Commerce, Trade and Communication Routes of the Parthians on the Silk Road

The merchants have always required safe and reliable routes for trading; the longest and also the most important route has been ‘Silk Road’ throughout the history. This road would connect a long distance from China to Eastern Rome. The development of this route had been directly dependent on the power of the central government as well as maintaining the road’s safety. During the Parthian time, the Iranian rulers succeeded in making the most of the location of this road; they would prevent a straightforward trade between China and Eastern Rome, consequently, their economic situation improved. The Parthian would use Silk Road for their international commercial purposes. In other words, studying Silk Road means learning about different cultural aspects of Asia, Europe and their bilateral interactions. In the past, this road traversed Asia and Europe and would connect them to each other like a river does. The start point of this road was placed in the East of Japan and it was continued to the West side of the Mediterranean Sea, and the subsidiary branches of it would both culturally and economically intensify the areas located on the North and the South of this route; Iranian Plateau was the main place among these areas.Silk Road, due to its fundamental role in transmitting culture and technology, was considered as an important issue to be argued and focused on across the world over the 20th century. This road has experienced the most substantial events such as wars, invasions, and enormous migrations, and renouned commanders such as Crassus risked their lives to find ascendency over it. So many massive wars have taken place for predominating over the geopolitical spots of this road such as Khorasan, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Syria between Iran and Rome or Iran and the tribes of Central Asia. There has been a time when some cities like Termez, Balkh, Merv, Nishapur, Rey, Babel, Syria, Ctesiphon, Dura-Europos, Hatra, Palmyra and Antioch, which all were situated along Silk Road, extremely developed owing to the high rate of trading. However, most of the above mentioned cities fell into ruin and got damaged during some other periods of time as a result of the wars which happened in them as they were rich cities possessing a lot of properties and wealth. The main aim of this essay is to shed light on the traits of the commercial interrelations carried out between Iran and Central Asia using The Silk Road as well as their communicative ways. Moreover, we would like to find out that how influential the city of Damghan had been in the regional and inter- regional interactions as an essential city on Silk Road based on the archaeological data and evidence.