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The Mogao Caves, also known as the Thousand Buddha Grottoes or Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, form a system of 500 temples 25 km (16 mi) southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu province, China. The caves may also be known as the Dunhuang Caves; however, this term is also used as a collective term to include other Buddhist cave sites in and around the Dunhuang area, such as the Western Thousand Buddha Caves, Eastern Thousand Buddha Caves, Yulin Caves, and Five Temple Caves. The caves contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art spanning a period of 1,000 years. The first caves were dug out in AD 366 as places of Buddhist meditation and worship. The Mogao Caves are the best known of the Chinese Buddhist grottoes and, along with Longmen Grottoes and Yungang Grottoes, are one of the three famous ancient Buddhist sculptural sites of China.

An important cache of documents was discovered in 1900 in the so-called "Library Cave", which had been walled-up in the 11th century. The contents of the library were subsequently dispersed around the world, and the largest collections are now found in Beijing, London, Paris and Berlin, and the International Dunhuang Project exists to coordinate and collect scholarly work on the Dunhuang manuscripts and other material. The caves themselves are now a popular tourist destination, with a number open for visiting.

The caves are usually referred to in Chinese as the Thousand Buddha Caves ( Chinese: 千佛洞; pinyin: qiānfó dòng ), a name that some scholars have speculated to have come from the legend of its founding, when a monk Yuezun had a vision of a thousand Buddhas at the site. This name however may have come from the large number of Buddha figures at the site, or the miniatures figures painted on the walls of these caves as these figures are called "thousand Buddhas" colloquially. The name Mogao Caves ( Chinese: ; pinyin: ) was used in the Tang dynasty, where 'Mogao' refers to an administrative district at the site during the Tang dynasty. Mogao may mean "peerless" (literally "none higher", where " mo" means "none", and " gao" means "high"); an alternative reading may be "high in the desert" if "mo" is read as a variant of the Chinese term for "desert". Mogao is also used as the name of a modern town that is administered by Dunhuang city: Mogao Town (). The Mogao Caves are also often referred to as the Dunhuang Caves after the nearest city Dunhuang, which means "blazing beacon" as beacons were used at the frontier outpost to warn of attacks by nomadic tribes. The term Dunhuang Caves however is also used in a broader sense as a collective term for all the caves found in or around the Dunhuang area.

Dunhuang was established as a frontier garrison outpost by the Han Dynasty Emperor Wudi to protect against the Xiongnu in 111 BC. It also became an important gateway to the West, a centre of commerce along the Silk Road, as well as a meeting place of various people and religions such as Buddhism.

The construction of the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang is generally taken to have begun sometime in the fourth century AD. According to a book written during the reign of Tang Empress Wu, Fokan Ji (佛龕記, An Account of Buddhist Shrines) by Li Junxiu (李君修), a Buddhist monk named Lè Zūn (樂尊, which may also be pronounced Yuezun) had a vision of a thousand Buddhas bathed in golden light at the site in 366 AD, inspiring him to build a cave here. The story is also found in other sources, such as in inscriptions on a stele in cave 332; an earlier date of 353 however was given in another document, Shazhou Tujing (沙州土鏡, Geography of Shazhou). He was later joined by a second monk Faliang (法良), and the site gradually grew, by the time of the Northern Liang a small community of monks had formed at the site. The caves initially served only as a place of meditation for hermit monks, but developed to serve the monasteries that sprang up nearby. Members of the ruling family of Northern Wei and Northern Zhou constructed many caves here, and it flourished in the short-lived Sui Dynasty. By the Tang Dynasty, the number of caves had reached over a thousand.

By the Sui and Tang dynasties, Mogao Caves had become a place of worship and pilgrimage for the public. From the 4th until the 14th century, caves were constructed by monks to serve as shrines with funds from donors. These caves were elaborately painted, the cave paintings and architecture serving as aids to meditation, as visual representations of the quest for enlightenment, as mnemonic devices, and as teaching tools to inform those illiterate about Buddhist beliefs and stories. The major caves were sponsored by patrons such as important clergy, local ruling elite, foreign dignitaries, as well as Chinese emperors. Other caves may have been funded by merchants, military officers, and other local people such as women's groups.

During the Tang Dynasty, Dunhuang became the main hub of commerce of the Silk Road and a major religious centre. A large number of the caves were constructed at Mogao during this era, including the two large statues of Buddha at the site, the largest one constructed in 695 following an edict a year earlier by Tang Empress Wu Zetian to build giant statues across the country. The site escaped the persecution of Buddhists ordered by Emperor Wuzong in 845 as it was then under Tibetan control. As a frontier town, Dunhuang had been occupied at various times by other non-Han Chinese people. After the Tang Dynasty, the site went into a gradual decline, and construction of new caves ceased entirely after the Yuan Dynasty. By then Islam had conquered much of Central Asia, and the Silk Road declined in importance when trading via sea-routes began to dominate Chinese trade with the outside world. During the Ming Dynasty, the Silk Road was finally officially abandoned, and Dunhuang slowly became depopulated and largely forgotten by the outside world. Most of the Mogao caves were abandoned; the site, however, was still a place of pilgrimage and was used as a place of worship by local people at the beginning of the twentieth century when there was renewed interest in the site.

During late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Western explorers began to show interest in the ancient Silk Road and the lost cities of Central Asia, and those who passed through Dunhuang noted the murals, sculptures, and artifacts such as the Stele of Sulaiman at Mogao. There is an estimated half a million square feet of religious wall murals within the caves. The biggest discovery, however, came from a Chinese Taoist named Wang Yuanlu who had appointed himself guardian of some of these temples around the turn of the century and tried to raise funds to repair the statues.

Some of the caves had by then been blocked by sand, and Wang set about clearing away the sand and made an attempt at restoration of the site. In one such cave, on 25 June 1900, Wang followed the drift of smoke from a cigarette, and discovered a walled up area behind one side of a corridor leading to a main cave. Behind the wall was a small cave stuffed with an enormous hoard of manuscripts. In the next few years, Wang took some manuscripts to show to various officials who expressed varying level of interest, but in 1904 Wang re-sealed the cave following an order by the governor of Gansu concerned about the cost of transporting these documents.

Words of Wang's discovery drew the attention of a joint British/Indian group led by the Hungarian-born British archaeologist Aurel Stein who was on an archaeological expedition in the area in 1907. Stein negotiated with Wang to allow him to remove a significant number of manuscripts as well as the finest paintings and textiles in exchange for a donation to Wang's restoration effort. He was followed by a French expedition under Paul Pelliot who acquired many thousands of items in 1908, and then by a Japanese expedition under Otani Kozui in 1911 and a Russian expedition under Sergei F. Oldenburg in 1914. A well-known scholar Luo Zhenyu edited some of the manuscripts Pelliot acquired into a volume which was then published in 1909 as "Manuscripts of the Dunhuang Caves" (敦煌石室遺書).

