Session 1 · TRACE: Accounts
Can we trust Marco Polo?
- 10 minMeet three travellers: Marco Polo from Venice (1271–1295), Ibn Battuta from Morocco (1325–1354) and Xuanzang from China. Where did each go and why?
- 20 minSource work: read short, simplified extracts from their accounts. For each, ask: who wrote it, when, for whom, and what might they exaggerate or leave out?
- 15 minTwo sources that disagree: some historians question parts of Marco Polo's book. Look at the evidence on both sides and decide how far you trust it.
- 5 minStart your traveller's journal: choose one traveller and write the first entry as they might have.
Session 2 · TRACE: Accounts
Venice and the spice trade
- 10 minSmell test: spices in covered bowls. Guess each one, then find where it grew on the map (pepper from India, cloves and nutmeg from the Spice Islands in Maluku, cinnamon from Sri Lanka).
- 15 minVenice: a city built on islands in a lagoon that grew rich by shipping spices and silk from ports such as Alexandria and Constantinople into Europe. Look at the harbour scene and list what you see.
- 20 minPrice evidence: compare the price of a kilogram of pepper at the start and end of the route. Why was pepper once worth so much? Who controlled each part of the trade?
- 5 minAdd Venice and the spice routes to the floor map with object cards.
Getting started
Use the source-detective card: Who? When? Why? For whom? What can it tell us? What can't it tell us?
Stretch
Compare Ibn Battuta's travel distance (about 120,000 km) with Marco Polo's. How many times around the world is that?
Checkpoint
Each student can give one reason to trust and one reason to question a traveller's account.
Activities for this week
- Traveller's journal from real sources: What was it like to travel the routes, and how do we know?
- Spice smell-and-map test: Where did the spices that made Venice rich come from?
Useful this week
- Marco Polo ↗ The Venetian traveller's journey and why historians debate his account.
- Ibn Battuta ↗ A Moroccan scholar who travelled further than Marco Polo.