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Ferdinand von Richthofen

person

German geographer and geologist, 1833 to 1905, who travelled extensively in China between 1868 and 1872 and later held chairs at Bonn, Leipzig and Berlin. In the first volume of his study China, published in Berlin in 1877, he coined the term Seidenstrasse, silk road, for the routes he reconstructed between Han China and the West. He meant something narrower than the phrase now carries: a specific set of Han-period connections, described as a geographer describing terrain. Nobody who used the routes called them that, in any language, at any point in their working life. A person, not a place.

A person is not a place. Drawing it on a map would assert something about the world that no stored fact supports.

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Evidence · 1
Timeline

No dated observations are stored for this object. Atlas shows what was observed and when — it does not infer a history.

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    Assembled narrative · 1

    Assembled from 9 blocks · 1 evidence · 3 related

    1. Story
    2. German geographer and geologist, 1833 to 1905, who travelled extensively in China between 1868 and 1872 and later held chairs at Bonn, Leipzig and Berlin. In the first volume of his study China, published in Berlin in 1877, he coined the term Seidenstrasse, silk road, for the routes he reconstructed between Han China and the West. He meant something narrower than the phrase now carries: a specific set of Han-period connections, described as a geographer describing terrain. Nobody who used the routes called them that, in any language, at any point in their working life. A person, not a place.
    3. Knowledge
    4. Ferdinand von Richthofen
    5. Connections
    6. The term 'Silk Road'
    7. Richthofen coins the term Seidenstrasse
    8. Evidence
    9. Ferdinand von Richthofen coins the term Seidenstrasse for the Han-period routes between China and the West. This is the origin of the name; no ancient or medieval source, in any language, calls the network a silk road.
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    Observed changes · 0

    No public Signals are attached to this object. Signals show what changed and when it was observed — never a direction or a rank.

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    Read the assembled narrativeContinue in StudioOpen TwinTwin does not start a decision from this kind of object.ShareSaveSaved objects are part of the authenticated projection, which is declared and not yet built.

    /atlas?object=PERSON_RICHTHOFEN&experience=PERSON_RICHTHOFEN