Early modern caravan networks in Afghanistan: a view from above

Franklin, Kate and Boak, E. (2021) Early modern caravan networks in Afghanistan: a view from above. In: Clarkson, P. and Santoro, C. (eds.) Caravans in Global Perspective: Contexts and Boundaries. Routledge. ISBN 9780367773007. (In Press)

Abstract

This chapter takes advantage of the opportunity opened by new remotely-sensed data on early modern (fifteenth to eighteenth centuries AD) caravan routes in the Republic of Afghanistan to review the nature and significance of caravan routes to early modern economies. The caravanserai network in Afghanistan demonstrates the infrastructural role of caravan routes in tying together the frontiers of early modern empires. In particular, the caravanserais of Afghanistan demonstrate a ‘meeting on the edge’ by institutions of political economy developed within both the Safavid Persian empire (1501-1722) and the Mughal empire (1520s-1757). In addition to historical maps, we draw on the descriptions of travelers, from merchants and mercantile agents to the agents of the British Afghan Boundary Commission, who described both sites and routes in the course of their explorations. In our broader discussion of the Afghan and early modern routes we are reliant on data sources which are each in their own way ‘remote’ - satellite and aerial imagery on the one hand, and the accounts of early modern and modern travelers on the other. Combined, they contribute to a brief introduction to the politics, mechanics and cultures of caravans in early modern Central Asia.

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