The Viking alternative Silk Road

I made a mistake in the last blog mentioning the alternative route to get silks into Europe was up the Danube. It would be easier to go through the Mediterranean but there may be a way up the Volga or the Dnieper from the Caspian or the Black sea to St Petersburg or Riga. Too circuitous, you say. Well, it was worth carrying silk all the way from China on horseback, why not use the Eastern European rivers wherever possible and mule trains over the rest to the Baltic and Western Europe. I'm sure the Vikings were capable of thinking that through. 
For historical things, my problem is that I worked for a multi national mining company in a department looking for new business. When the price of copper went up there would be a panic effort to find copper deposits. It irritated me that no one seemed to think every other multi national was doing the same thing and the projects would come on stream together, depressing the copper price. I did my best to convince people that the best approach was to think that with a higher copper price, people would be looking for an alternative and our efforts should be directed at finding what that would be and investing in that.
Which brings me back to history. People are inclined to find several pieces of evidence to support one theory and ignore other possibilities. I'm not a history buff but I did study the history of the Cape Route to the East and only found out that the Phoenicians had sailed round Africa in a throw away note by Herodotus that the Phoenicians had been lying when the said they sailed through the Pillars of Hercules, turned left and journeyed until the sun changed sides. How many throw away comments like that, notes that contradict established theory, have been ignored by historians. Did no one from Russia ever chase a Caribou across the ice in the Bering Strait and 'discover' America. Did no sailor ever slip down that continent's west coast and find the Isthmus, slip across and find a way from the west to Europe. Is there somewhere a business invoice from a Japanese businessman to show, like the Phoenicians over the route to Cornwall, they kept the route to Europe secret until some fool found his way round the other way?   
You may not believe it but all this study of trade and trade routes led to Drover, the story of the drover and his lass and the droving roads in Scotland.

www.sullatoberdalton.com/books/drover

The Silk Road detour

The 'Silver Mine' above Pniel in the Cape was driven into the Simonsberg in the 1740's. At that time the Dutch East India Company was running short of gold and silver, the only thing the traders of the Spice Islands or India would accept. After all, apart from wool, maybe, they produced better quality materials and goods, silks and pottery, for example, than the west could provide. That way of doing business predated even the Portuguese. Initially, the Arab traders had set up a triangle of trade which included gold from Greater Zimbabwe, in itself a trading post for gold and, reportedly, tin and copper, from sub Saharan Africa. Following the details of that trade led me to East Africa and a place called Kilwa in Tanganyika.

The picture is of the Simonsberg with its Cape finebos cover and the views of the Dwarse River Valley from there are magnificent.

www.sullatoberdalton.com