The Maritime Silk Routeemer- ged contemporarily with the development d of ship building and sailing techniques Small boats, which were then commonly sailed along the rivers and coastlines h developed into complicated larger ves sels onto which much larger shipments of merchandise could be loaded. Around as the 1st Century A.D. Arabs navigators came to an understanding of the monsoon cycles which made it possible to sail across the ocean. (Barraclough, 1982 e p.24) Because the voyages could be more or less scheduled and the benefits d of the growing number of successful trip easily seen, the sea route became more