Essential Vocabulary — Unit 2 (c. 1200–1450)
General / Big Ideas
- Networks of exchange (trade networks)
- Luxury goods
- Common goods
- Urbanization
- Tributary system
Silk Roads
- Silk Roads
- Caravanserai
- Flying money (paper money)
- Bills of exchange / credit
- Samarkand, Kashgar (key Silk Road cities)
Indian Ocean Network
- Indian Ocean trade
- Monsoon winds
- Junks (Chinese ships)
- Dhows / lateen sails
- Astrolabe / navigation technologies
Trans‑Saharan Trade
- Trans‑Saharan trade
- Camel saddles (trade and transport)
- Caravans
- Timbuktu (city/learning center)
People, States & Communities
- Swahili city‑states
- Diasporic communities
- Zheng He (Ming expeditions)
- Mansa Musa (Mali ruler)
- Mali Empire
Technologies, Practices & Cultural Transfers
- Gunpowder
- Printing (movable type / woodblock)
- Champa rice
- Buddhism (spread along Silk Roads)
- Islam (spread via trade networks)
- Banking / merchant class
- Checks / remittance systems
Consequences
- Bubonic plague (Black Death)
- Economic specialization
- Cross‑cultural exchange
Mongol Empire & Connectivity
- Mongol Empire
- Pax Mongolica
- Four Khanates
Use this list as a checklist while studying the unit — you can add short definitions or examples next to each term as you review.