Southeast Asia: Did you mean...?

Clove, nutmeg, and mace are native to only a handful of tiny islands in the middle of the vast Indonesian archipelago – cloves on five Maluku Islands (the Moluccas) about 1250 km (778 mi) west of New Guinea, and nutmeg on the ten Banda Islands...

Regional, inter-regional and international trade was a common feature of the Roman world. A mix of state control and a free market approach ensured goods produced in one location could be exported far and wide. Cereals, wine and olive oil...

Marco Polo (1254-1324 CE) was a Venetian merchant and explorer who travelled to China and served the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan (l. 1214-1294 CE) between c. 1275 and 1292 CE. Polo's adventures are recounted in his own writings, The Travels...

The Chagatai Khanate (also Chaghatai, Jagatai, Chaghatay or Ca'adai, c. 1227-1363 CE) was that part of the Mongol Empire (1206-1368 CE) which covered what is today mostly Uzbekistan, southern Kazakhstan, and western Tajikistan. The khanate...

The Parthians ruled from 247 BCE to 224 CE creating a vast empire that stretched from the Mediterranean in the west to India and China in the east. East of the Caspian Sea there emerged from the steppe of Central Asia a nomadic Scythian tribe...

The carrack (nao in Spanish, nau in Portuguese, and nef in French) was a type of large sailing vessel used for exploration, to carry cargo and as a warship in the 15th and 16th centuries. Famous carracks include the Santa Maria of Christopher...

Lydia was a region of western Asia Minor which prospered due to its natural resources and position on trading routes between the Mediterranean and Asia. The Kingdom of Lydia flourished in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE and expanded to its...

The Portuguese Empire was established from the 15th century and eventually stretched from the Americas to Japan. Very often a string of coastal trading centres with defensive fortifications, there were larger territorial colonies like Brazil...

Ancient East Asia was dominated by the three states known today as China, Japan, and Korea. The complex chain of successive kingdoms created a rich web of events that archaeologists have sometimes found difficult to disentangle; a situation...

Alexios I Komnenos (Alexius Comnenus) was emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 1081 to 1118 CE. Regarded as one of the great Byzantine rulers, Alexios defeated the Normans, the Pechenegs, and, with the help of the First Crusaders, the Seljuks...