Answer:
The Sites of Encounter in the Medieval World unit introduces students to the connections between regions and peoples in Afro-Eurasia (the “world”) between 1000 and 1500 (the “medieval” period.) Following recent world historical scholarship about connections between cultures in and around the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, and South China Sea, the lessons immerse students in sites of encounter – Sicily, Quanzhou, Cairo, Mali, Majorca, and Calicut - where merchants, travelers, and scholars exchanged products, technologies, and ideas. These exchanges also sparked new ideas and cultural productions, which then diffused outward from the site of encounter. Without denying that cultural encounters were often marked by conflict, our approach focuses on the shared norms and practices that made exchanges possible. To make these abstract ideas more understandable to students, the lessons begin with the study of concrete objects – maps, ships, astrolabes, silks, and spices – exchanged or produced at the sites of encounter. In the first lesson, Norman Sicily, a major site of exchange between the Muslim and Christian worlds, students will examine the world map al-Idrisi and his team of Muslim, Jewish and Christian mapmakers drew for Christian king Roger II. For Quanzhou, students will analyze excerpts from the travel narratives of Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta and the technology of the sea-faring junk; for Cairo and Calicut, they will examine descriptions of the cities written by travelers from different cultures, along with local accounts, art and architecture. Between the major lessons, there are mini-lessons on the Mongol Empire, the voyages of Zheng He, and the Black Death.