Stein and Pelliot provoked much interest in the West about the Dunhuang Caves. Scholars in Beijing, after seeing samples of the documents in Pelliot's possession, became aware of their value. Concerned that the remaining manuscripts might be lost, Luo Zhenyu and others persuaded the Ministry of Education to recover the rest of the manuscripts to be sent to Peking ( Beijing) in 1910. However, not all the remaining manuscripts were taken to Peking, and of those retrieved, some were then stolen. Rumours of caches of documents taken by local people continued for some time, and a cache of documents hidden by Wang from the authorities was later found in the 1940s. Some of the caves were damaged and vandalized by White Russian soldiers when they were used by the local authority in 1921 to house Russian soldiers fleeing the civil war following the Russian Revolution. In 1924, American explorer Langdon Warner removed a number of murals as well as a statue from some of the caves. In 1939 Kuomintang soldiers stationed at Dunhuang caused some damage to the murals and statues at the site.

The situation improved in 1941 when, following a visit by Wu Zuoren to the site the previous year, the painter Zhang Daqian arrived at the caves with a small team of assistants and stayed for two and a half years to repair and copy the murals. He exhibited and published the copies of the murals in 1943, which helped to publicize and give much prominence to the art of Dunhuang within China. Historian Xiang Da then persuaded Yu Youren, a prominent member of the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party), to set up an institution, the Research Institute of Dunhuang Art (which later became the Dunhuang Academy), at Mogao in 1944 to look after the site and its contents. In 1956, the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, Zhou Enlai, took a personal interest in the caves and sanctioned a grant to repair and protect the site; and in 1961, the Mogao Caves were declared to be a specially protected historical monument by the State Council, and large-scale renovation work at Mogao began soon afterwards. The site escaped the widespread damage caused to many religious sites during the Cultural Revolution.

Today, efforts are continuing to conserve and research the site and its content. The Mogao Caves became one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1987. From 1988 to 1995 a further 248 caves were discovered to the North of the 487 caves known since the early 1900s.

Cave 17 discovered by Wang Yuanlu came to be known as the Library Cave. It is located off the entrance leading to cave 16 and was originally used as a memorial cave for a local monk Hongbian on his death in 862. Hongbian, from a wealthy Wu family, was responsible for the construction of cave 16, and the Library Cave may have been used as his retreat in his lifetime. The cave originally contained his statue which was moved to another cave when it was used to keep manuscripts, some of which bear Hongbian's seal. A large number of documents dating from 406 to 1002 were found in the cave, heaped up in closely packed layers of bundles of scrolls. In addition to the 1,100 bundles of scrolls, there were also over 15,000 paper books and shorter texts, including a Hebrew penitential prayer () (see Dunhuang manuscripts). The Library Cave also contained textiles such as banners, numerous damaged figurines of Buddhas, and other Buddhist paraphernalia. According to Stein who was the first to describe the cave in its original state:

Heaped up in layers, but without any order, there appeared in the dim light of the priest's little lamp a solid mass of manuscript bundles rising to a height of nearly ten feet, and filling, as subsequent measurement showed, close on 500 cubic feet. The area left clear within the room was just sufficient for two people to stand in.

-  Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay: Vol. II

The Library Cave was walled off sometime early in the 11th century. A number of theories have been proposed as the reason for sealing the caves. Stein first proposed that the cave had become a waste repository for venerable, damaged and used manuscripts and hallowed paraphernalia and then sealed perhaps when the place came under threat. Following this interpretation some suggested that the handwritten manuscripts of the Tripitaka became obsolete when printing became widespread, the older manuscripts were therefore stored away. Another suggestion is that the cave was simply used as a book storehouse for documents which accumulated over a century and a half, then sealed up when it became full. Others, such as Pelliot, suggested an alternative scenario, that the monks hurriedly hid the documents in advance of an attack by invaders, perhaps when Xi Xia invaded in 1035. This theory was proposed in light of the absence of documents from Xi Xia and the disordered state in which Pelliot found the room (perhaps a misinterpretation because unbeknownst to him the room was disturbed by Stein months before). Another theory posits that the items were from a monastic library and hidden due to threats from Muslims who were moving eastward. This theory proposes that the monks of a nearby monastery heard about the fall of the Buddhist kingdom of Khotan to Karakhanids invaders from Kashgar in 1006 and the destruction it caused, so they sealed their library to avoid it being destroyed.

The date of the sealing of the cave continued to be debated. Rong (2000) provided evidence to support 1002 as the date for sealing the cave, while Huntington (1986) supported a closing around the early to mid-thirteen century. It is difficult to determine the state of the materials found since the chamber was not opened "under scientific conditions", so critical evidence to support dating the closure was lost. The latest date recorded in the documents found in the cave is believed to be 1002, and although some have proposed later dates for some of the documents, the cave was likely to have been sealed not long after that date.

The manuscripts from the Library Cave date from fifth century until early eleventh century when it was sealed. Up to 50,000 manuscripts may have been kept there, one of the greatest treasure troves of ancient documents found. While most of them are in Chinese, a large number of documents are in various other languages such as Tibetan, Uighur, Sanskrit, and Sogdian, including the then little-known Khotanese. They may be old hemp paper scrolls in Chinese and many other languages, Tibetan pothis, and paintings on hemp, silk or paper. The subject matter of the great majority of the scrolls is Buddhist in nature, but it also covers a diverse material. Along with the expected Buddhist canonical works are original commentaries, apocryphal works, workbooks, books of prayers, Confucian works, Taoist works, Nestorian Christian works, works from the Chinese government, administrative documents, anthologies, glossaries, dictionaries, and calligraphic exercises.

Many of the manuscripts were previously unknown or thought lost, and the manuscripts provide a unique insight into the religious and secular matters of Northern China as well as other Central Asian kingdoms from the early periods up to the Tang and early Song Dynasty. The manuscripts found in the Library Cave include the earliest dated printed book, the Diamond Sutra from 868, which was first translated from Sanskrit into Chinese in the fourth century. These scrolls also include manuscripts that ranged from the Christian Jingjiao Documents to the Dunhuang Go Manual and ancient music scores, as well as the image of the Chinese astronomy Dunhuang map. These scrolls chronicle the development of Buddhism in China, record the political and cultural life of the time, and provide documentation of mundane secular matters that gives a rare glimpse into the lives of ordinary people of these eras.

