History's Oldest Roads Shaped Civilizations Since 4000 B.C.

From the Silk Road to the Old Great North Road in Australia, explore how these ancient roads spread wealth and information across continents.

Sara Novak, 07/25/24
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Roads are symbols of a functioning society. They make the transportation of people and goods possible and they date back to 4000 B.C. Sumerians built the first known stone-paved roads in Mesopotamia —modern-day Iraq. And since then roads have held societies together and made trade between other civilizations possible. Here are some of the oldest and most fascinating roads in history. 

The Silk Road

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The Silk Road wasn’t actually a road. Even the name for it came from the 19th century and doesn’t really reflect the nature of trade on this historic route, says Amanda Respess, an assistant professor of premodern world history who specializes in the Silk Road at Ohio State University. 

The roads are not in a uniform condition like ancient Roman roads, except for some of the routes built by the Achaemenid Persian Empire around 550 B.C., which were wide enough for armies to pass and also contained periodic weigh stations.

“The Silk Road was a network of roads that ran across a large land mass and all kinds of goods and also ideas were moving through this space,” says Respess. “We have archeological evidence showing that these trade routes go back all the way to the Bronze Age around 2000 B.C.” 

The King’s Highway

The King’s Highway was an important route for connecting Africa to Mesopotamia. The road is so old that it’s even mentioned in the Old Testament as an important trade route during the Iron Age.

The Roman emperor Trajan upgraded the roads starting around A.D. 98 to improve the connection between Bostra, Syria, and Al-Aqabah, Jordan. Via Nova Traiana, as it was also known, was important for the spread of goods and ideas during the Crusades. 

The Amber Road, Russia to Italy

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The Amber Road ran from Venice to St. Petersburg and branched out along the way in Asia. It thrived under the Roman Empire, where valuable Baltic amber was traded across the continents. It’s important to note that the Romans did not call it the Amber Road. This was a term that archeologists started using in the 1920s. Still, the purpose of the road was to connect the empires found in the Baltic with those in the Adriatic.

Vast pieces of amber found in the Russian Empire made their way there due to the Amber Road. One such example was the Amber Room in Catherine Palace, built in 1701. The jewel and amber-adorned room, often called the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” was encrusted with several tons of amber. It was, however, looted at the end of World War II by the Nazis, with the famous panels stolen off the walls, and since then has never been found. 

The Persian Royal Road 

The ancient highway was renovated by the Persian King Darius the Great in the 5th century B.C. The road runs about 1,800 miles from Susa, the ancient capital of Persia, to Smyrna on the Aegean Sea.

The road helped the emperor maintain control of the western portions of the empire, and it was said that royal messengers would stop at nothing to get their messages across it. It took around three months to traverse the road that would later help Alexander the Great move across the territory and conquer the empire. 

The Old Great North Road 

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The first British ships arrived in Australia in January 1788 to establish a penal colony. Norfolk Island, New South Wales, and later Tasmania and Queensland were all established as penal colonies in the years that followed.

In 1825, 725 convicts built the Old Great North Road, the stunning stonework, bridges, and buttresses that connected Sydney to Hunter Valley, 165 miles away. Today, the road still exists as a scenic hiking trail and a national park area. 


Article Sources

Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:

*  U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. Building Roads
*  Assistant professor of premodern world history at Ohio State University. Amanda Respess
*  Britannica. King’s Highway
*  BBC. Russia's "eighth wonder of the world"
*  Britannica. Persian Royal Road
*  NSW Government. Australian Convict Sites - Old Great North Road

Sara Novak is a science journalist based in South Carolina. In addition to writing for Discover, her work appears in Scientific American, Popular Science, New Scientist, Sierra Magazine, Astronomy Magazine, and many more. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia. She's also a candidate for a master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University, (expected graduation 2023).

Read More: 

What Was the Silk Road and What Happened to It?
Humans Shaped Ancient History Across 3 Ages
The Hierarchy of the 1200-Year-Long Roman Empire
 What to Know About Alexander the Great and his Mysterious Death
7 Groundbreaking Ancient Civilizations That Influence Us Today