Some related trivia: While it was called the Silk Road, silk was less of a major point of trade after the 6th century. Two Byzantine monks made the journey from Constantinople to China and back, purloining silk worms in the process. This led to a domination of the European Silk trade by Byzantium for the proceeding 8 centuries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuggling_of_silkworm_eggs_into...