The manuscripts were dispersed all over the world in the aftermath of the discovery. Stein's acquisition was split between Britain and India because his expedition was funded by both countries. Stein had the first pick and he was able to collect around 7,000 complete manuscripts and 6,000 fragments for which he paid £130, although these include many duplicate copies of the Diamond and Lotus Sutras. Pelliot took almost 10,000 documents for the equivalent of £90, but, unlike Stein, Pelliot was a trained sinologist literate in Chinese, and he was allowed to examine the manuscripts freely, so he was able to pick a better selection of documents than Stein. Pelliot was interested in the more unusual and exotic of the Dunhuang manuscripts, such as those dealing with the administration and financing of the monastery and associated lay men's groups. Many of these manuscripts survived only because they formed a type of palimpsest whereby papers were reused and Buddhist texts were written on the opposite side of the paper. Hundreds more of the manuscripts were sold by Wang to Otani Kozui and Sergei Oldenburg. Efforts are now underway to reconstitute the Library Cave manuscripts digitally, and they are now available as part of International Dunhuang Project.

The art of Dunhuang covers more than ten major genres, such as architecture, stucco sculpture, wall paintings, silk paintings, calligraphy, woodblock printing, embroidery, literature, music and dance, and popular entertainment.

The caves are examples of rock-cut architecture, but unlike Longmen Grottoes and Yungang Grottoes, the local rock is a rather soft gravel conglomerate that is not suitable for either sculpture or elaborate architectural details. Many of the early caves were developed from earlier Buddhist rock-cut styles seen in places such as the Ajanta Caves in India, with a square-sectioned central column, with sculpture in niches, representing the stupa round which worshippers may circumambulate () and gain blessings. Others are hall caves influenced by traditional Chinese and Buddhist temple architecture. These caves may have a truncated pyramidal ceiling sometimes painted to resemble a tent, or they may have a flat or gabled ceiling that imitates traditional buildings. Some of the caves used for meditation are adaptations of the Indian vihara (monastery) cave plan and contain side-chambers just large enough for one person to sit in.

Many of the caves originally had wooden porches or fore-temples built out from the cliff, but most of these have decayed or been lost in other ways, with only five remaining, the two earliest of which are rare surviving examples of Song dynasty wooden architecture. The most prominent wooden building at the site, first built during the Tang dynasty, houses the Great Buddha and was originally four storeys high, but it has been repaired at least five times and is no longer the original structure. A storey was added between 874-885, then repaired in the Guiyijun period, and two further storeys were added during a restoration in 1898. Two further restorations were carried out in the 20th century, and the building is now a 9-storey structure.

The murals in the caves date from a period of over a thousand years, from the 5th to the 14th century, and many earlier ones were repainted at later points within the period. The murals are extensive, covering an area of 490,000 square feet (46,000 square metres). The most fully painted caves have paintings all over the walls and ceilings, with geometrical or plant decoration filling the spaces not taken by figurative images, which are above all of the Buddha. Sculpture is also brightly painted. The murals are valued for the scale and richness of content as well as their artistry. Buddhist subjects are most common, however some have traditional mythical subjects and portraits of patrons. These murals document the changing styles of Buddhist art in China for nearly a thousand years. The artistry of the murals reached its apogee during the Tang period, and the quality of the work dropped after the tenth century.

Early murals showed a strong Indian and Central Asian influence in the painting techniques used, the composition and style of the paintings as well as costumes worn by the figures, but a distinct Dunhuang style began to emerge during Northern Wei Dynasty. Motifs of Chinese, Central Asian and Indian origin may be found in a single cave, and Chinese elements increased during the Western Wei period.

A common motif in many caves is the areas entirely covered by rows of small seated Buddha figures, after which this and other "Thousand Buddhas Caves" are named. These small Buddhas were drawn using stencils so that identical figures may be replicated. Flying apsaras, or celestial beings may be depicted in the ceiling or above the Buddhas, and figures of donors may be shown along the bottom of the walls. The paintings often depict jataka tales which are stories of the life of Buddha, or avadana which are parables of the doctrine of karma. The murals may also depict religious themes.

Bodhisattvas started appearing during the Northern Zhou period, with Avalokitesvara ( Guanyin), which was originally male but acquired female characteristics later, the most popular. Most caves show Mahayana and Sravakayana ( Theravada or Hinayana) influences, although Mahayana Buddhism became the dominant form during the Sui Dynasty. An innovation of the Sui-Tang period is the visual representation of the sutra - Mahayana Buddhist teachings transformed into large complete and detailed narrative paintings. One of the central features of Tang art in Mogao is the representation of the paradise of the Pure Land, indicating the increasing popularity of this school of Mahayana Buddhism in the Tang era. The iconography of Tantric Buddhism, such as the eleven-headed or thousand-armed Avalokitesvara, also started to appear in Mogao wall paintings during the Tang period. It became popular during the Tibetan occupation of Dunhuang and the subsequent periods, especially during the Yuan dynasty.

While Buddhist art is stylistically distinct from secular art, the style of paintings in the caves often reflects that of contemporary secular painting (insofar as we know of this), especially those depicting secular scenes. Donor figures are generally depicted in secular style, and may include secular events associated with them. For example, scenes depicting General Zhang Yichao, who ruled over Dunhuang in a quasi-autonomous manner during the Late Tang period, include a commemoration of his victory over the Tibetans in 848. The portraits of donors increased in size during the period ruled by the Cao family who succeeded the Zhang family. The Caos formed alliances with the Uyghurs ( Uyghur Gansu Kingdom and Kingdom of Qocho) and the Saka Kingdom of Khotan and their portraits are featured prominently in some of the caves.

Many of the figures have darkened due to oxidation of the lead-based pigments from exposure to air and light. Many early figures in the murals in Dunhuang also used painting techniques originated from India where shading was applied to achieve a three-dimensional or chiaroscuro effect. However, the darkening of the paint used in shading over time resulted in heavy outlines which is not what the painters had originally intended. This shading technique is unique to Dunhuang in East Asia at this period as such shading on human faces was generally not done in Chinese paintings until much later when there were influences from European paintings. Another difference from traditional Chinese painting is the presence of figures that are semi-nude, occasionally fully nude, as figures are generally fully clothed in Chinese paintings. Many of the murals have been repaired or plastered over and repainted over the centuries, and older murals may be seen where sections of later paintings had been removed.

The Getty Conservation Institute has a dedicated page to the conservation of those wall paintings.

There are around 2,400 surviving clay sculptures at Mogao. These were first constructed on a wooden frame, padded with reed, then modelled in clay stucco, and finished with paint. The giant statues however have a stone core. The Buddha is generally shown as the central statue, often attended by boddhisattvas, heavenly kings, devas, and apsaras, along with yaksas and other mythical creatures.

The early figures are relatively simple and mainly of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. The Buddhas of Northern Wei may have two attendant Bodhisattvas, and two further disciples were added in Northern Zhou, forming a group of five. Figures from the Sui and Tang periods may be present as larger groups of seven or nine, and some showed large-scale parinirvana scene with groups of mourners. The early sculptures were based on Indian and Central Asian prototypes, with some in the Greco-Indian style of Gandhara. Over time the sculptures showed more Chinese elements and became gradually sinicized.

