Marco polo

In the year 1271 Marco Polo, age 17, set out from Venice with his father and uncle on a journey across Asia. Marco’s account of his 24-year odyssey would reveal a world never before described. Traveling by caravan, the Polos followed ancient trade routes through lands that still evoke Marco’s amazing finds.
Though he revealed little of himself in his widely translated book, The Description ofthe World, Marco is idealized as a learned explorer on a mosaic in Genoa, Italy, pictured here.
These photos and captions were published in a 2001 National Geographicmagazine series on Marco Polo.

Grand Canal, Venice, Italy
Photograph by Michael Yamashita
Venice’s busy Grand Canal retains the aura of the Middle Ages, when the Polo family, successful traders, set sail toward China for a meetingwith Kublai Khan. Kublai and other descendents of Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire, controlled much of Asia and made passage safe for intrepid merchants.

Kurdish Wedding Party, Iraq
Photograph by Michael Yamashita
A blizzard of shaving cream falls on a Kurdish wedding party in northern Iraq. Marco found the Kurds inhospitable, describing them as a people who “rob the merchantsgladly.” Before reaching the Kurds’ homeland, the Polos passed near the Caspian Sea, where Marco noted a “fountain which sends up oil,” the first European description of a petroleum field.

Tailor, Baghdad, Iraq
Photograph by Michael Yamashita
Marco liked fine muslin, still a cloth of choice in Baghdad, where a man is being fitted here. Marco may have visited Baghdad, but more likely he merelyheard about it and other parts of Iraq from travelers; he often reported hearsay

Cheshmeh Genu, Iran
Photograph by Michael Yamashita
“Good … for the itch,” wrote Marco, likely grubby and saddlesore when he reached a hot spring in southern Iran. It could have been Cheshmeh Genu, where some 700 years later locals still wash and soak in mineral-tinted water. Marco surprised European contemporariesby reporting that the three Magi of Christian fame were buried in the Iranian town of Saveh.

Mountains, Iran
Photograph by Michael Yamashita
Climate extremes assaulted Marco as he neared the Persian Gulf in Iran. Crossing 8,000-foot (2,438-meter) passes like this one exposed him to cold “one hardly escapes by wearing many clothes.”

Woman, Minab, Iran
Photograph by Michael Yamashita
Marcodescended from the mountains to a “great heat,” taking notice of black-skinned Muslims, like a masked woman in Minab

Northern Alliance Officers, Afghanistan
Photograph by Michael Yamashita
The “valiant” fighting spirit Marco noted in Afghanistan lives on. Ahmad Shah Massoud of the Northern Alliance leads officers in worship and in war against Taliban forces

Opium Smoker, AfghanistanPhotograph by Michael Yamashita
In the Wakhan Valley—the long finger of Afghanistan that reaches across to China—an elder surrenders to opium, now officially banned

Taklimakan Desert, China
Photograph by Michael Yamashita
More than two years into his journey, Marco Polo reached the towering dunes of China’s Taklimakan Desert, riding camelback as visitors still do. Marco spent 17 years in China,returning with tales to astound the Western world

Tajik Children, China
Photograph by Michael Yamashita
Ganged up against the cold, Tajik children, members of a Muslim minority in western China, review tattered notes before school opens in a Pamir mountain village in Xinjiang. Marco followed the Silk Road through this well-trod region. “From this country,” he wrote, “go out many merchants …through all the world doing trade.

Snowstorm, China
Photograph by Michael Yamashita
A freak snowstorm in arid western China enchants factory workers on a break near Kashgar. China presented Marco with many marvels: “black stones”—coal—that burn, cities larger than any in Europe, wine made from rice, and the discovery that asbestos comes not from a salamander, as medieval Venetians believed,...