated. The mapping of the palace structures has not been followed by systematic excavations (Soper, 1992); and questions of the economy, military system, and ideology of the empire have not been addressed archaeologically, although their general patterns are known from historical studies (e.g, Johnson, 1921; Law, 1977)."
[1]
Regarding this period, however, one of the historical studies mentioned in this quote also notes: "Of the earliestperiod of Oyo history, before the sixteenth century, very little is known."
[2]
Law does not then go on to provide specific information directly relevant to this variable.
[1]: (Ogundiran 2005: 151-152) [2]: (Law 1977: 33) |
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regional and long-distance trade was common,
[1]
[2]
and a system of foot paths existed during the Postclassic,
[3]
but no evidence of roads exist in the limited archaeological record of the Early Formative.
[1]: Grove, David C. (2000) "The Preclassic Societies of the Central Highlands of Mesoamerica." In Richard Adams and Murdo MacLeod (eds.), The Cambridge History of The Native Peoples of the Americas, Volume II: Mesoamerica, Part I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pg.122-151. [2]: Plunket, P., & Uruñuela, G. (2012). Where east meets west: the Formative in Mexico’s central highlands. Journal of Archaeological Research, 20(1), 1-51. [3]: Hassig, Ross. (1985) Trade, tribute, and transportation: The sixteenth-century political economy of the Valley of Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, pg.28-39. |
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Regional and long-distance trade was common,
[1]
[2]
and a system of foot paths existed during the Postclassic,
[3]
but no evidence of roads exist in the limited archaeological record of the Formative.
[1]: Grove, David C. (2000) "The Preclassic Societies of the Central Highlands of Mesoamerica." In Richard Adams and Murdo MacLeod (eds.), The Cambridge History of The Native Peoples of the Americas, Volume II: Mesoamerica, Part I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pg.122-151. [2]: Plunket, P., & Uruñuela, G. (2012). Where east meets west: the Formative in Mexico’s central highlands. Journal of Archaeological Research, 20(1), 1-51. [3]: Hassig, Ross. (1985) Trade, tribute, and transportation: The sixteenth-century political economy of the Valley of Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, pg.28-39. |
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regional and long-distance trade was common,
[1]
[2]
and a system of foot paths existed during the Postclassic,
[3]
but no evidence of roads exist in the limited archaeological record of the Early Formative.
[1]: Grove, David C. (2000) "The Preclassic Societies of the Central Highlands of Mesoamerica." In Richard Adams and Murdo MacLeod (eds.), The Cambridge History of The Native Peoples of the Americas, Volume II: Mesoamerica, Part I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pg.122-151. [2]: Plunket, P., & Uruñuela, G. (2012). Where east meets west: the Formative in Mexico’s central highlands. Journal of Archaeological Research, 20(1), 1-51. [3]: Hassig, Ross. (1985) Trade, tribute, and transportation: The sixteenth-century political economy of the Valley of Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, pg.28-39. |
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Regional and long-distance trade was common,
[1]
[2]
and a system of foot paths existed during the Postclassic,
[3]
but no evidence of roads exist in the limited archaeological record of the Early Formative.
[1]: Grove, David C. (2000) "The Preclassic Societies of the Central Highlands of Mesoamerica." In Richard Adams and Murdo MacLeod (eds.), The Cambridge History of The Native Peoples of the Americas, Volume II: Mesoamerica, Part I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pg.122-151. [2]: Plunket, P., & Uruñuela, G. (2012). Where east meets west: the Formative in Mexico’s central highlands. Journal of Archaeological Research, 20(1), 1-51. [3]: Hassig, Ross. (1985) Trade, tribute, and transportation: The sixteenth-century political economy of the Valley of Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, pg.28-39. |
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"Voire" or road is known in France in this period
[1]
but the two cases are far from the Paris basin region, apparently associated with the Mediterranean and Alps trade.
[1]: (http://www.chronocarto.ens.fr/gcserver/atlas#) |
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"By the 6th century, the urban core of Aksum was about 180ha in extent with additional related satellite settlements and rural hinterland communities extending at least 10km in radius and linked by a network of paved and unpaved roads."
[1]
[1]: (Curtis 2017, 106) Matthew C Curtis. Aksum, town and monuments. Siegbert Uhlig. David L Appleyard. Steven Kaplan. Alessandro Bausi. Wolfgang Hahn. eds. 2017. Ethiopia: History, Culture and Challenges. Michigan State University Press. East Lansing. |
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Likely maintained roads.
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c500 CE and after: "It may be assumed that by then some of the Juan-juan already lived a settled life and practised agriculture. The original sources repeatedly mention that their khagans obtained ‘seed millet’ from China (some 10,000 shi each time). This shows that the Juan-juan society and state had gradually developed from nomadic herding to a settled agricultural way of life, from yurts to the building of houses and monumental architecture, from the nomadic district to towns. They had invented their own system of writing and developed their own local culture and Buddhist learning flourished."
[1]
[1]: (Kyzlasov 1996, 317) |
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"Voire" or road is known in France in this period
[1]
but the two cases are far from the Paris basin region, apparently associated with the Mediterranean and Alps trade.
[1]: (http://www.chronocarto.ens.fr/gcserver/atlas#) |
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The near-absence of archaeologically identified settlements makes it particularly challenging to infer most building types. "While the historical sources provide a vague picture of the events of the first 500 years of the Kanem-Borno empire, archaeologically almost nothing is known. [...] Summing up, very little is known about the capitals or towns of the early Kanem- Borno empire. The locations of the earliest sites have been obscured under the southwardly protruding sands of the Sahara, and none of the later locations can be identified with certainty."
[1]
[1]: (Gronenborn 2002: 104-110) |
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"Voire" or road is known in France in this period
[1]
but the two cases are far from the Paris basin region, apparently associated with the Mediterranean and Alps trade.
[1]: (http://www.chronocarto.ens.fr/gcserver/atlas#) |
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