The two giant statues represent Maitreya Buddha. The earlier and larger one in cave 96, at 35.5 m high, was constructed in 695 under the edicts from Empress Wu Zetian who instructed the constructions of monasteries in 689 and giant statues in 694. The smaller one is 27 m tall and was constructed in 713-41. The larger northern giant Buddha was damaged in an earthquake and had been repaired and restored multiple times, consequently its clothing, colour and gestures had been changed and only the head retains its original Early Tang appearance. The southern statue however is largely in its original form apart for its right hand. The larger Buddha is housed in a prominent wooden 9-storey structure.

One type of caves constructed during the Tibetan era is the Nirvana Cave, which features a large reclining Buddha that covers the entire length of the hall. Figures of mourners in murals or in sculptural forms are also depicted along the length of the hall behind the Buddha. The Buddha figure in cave 158 measures 15.6 m long.

The original function of the "Library Cave" was as a shrine commemorating Hong Bian, the 9th-century monk. His portrait statue, unusual here and among all surviving works in China, was removed to another spot when the cave was sealed up in the 11th century, but has been returned now the library has been removed. There is also a stone stele describing his life, and the wall behind the statue is painted with attendant figure; such blending of painted sculpture and wall paintings into a single composition is very common at the site.

Before the discovery in the Library Cave, original paintings on silk and paper from the Tang dynasty, an influential period in Chinese art, were very rare, and most of the surviving examples were copies made in later periods. Over a thousand paintings on silk, banners, and embroideries were found in the Library Cave, none apparently dating before the late 7th century. The great majority of the paintings are anonymous, but many are of high quality, especially from the Tang. Most are sutra paintings, images of Buddha, and narrative paintings. The paintings show something of the contemporary Chinese style of the capital Chang'an, but many also reflect Indian, Tibetan and Uighur painting styles.

There are brush paintings in ink alone, some in just two colours, as well as many in full colour. Most common are single figures, and most paintings were probably donated by an individual, who is often portrayed on a diminutive scale. The donor figures become notably more elaborate in dress by the 10th century.

The Library Cave is equally important as a source of rare early images and texts produced by woodblock printing, including the famous Diamond Sutra, the earliest printed book to survive. Other printed images were made to be hung, often with text below containing prayers and sometimes a dedication by the pious commissioner; at least two prints were commissioned by Cao Yuanzhong, Imperial Commissioner at Dunhuang in 947. Many of the images have colour added by hand to the printed outline. Several sheets contain repeated impressions of the same block with a Buddha image. Possibly these reflect stock for cutting when sold to pilgrims, but inscriptions in some examples show these were also printed out at different times by an individual as a devotion to acquire merit. It is unclear whether such people owned their own blocks, or visited a monastery to have the images printed.

The textiles found in the Library Cave include silk banners, altar hangings, wrappings for manuscripts, and monks' apparel ( kāṣāya). The monks normally used fabrics consisting of a patchwork of different scraps of cloth as a sign of humility; these therefore provide valuable insights into the various type of silk cloth and embroidery available at the time. Silk banners were used to adorn the cliff-face at the caves during festivals, and these are painted and may be embroidered. Valances used to decorate altars and temples had a horizontal strip at the top, from which hung streamers made from strips of different cloths ending in a V that look like a modern male necktie.

The caves were cut into the side of a cliff which is close to two kilometers long. At its height, during the Tang Dynasty, there were more than a thousand caves, but over time many of the caves were lost, including the earliest caves. 735 caves currently exist in Mogao; the best-known ones are the 487 caves located in the southern section of the cliff which are places of pilgrimage and worship. 248 caves have also been found to the north which were living quarters, meditation chambers, and burial sites for the monks. The caves at the southern section are decorated, while those at the northern section are mostly plain.

The caves are clustered together according to their era, with new caves from a new dynasty being constructed in different parts of the cliff. From the murals, sculptures, and other objects found in the caves, the dates of around five hundred caves have been determined. Following is a list of the caves by era, compiled in the 1980s (more have been identified since):

Sixteen Kingdoms (366-439) - 7 caves, the oldest dated to Northern Liang period.

Northern Wei (439-534) and Western Wei (535-556) - 10 from each phase

Northern Zhou (557-580) - 15 caves

Sui Dynasty (581-618) - 70 caves

Early Tang (618-704) - 44 caves

High Tang (705-780) - 80 caves

Middle Tang (781-847) - 44 caves (This era in Dunhuang is also known as the Tibetan period because Dunhuang was then under Tibetan occupation.)

Late Tang (848-906) - 60 caves (This and the subsequent periods until the Western Xia period are also known collectively as the Guiyijun period (歸義軍; 'Return to Righteousness Army', 848-1036) when Dunhuang was ruled by the Zhang and Cao families.)

The Five Dynasty (907-960) - 32 caves

Song Dynasty (960-1035)- 43 caves

Western Xia (1036-1226) - 82 caves

Yuan Dynasty (1227-1368) - 10 caves

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The Mogao Caves, also known as the Thousand Buddha Grottoes or Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, form a system of 500 temples 25 km (16 mi) southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu province, China.

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Silk Road

Time period

Around 114 BCE - 1450s CE

Official name

Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan

Type

Cultural

Criteria

ii, iii, iv, vi

Designated

2014 (38th session)

Reference no.
1442

Region
Asia-Pacific

The Silk Road ( Chinese: 絲綢之路) was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the East and West. The name "Silk Road", first coined in the late 19th century, has fallen into disuse among some modern historians in favor of Silk Routes, on the grounds that it more accurately describes the intricate web of land and sea routes connecting East and Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, the Middle East, East Africa and Europe.

The Silk Road derives its name from the highly lucrative trade of silk textiles that were produced almost exclusively in China. The network began with the Han dynasty's expansion into Central Asia around 114 BCE, which largely pacified the once untamed region. Imperial envoy Zhang Qian was commissioned to explore the unknown lands beyond the region in search of potential trading partners and allies. The information and goods gathered by these expeditions piqued Chinese interest and prompted formal diplomatic and commercial dispatches, as well as efforts to protect the routes with soldiers and an extension of the Great Wall.

The expansion of the Parthian Empire, which stretched from eastern Anatolia to Afghanistan, provided a bridge to East Africa and the Mediterranean, particularly the nascent Roman Empire. By the early first century CE, Chinese silk was widely sought-after in Rome, Egypt, and Greece. Other lucrative commodities from the East included tea, dyes, perfumes, and porcelain; among Western exports were horses, camels, honey, wine, and gold. Aside from generating substantial wealth for emerging mercantile classes, the proliferation of goods such as paper and gunpowder greatly altered the trajectory of various realms, if not world history.

