Marco Polo

There exists the notion that the ancient world was populated by distinct peoples in isolated regions that only came into contact during relatively recent times. While many modern historians would dismiss the notion as antiquated, there is a tendency to revert to this idea whenever we imagine how our ancestors lived.

Gobekli Tepe in Turkey

For example, look at the shock with which observers noted the discovery of Gobekli Tepe. It seemed natural to think of the people of that time period, more than 9,000 years ago, as bands of hunter-gatherers living day-to-day and hand-to-mouth with no other objective imaginable in their primitive lives. However, it appears increasingly likely that so-called primitive man was already quite sophisticated by 10,000 years ago, if we are to accept that locations such as Gobekli Tepe were commonplace back then.

Man was also a cosmopolitan traveler back then. It has been known for some time that Bronze Age societies in the Mediterranean were getting tin from sources in ancient Britain. You can read of the Chinese Emperor sending regards and gifts to the Roman Emperor and vice versa.

Nevertheless, while trade articles and messages were certainly traveling across the span of the Old World thousands of years ago, we have little evidence to suggest that actual individuals were travelling such distances. The first account of a truly global journey comes to us from Marco Polo, an Italian living in the 13th century.

The Life and Adventures of Marco Polo

The beginning of Marco Polo's life shows us just how traditional the broken family is. Marco did not meet his father, Niccolo, until he was a teenager. His father and uncle Maffeo had just returned from a long journey which had begun in Constantinople and taken them all the way to the court of Kublai Khan in Far Eastern Asia by the late 1260s.

While there, they had met the great Khan and traveled through parts of China. Kublai had never seen Europeans before but that does not mean that some Europeans had not made the journey to these distant lands prior to this time. Nor do we know if any Easterners had ever made the journey West.

The great khan had sent Marco's father and uncle back to Europe to speak with the Pope and to bring back oil from Jerusalem. He also wanted the Pope to send back 100 Christians that were classically trained and educated in grammar, music, astronomy, geometry and so on. The Polo brothers once again crossed all of Asia by boat and on foot. They met Marco in Venice.

The young man had been educated in trade and the mercantile way of life. He knew four languages and was eager to see the world with his father. Sometime around 1271, they embarked for Asia. Travelling first to the Palestinian city of Acre, they crossed the Middle East on camels to reach Hormuz in Persia. Unable to find a ship ready to sail for China, they continued overland on the Silk Road and eventually reunited with Kublai Khan sometime around 1275.

The Polos stayed in the court of the Great Khan for approximately 17 years. Many times they wanted to return to their homeland but were restrained by the Khan's wishes. In 1292, he sent them with a party of men to celebrate the wedding of a grand nephew who was presently ruling over Persia. After the wedding, the three men traveled to a Black Sea port from which they sailed to Venice. They arrived sometime around 1295.

Italian Coda

Shortly after returning to Italy, Marco was imprisoned during a battle with Venice's rival republic, Genoa. In prison, he wrote the story of his adventures. Some have speculated that the story was invented to make money but consensus still holds that the story is essentially true, if dressed up and altered a bit for contemporary European tastes.

In 1299, Polo was released from prison. He married, had children and eventually became a wealthy merchant before dying in 1324.