Let's go straight to the Thought Bubble. As previously mentioned, the Silk Road was not a road. It's not like archaeologists working in Uzbekistan have uncovered a bunch of yield signs and baby on board stickers. It was an overland route where merchants carried goods for trade. But it was really two routes, one that connected the eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia and one that went from Central Asia to China. Further complicating things, the Silk Road involved sea routes. Many goods reached Rome via the Mediterranean, and goods from Central Asia found their way across the Pacific to Japan and even Java.