During its roughly 1,500 years of existence, the Silk Road endured the rise and fall of numerous empires and major events such as the Black Death and the Mongol conquests; after almost every disruption, the network reemerged stronger than before, most notably under the Mongol Empire and its offshoot the Yuan Dynasty. As a highly decentralized network, security was sparse. Travelers faced constant threats of banditry and nomadic raiders, and long expanses of inhospitable terrain. Few individuals crossed the entirety of the Silk Road, instead relying on a succession of middlemen based at various stopping points along the way.

The Silk Road trade played a significant role in opening political and economic relations between China, Korea, Japan, India, Iran, Europe, the Horn of Africa and Arabia. In addition to goods, the network facilitated an unprecedented exchange of ideas, religions ( especially Buddhism), philosophies, and scientific discoveries, many of which were syncretised or reshaped by the societies that encountered them. Likewise, a wide variety of people used the routes, including migrants, refugees, missionaries, artisans, diplomats, and soldiers. Diseases such as plague also spread along the Silk Road, possibly contributing to the Black Death.

Despite repeatedly surviving many geopolitical changes and disruptions, the Silk Road abruptly lost its importance with the rise of the Ottoman Empire in 1453, which almost immediately severed trade between East and West. This prompted European efforts to seek alternative routes to Eastern riches, thereby ushering the Age of Discovery, European colonialism, and a more intensified process of globalization, which had arguably begun with the Silk Road. The network's influence survives into the 21st century. One of the world's best known historical figures, Marco Polo, was a Medieval Venetian merchant who was among the earliest Westerners to visit and describe the East. The name "New Silk Road" is used to describe several large infrastructure projects seeking to expand transportation along many of the historic trade routes; among the best known include the Eurasian Land Bridge and the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In June 2014, UNESCO designated the Chang'an-Tianshan corridor of the Silk Road as a World Heritage Site, while the Indian portion remains on the tentative site list.

The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk, first developed in China, and a major reason for the connection of trade routes into an extensive transcontinental network. It derives from the German term Seidenstraße (literally "Silk Road") and was first popularized in 1877 by Ferdinand von Richthofen, who made seven expeditions to China from 1868 to 1872. However, the term itself had been in use in decades prior to that. The alternative translation "Silk Route" is also used occasionally. Although the term was coined in the 19th century, it did not gain widespread acceptance in academia or popularity among the public until the 20th century. The first book entitled The Silk Road was by Swedish geographer Sven Hedin in 1938.

The use of the term 'Silk Road' is not without its detractors. For instance, Warwick Ball contends that the maritime spice trade with India and Arabia was far more consequential for the economy of the Roman Empire than the silk trade with China, which at sea was conducted mostly through India and on land was handled by numerous intermediaries such as the Sogdians. Going as far as to call the whole thing a "myth" of modern academia, Ball argues that there was no coherent overland trade system and no free movement of goods from East Asia to the West until the period of the Mongol Empire. He notes that traditional authors discussing east-west trade such as Marco Polo and Edward Gibbon never labelled any route a "silk" one in particular.

The southern stretches of the Silk Road, from Khotan ( Xinjiang) to Eastern China, were first used for jade and not silk, as long as 5000 BCE, and is still in use for this purpose. The term "Jade Road" would have been more appropriate than "Silk Road" had it not been for the far larger and geographically wider nature of the silk trade; the term is in current use in China.

Precursors

Chinese and Central Asian contacts (2nd millennium BCE)

Central Eurasia has been known from ancient times for its horse riding and horse breeding communities, and the overland Steppe Route across the northern steppes of Central Eurasia was in use long before that of the Silk Road. Archeological sites such as the Berel burial ground in Kazakhstan, confirmed that the nomadic Arimaspians were not only breeding horses for trade but also produced great craftsmen able to propagate exquisite art pieces along the Silk Road. From the 2nd millennium BCE, nephrite jade was being traded from mines in the region of Yarkand and Khotan to China. Significantly, these mines were not very far from the lapis lazuli and spinel ("Balas Ruby") mines in Badakhshan, and, although separated by the formidable Pamir Mountains, routes across them were apparently in use from very early times.

Genetic study of the Tarim mummies, found in the Tarim Basin, in the area of Loulan located along the Silk Road 200 kilometres (124 miles) east of Yingpan, dating to as early as 1600 BCE, suggest very ancient contacts between East and West. These mummified remains may have been of people who spoke Indo-European languages, which remained in use in the Tarim Basin, in the modern day Xinjiang region, until replaced by Turkic influences from the Xiongnu culture to the north and by Chinese influences from the eastern Han dynasty, who spoke a Sino-Tibetan language.

Some remnants of what was probably Chinese silk dating from 1070 BCE have been found in Ancient Egypt. The Great Oasis cities of Central Asia played a crucial role in the effective functioning of the Silk Road trade. The originating source seems sufficiently reliable, but silk degrades very rapidly, so it cannot be verified whether it was cultivated silk (which almost certainly came from China) or a type of , which might have come from the Mediterranean or Middle East.

Following contacts between Metropolitan China and nomadic western border territories in the 8th century BCE, gold was introduced from Central Asia, and Chinese jade carvers began to make imitation designs of the steppes, adopting the Scythian-style animal art of the steppes (depictions of animals locked in combat). This style is particularly reflected in the rectangular belt plaques made of gold and bronze, with other versions in jade and steatite. An elite burial near Stuttgart, Germany, dated to the 6th century BCE, was excavated and found to have not only Greek bronzes but also Chinese silks. Similar animal-shaped pieces of art and wrestler motifs on belts have been found in Scythian grave sites stretching from the Black Sea region all the way to Warring States era archaeological sites in Inner Mongolia (at Aluchaideng) and Shaanxi (at Keshengzhuang) in China.

The expansion of Scythian cultures, stretching from the Hungarian plain and the Carpathian Mountains to the Chinese Kansu Corridor, and linking the Middle East with Northern India and the Punjab, undoubtedly played an important role in the development of the Silk Road. Scythians accompanied the Assyrian Esarhaddon on his invasion of Egypt, and their distinctive triangular arrowheads have been found as far south as Aswan. These nomadic peoples were dependent upon neighbouring settled populations for a number of important technologies, and in addition to raiding vulnerable settlements for these commodities, they also encouraged long-distance merchants as a source of income through the enforced payment of tariffs. Sogdians played a major role in facilitating trade between China and Central Asia along the Silk Roads as late as the 10th century, their language serving as a lingua franca for Asian trade as far back as the 4th century.

Persian Royal Road (500-330 BCE)

By the time of Herodotus (c. 475 BCE), the Royal Road of the Persian Empire ran some 2,857 km (1,775 mi) from the city of Susa on the Karun (250 km (155 mi) east of the Tigris) to the port of Smyrna (modern İzmir in Turkey) on the Aegean Sea. It was maintained and protected by the Achaemenid Empire (c. 500-330 BCE) and had postal stations and relays at regular intervals. By having fresh horses and riders ready at each relay, royal couriers could carry messages and traverse the length of the road in nine days, while normal travelers took about three months.

