Bertrand Borg heard Christopher Bradley speak about the ancient trading routes he describes as the world’s first communications superhighway.

It is said that Samarkand bread can only be made within the Uzbek city’s confines.

Legend has it that the ruler of rival Bukhara once had Samarkand’s best baker brought to him, only to be disappointed with the bread he baked. The ruler then had ingredients imported from Samarkand, but the result was still unimpressive. “It must be the Samarkand air that gives the bread its flavour,” Bukhara's ruler thought. But he could not transport the air, and the baker was allowed to return home.

Samarkand’s bread may be resistant to export, but the same cannot be said about the various other goods that have passed through this ancient city throughout the centuries. As one of the key stops along the Silk Road, traders within its confines moved anything from horses to spices, exotic furs, religion, and, of course silk.

“It really was the world’s first communications superhighway,” says author, lecturer and tour guide Christopher Bradley. “Technologies developed in one place would be moved to another and introduced there.”

Christopher, an author of multiple books about the region, will be in Malta this coming week to give a lecture about this most ancient of trade routes. The lecture is part of the Decorative and Fine Arts Society’s lecture series.

The Silk Road stretched halfway across the world. But its very name is a misnomer.

“Don’t believe anyone who tells you they’ve travelled along the Silk Road,” he says. “There are hundreds, if not thousands, of combinations that could be taken.”

You can also ditch those ideas you might have of traders crossing halfway across the world to buy exotic goods, he adds. “There were no Roman merchants roaming the streets of China, looking to bulk-buy silk.”

“Traders would usually work along a small part of the route. They’d buy goods from merchants in the previous city and move it along to the next.”

And just as countries today compete to attract trade, cities along the Silk Road did much the same – only their methods were a tad less refined than those used by World Trade Organisation trade delegations.

Take Tamerlane, the great ruler who brought glory to Samarkand. Knowing that he held a military advantage over his neighbours, he had no compulsions about razing them to the ground.

Don’t believe anyone who tells you they’ve travelled along the Silk Road. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of combinations that could be taken

“And, as a result, traders along the Silk Road would head for Samarkand, because that’s where all the merchants were. Quite a good business model,” Christopher chuckles.

That the Silk Road ever came into being is down to the great Persian empire that preceded it. As the Persians gobbled up territory, they built communication roads linking their conquests. The roads had to be durable enough for a horseman to quickly alert the next town in the event of an impending attack.

The roads were so durable, in fact, that a few centuries later traders were using them to move goods to neighbouring towns. Bit by bit, these routes started being linked together.

And then, the Romans discovered silk.

“They’re said to have first seen silk when the Parthians unfolded silk war banners on the battlefield. A captured Parthian soldier told them the material was made by a tribe in the far east known as the Seris people,” Christopher explains. To this day, silk farming is known as sericulture.

Roman authorities tried to ban silk – people were spending too much gold on it – but the fashion-conscious Romans couldn’t get enough of it. Demand kept growing, and the Silk Road was born.

Just as important as the goods that moved along its roads were the ideas and techniques that went with them.

'Suzaneh' embroidery in central Asia. Photo: Christopher Bradley

The Chinese developed an underground system of drawing water from mountainous areas which they learnt from their western neighbours; weaving techniques moved the other way. Religion spread both east and west.

There was a Christian church at the Silk Road’s far eastern end, in the city of Chang’an (modern-day Xian, famous for its Terracotta Warriors) by the year 638 AD. Buddhism moved both east and west out of India, eventually taking root in China and many other East Asian cultures. Islam spread east from Damascus, and it remains the dominant religion in large swathes of central Asia.

The route flourished, and so did the civilisations that lay along it. As Europe went through its so-called Dark Ages, cities such as Bukhara, Merv and Kunya-Urgench were booming. Luxury goods were plentiful, Muslim scholars were developing apothecary techniques, famers were sharing agricultural techniques and early scientists were learning to map the skies.

It seemed liked the good times would never end. But fighting between the empires of Central Asia made land journeys increasingly dangerous. And by the turn of the 15th century, navigational technology had improved enough to make a sea route linking the far east to the Mediterranean a viable alternative.

“Maps improved and ships grew bigger – they had cannons,” Bradley explains. “Sailors could start sailing further away from land, which also meant further away from pirates.”

Eventually, it simply became easier and safer to transport goods by sea, and the Silk Road faded into memory.

Nowadays, some of the most glorious sites along its routes either lie in ruins (Palmyra in Syria, razed by Islamic State), chaos (Baghdad, Damascus) or poverty (GDP per capita barely reaches $1,000 in Tajikistan, for instance).

But Christopher is optimistic. The Silk Road has seen empires rise and fall. “In a couple of hundred years,” he says with indefatigable optimism, “the troubles we read about today will be another footnote in its long, long, history.”

Christopher Bradley’s lecture Treasures of the Silk Road takes place on Thursday at 6.30pm at Le Meridien St Julian’s. For tickets send an e-mail to maltadfas@gmail.com.