A curated run of posts from the Moss & Ember archive.
The Mongol conquests were among the most destructive episodes in human history. But what followed — the Pax Mongolica — created conditions for a century of overland trade that transformed the material culture of Eurasia.
At its peak, Venice controlled the most important textile trade routes between East and West. Its merchants didn’t just carry cloth — they transformed what Europe wore, and how it thought about luxury.
For centuries, the origins of silk were China’s most jealously guarded secret. This is the story of how a single filament changed the ancient world’s economy — and its wardrobes.