Expansion of the Greek Empire (329 BCE-10 CE)

The next major step toward the development of the Silk Road was the expansion of the Macedonian empire of Alexander the Great into Central Asia. In August 329 BCE, at the mouth of the Fergana Valley, he founded the city of Alexandria Eschate or "Alexandria The Furthest".

The Greeks remained in Central Asia for the next three centuries, first through the administration of the Seleucid Empire, and then with the establishment of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (250-125 BCE) in Bactria (modern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan) and the later Indo-Greek Kingdom (180 BCE - 10 CE) in modern Northern Pakistan and Afghanistan. They continued to expand eastward, especially during the reign of Euthydemus (230-200 BCE), who extended his control beyond Alexandria Eschate to Sogdiana. There are indications that he may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar on the western edge of the Taklamakan Desert, leading to the first known contacts between China and the West around 200 BCE. The Greek historian Strabo writes, "they extended their empire even as far as the Seres (China) and the Phryni."

Initiation in China (130 BCE)

The Silk Road was initiated and spread by China's Han dynasty through exploration and conquests in Central Asia. With the Mediterranean linked to the Fergana Valley, the next step was to open a route across the Tarim Basin and the Hexi Corridor to China Proper. This extension came around 130 BCE, with the embassies of the Han dynasty to Central Asia following the reports of the ambassador Zhang Qian (who was originally sent to obtain an alliance with the Yuezhi against the Xiongnu). Zhang Qian visited directly the kingdom of Dayuan in Ferghana, the territories of the Yuezhi in Transoxiana, the Bactrian country of Daxia with its remnants of Greco-Bactrian rule, and Kangju. He also made reports on neighbouring countries that he did not visit, such as Anxi ( Parthia), Tiaozhi ( Mesopotamia), Shendu ( Indian subcontinent) and the Wusun. Zhang Qian's report suggested the economic reason for Chinese expansion and wall-building westward, and trail-blazed the Silk Road, making it one of the most famous trade routes in history and in the world.

After winning the War of the Heavenly Horses and the Han-Xiongnu War, Chinese armies established themselves in Central Asia, initiating the Silk Route as a major avenue of international trade. Some say that the Chinese Emperor Wu became interested in developing commercial relationships with the sophisticated urban civilizations of Ferghana, Bactria, and the Parthian Empire: "The Son of Heaven on hearing all this reasoned thus: Ferghana (Dayuan "Great Ionians") and the possessions of Bactria ( Ta-Hsia) and Parthian Empire ( Anxi) are large countries, full of rare things, with a population living in fixed abodes and given to occupations somewhat identical with those of the Chinese people, but with weak armies, and placing great value on the rich produce of China" ( Hou Hanshu, Later Han History). Others say that Emperor Wu was mainly interested in fighting the Xiongnu and that major trade began only after the Chinese pacified the Hexi Corridor. The Silk Roads' origin lay in the hands of the Chinese. The soil in China lacked Selenium, a deficiency which contributed to muscular weakness and reduced growth in horses. Consequently, horses in China were too frail to support the weight of a Chinese soldier. The Chinese needed the superior horses that nomads bred on the Eurasian steppes, and nomads wanted things only agricultural societies produced, such as grain and silk. Even after the construction of the Great Wall, nomads gathered at the gates of the wall to exchange. Soldiers sent to guard the wall were often paid in silk which they traded with the nomads. Past its inception, the Chinese continued to dominate the Silk Roads, a process which was accelerated when "China snatched control of the Silk Road from the Hsiung-nu" and the Chinese general Cheng Ki "installed himself as protector of the Tarim at Wu-lei, situated between Kara Shahr and Kucha." "China's control of the Silk Road at the time of the later Han, by ensuring the freedom of transcontinental trade along the double chain of oases north and south of the Tarim, favoured the dissemination of Buddhism in the river basin, and with it Indian literature and Hellenistic art."

The Chinese were also strongly attracted by the tall and powerful horses (named " Heavenly horses") in the possession of the Dayuan (literally the "Great Ionians", the Greek kingdoms of Central Asia), which were of capital importance in fighting the nomadic Xiongnu. They defeated the Dayuan in the Han-Dayuan war. The Chinese subsequently sent numerous embassies, around ten every year, to these countries and as far as Seleucid Syria.

Thus more embassies were dispatched to Anxi [Parthia], Yancai [who later joined the Alans ], Lijian [Syria under the Greek Seleucids], Tiaozhi (Mesopotamia), and Tianzhu [northwestern India]... As a rule, rather more than ten such missions went forward in the course of a year, and at the least five or six. ( Hou Hanshu, Later Han History).

These connections marked the beginning of the Silk Road trade network that extended to the Roman Empire. The Chinese campaigned in Central Asia on several occasions, and direct encounters between Han troops and Roman legionaries (probably captured or recruited as mercenaries by the Xiong Nu) are recorded, particularly in the 36 BCE battle of Sogdiana (Joseph Needham, Sidney Shapiro). It has been suggested that the Chinese crossbow was transmitted to the Roman world on such occasions, although the Greek gastraphetes provides an alternative origin. R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy suggest that in 36 BCE,

[A] Han expedition into Central Asia, west of Jaxartes River, apparently encountered and defeated a contingent of Roman legionaries. The Romans may have been part of Antony's army invading Parthia. Sogdiana (modern Bukhara), east of the Oxus River, on the Polytimetus River, was apparently the most easterly penetration ever made by Roman forces in Asia. The margin of Chinese victory appears to have been their crossbows, whose bolts and darts seem easily to have penetrated Roman shields and armour.

The Roman historian Florus also describes the visit of numerous envoys, which included (China), to the first Roman Emperor Augustus, who reigned between 27 BCE and 14 CE:

Even the rest of the nations of the world which were not subject to the imperial sway were sensible of its grandeur, and looked with reverence to the Roman people, the great conqueror of nations. Thus even Scythians and Sarmatians sent envoys to seek the friendship of Rome. Nay, the Seres came likewise, and the Indians who dwelt beneath the vertical sun, bringing presents of precious stones and pearls and elephants, but thinking all of less moment than the vastness of the journey which they had undertaken, and which they said had occupied four years. In truth, it needed but to look at their complexion to see that they were people of another world than ours.

The Han Dynasty army regularly policed the trade route against nomadic bandit forces generally identified as Xiongnu. Han general Ban Chao led an army of 70,000 mounted infantry and light cavalry troops in the 1st century CE to secure the trade routes, reaching far west to the Tarim Basin. Ban Chao expanded his conquests across the Pamirs to the shores of the Caspian Sea and the borders of Parthia. It was from here that the Han general dispatched envoy Gan Ying to Daqin (Rome). The Silk Road essentially came into being from the 1st century BCE, following these efforts by China to consolidate a road to the Western world and India, both through direct settlements in the area of the Tarim Basin and diplomatic relations with the countries of the Dayuan, Parthians and Bactrians further west. The Silk Roads were a "complex network of trade routes" that gave people the chance to exchange goods and culture.

A maritime Silk Route opened up between Chinese-controlled Giao Chỉ (centred in modern Vietnam, near Hanoi), probably by the 1st century. It extended, via ports on the coasts of India and Sri Lanka, all the way to Roman-controlled ports in Roman Egypt and the Nabataean territories on the northeastern coast of the Red Sea. The earliest Roman glassware bowl found in China was unearthed from a Western Han tomb in Guangzhou, dated to the early 1st century BCE, indicating that Roman commercial items were being imported through the South China Sea. According to Chinese dynastic histories, it is from this region that the Roman embassies arrived in China, beginning in 166 CE during the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Emperor Huan of Han. Other Roman glasswares have been found in Eastern-Han-era tombs (25-220 CE) more further inland in Nanjing and Luoyang.

P.O. Harper asserts that a 2nd or 3rd-century Roman gilt silver plate found in Jingyuan, Gansu, China with a central image of the Greco-Roman god Dionysus resting on a feline creature, most likely came via Greater Iran (i.e. Sogdiana). Valerie Hansen (2012) believed that earliest Roman coins found in China date to the 4th century, during Late Antiquity and the Dominate period, and come from the Byzantine Empire. However, Warwick Ball (2016) highlights the recent discovery of sixteen Principate-era Roman coins found in Xi'an (formerly Chang'an, one of the two Han capitals) that were minted during the reigns of Roman emperors spanning from Tiberius to Aurelian (i.e. 1st to 3rd centuries CE).

Helen Wang points out that although these coins were found in China, they were deposited there in the twentieth century, not in ancient times, and therefore do not shed light on historic contacts between China and Rome. Roman golden medallions made during the reign of Antoninus Pius and quite possibly his successor Marcus Aurelius have been found at Óc Eo in southern Vietnam, which was then part of the Kingdom of Funan bordering the Chinese province of Jiaozhi in northern Vietnam. Given the archaeological finds of Mediterranean artefacts made by Louis Malleret in the 1940s, Óc Eo may have been the same site as the port city of Kattigara described by Ptolemy in his (c. 150 CE), although Ferdinand von Richthofen had previously believed it was closer to Hanoi.

Roman Empire (30 BCE-3rd century CE)

Soon after the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BCE, regular communications and trade between China, Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe blossomed on an unprecedented scale. The Roman Empire inherited eastern trade routes that were part of the Silk Road from the earlier Hellenistic powers and the Arabs. With control of these trade routes, citizens of the Roman Empire received new luxuries and greater prosperity for the Empire as a whole. The Roman-style glassware discovered in the archeological sites of Gyeongju, the capital of the Silla kingdom (Korea) showed that Roman artifacts were traded as far as the Korean peninsula. The Greco- Roman trade with India started by Eudoxus of Cyzicus in 130 BCE continued to increase, and according to Strabo (II.5.12), by the time of Augustus, up to 120 ships were setting sail every year from Myos Hormos in Roman Egypt to India. The Roman Empire connected with the Central Asian Silk Road through their ports in Barygaza (known today as Bharuch) and Barbaricum (known today as the city of Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan) and continued along the western coast of India. An ancient "travel guide" to this Indian Ocean trade route was the Greek Periplus of the Erythraean Sea written in 60 CE.

The travelling party of Maës Titianus penetrated farthest east along the Silk Road from the Mediterranean world, probably with the aim of regularising contacts and reducing the role of middlemen, during one of the lulls in Rome's intermittent wars with Parthia, which repeatedly obstructed movement along the Silk Road. Intercontinental trade and communication became regular, organised, and protected by the "Great Powers". Intense trade with the Roman Empire soon followed, confirmed by the Roman craze for Chinese silk (supplied through the Parthians), even though the Romans thought silk was obtained from trees. This belief was affirmed by Seneca the Younger in his Phaedra and by Virgil in his Georgics. Notably, Pliny the Elder knew better. Speaking of the bombyx or silk moth, he wrote in his Natural Histories "They weave webs, like spiders, that become a luxurious clothing material for women, called silk." The Romans traded spices, glassware, perfumes, and silk.

Roman artisans began to replace yarn with valuable plain silk cloths from China and the Silla Kingdom in Gyeongju, Korea. Chinese wealth grew as they delivered silk and other luxury goods to the Roman Empire, whose wealthy women admired their beauty. The Roman Senate issued, in vain, several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, on economic and moral grounds: the import of Chinese silk caused a huge outflow of gold, and silk clothes were considered decadent and immoral.

I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one's decency, can be called clothes.... Wretched flocks of maids labour so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife's body.

The Western Roman Empire, and its demand for sophisticated Asian products, collapsed in the fifth century.

The unification of Central Asia and Northern India within the Kushan Empire between the first and third centuries reinforced the role of the powerful merchants from Bactria and Taxila. They fostered multi-cultural interaction as indicated by their 2nd century treasure hoards filled with products from the Greco-Roman world, China, and India, such as in the archeological site of Begram.

Byzantine Empire (6th-14th centuries)

Byzantine Greek historian Procopius stated that two Nestorian Christian monks eventually uncovered the way silk was made. From this revelation, monks were sent by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian (ruled 527-565) as spies on the Silk Road from Constantinople to China and back to steal the silkworm eggs, resulting in silk production in the Mediterranean, particularly in Thrace in northern Greece, and giving the Byzantine Empire a monopoly on silk production in medieval Europe. In 568 the Byzantine ruler Justin II was greeted by a Sogdian embassy representing Istämi, ruler of the First Turkic Khaganate, who formed an alliance with the Byzantines against Khosrow I of the Sasanian Empire that allowed the Byzantines to bypass the Sasanian merchants and trade directly with the Sogdians for purchasing Chinese silk. Although the Byzantines had already procured silkworm eggs from China by this point, the quality of Chinese silk was still far greater than anything produced in the West, a fact that is perhaps emphasized by the discovery of coins minted by Justin II found in a Chinese tomb of Shanxi province dated to the Sui dynasty (581-618).

Both the Old Book of Tang and New Book of Tang, covering the history of the Chinese Tang dynasty (618-907), record that a new state called Fu-lin (拂菻; i.e. Byzantine Empire) was virtually identical to the previous (大秦; i.e. Roman Empire). Several Fu-lin embassies were recorded for the Tang period, starting in 643 with an alleged embassy by Constans II (transliterated as Bo duo li, 波多力, from his nickname "Kōnstantinos Pogonatos") to the court of Emperor Taizong of Tang. The History of Song describes the final embassy and its arrival in 1081, apparently sent by Michael VII Doukas (transliterated as Mie li yi ling kai sa, 滅力伊靈改撒, from his name and title Michael VII Parapinakēs Caesar) to the court of Emperor Shenzong of the Song dynasty (960-1279).

However, the History of Yuan claims that a Byzantine man became a leading astronomer and physician in Khanbaliq, at the court of Kublai Khan, Mongol founder of the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) and was even granted the noble title 'Prince of Fu lin' ( Chinese: 拂菻王; Fú lǐn wáng). The Uyghur Nestorian Christian diplomat Rabban Bar Sauma, who set out from his Chinese home in Khanbaliq (Beijing) and acted as a representative for Arghun (a grandnephew of Kublai Khan), traveled throughout Europe and attempted to secure military alliances with Edward I of England, Philip IV of France, Pope Nicholas IV, as well as the Byzantine ruler Andronikos II Palaiologos. Andronikos II had two half-sisters who were married to great-grandsons of Genghis Khan, which made him an in-law with the Yuan-dynasty Mongol ruler in Beijing, Kublai Khan.

The History of Ming preserves an account where the Hongwu Emperor, after founding the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), had a supposed Byzantine merchant named Nieh-ku-lun (捏古倫) deliver his proclamation about the establishment of a new dynasty to the Byzantine court of John V Palaiologos in September 1371. Friedrich Hirth (1885), Emil Bretschneider (1888), and more recently Edward Luttwak (2009) presumed that this was none other than Nicolaus de Bentra, a Roman Catholic bishop of Khanbilaq chosen by Pope John XXII to replace the previous archbishop John of Montecorvino.

Tang dynasty (7th century)

Although the Silk Road was initially formulated during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (141-87 BCE), it was reopened by the Tang Empire in 639 when Hou Junji conquered the Western Regions, and remained open for almost four decades. It was closed after the Tibetans captured it in 678, but in 699, during Empress Wu's period, the Silk Road reopened when the Tang reconquered the Four Garrisons of Anxi originally installed in 640, once again connecting China directly to the West for land-based trade. The Tang captured the vital route through the Gilgit Valley from Tibet in 722, lost it to the Tibetans in 737, and regained it under the command of the Goguryeo-Korean General Gao Xianzhi.

While the Turks were settled in the Ordos region (former territory of the Xiongnu), the Tang government took on the military policy of dominating the central steppe. The Tang dynasty (along with Turkic allies) conquered and subdued Central Asia during the 640s and 650s. During Emperor Taizong's reign alone, large campaigns were launched against not only the Göktürks, but also separate campaigns against the Tuyuhun, the oasis states, and the Xueyantuo. Under Emperor Taizong, Tang general Li Jing conquered the Eastern Turkic Khaganate. Under Emperor Gaozong, Tang general Su Dingfang conquered the Western Turkic Khaganate, an important ally of the Byzantine empire. After these conquests, the Tang dynasty fully controlled the Xiyu, which was the strategic location astride the Silk Road. This led the Tang dynasty to reopen the Silk Road, with this portion named the Tang-Tubo Road ("Tang-Tibet Road") in many historical texts.

The Tang dynasty established a second Pax Sinica, and the Silk Road reached its golden age, whereby Persian and Sogdian merchants benefited from the commerce between East and West. At the same time, the Chinese empire welcomed foreign cultures, making it very cosmopolitan in its urban centres. In addition to the land route, the Tang dynasty also developed the maritime Silk Route. Chinese envoys had been sailing through the Indian Ocean to India since perhaps the 2nd century BCE, yet it was during the Tang dynasty that a strong Chinese maritime presence could be found in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea into Persia, Mesopotamia (sailing up the Euphrates River in modern-day Iraq), Arabia, Egypt, Aksum (Ethiopia), and Somalia in the Horn of Africa.

Sogdian-Türkic tribes (4th-8th centuries)

The Silk Road represents an early phenomenon of political and cultural integration due to inter-regional trade. In its heyday, it sustained an international culture that strung together groups as diverse as the Magyars, Armenians, and Chinese. The Silk Road reached its peak in the west during the time of the Byzantine Empire; in the Nile- Oxus section, from the Sassanid Empire period to the Il Khanate period; and in the sinitic zone from the Three Kingdoms period to the Yuan dynasty period. Trade between East and West also developed across the Indian Ocean, between Alexandria in Egypt and Guangzhou in China. Persian Sassanid coins emerged as a means of currency, just as valuable as silk yarn and textiles.

Under its strong integrating dynamics on the one hand and the impacts of change it transmitted on the other, tribal societies previously living in isolation along the Silk Road, and pastoralists who were of barbarian cultural development, were drawn to the riches and opportunities of the civilisations connected by the routes, taking on the trades of marauders or mercenaries. "Many barbarian tribes became skilled warriors able to conquer rich cities and fertile lands and to forge strong military empires."

The Sogdians dominated the east-west trade after the 4th century up to the 8th century. They were the main caravan merchants of Central Asia. A.V. Dybo noted that "according to historians, the main driving force of the Great Silk Road were not just Sogdians, but the carriers of a mixed Sogdian-Türkic culture that often came from mixed families."

The Silk Road gave rise to the clusters of military states of nomadic origins in North China, ushered the Nestorian, Manichaean, Buddhist, and later Islamic religions into Central Asia and China.

Islamic era (8th-13th centuries)

By the Umayyad era, Damascus had overtaken Ctesiphon as a major trade center until the Abbasid dynasty built the city of Baghdad, which became the most important city along the silk road.

At the end of its glory, the routes brought about the largest continental empire ever, the Mongol Empire, with its political centres strung along the Silk Road ( Beijing) in North China, Karakorum in central Mongolia, Sarmakhand in Transoxiana, Tabriz in Northern Iran, realising the political unification of zones previously loosely and intermittently connected by material and cultural goods.

The Islamic world expanded into Central Asia during the 8th century, under the Umayyad Caliphate, while its successor the Abbasid Caliphate put a halt to Chinese westward expansion at the Battle of Talas in 751 (near the Talas River in modern-day Kyrgyzstan). However, following the disastrous An Lushan Rebellion (755-763) and the conquest of the Western Regions by the Tibetan Empire, the Tang Empire was unable to reassert its control over Central Asia. Contemporary Tang authors noted how the dynasty had gone into decline after this point. In 848 the Tang Chinese, led by the commander Zhang Yichao, were only able to reclaim the Hexi Corridor and Dunhuang in Gansu from the Tibetans. The Persian Samanid Empire (819-999) centered in Bukhara ( Uzbekistan) continued the trade legacy of the Sogdians. The disruptions of trade were curtailed in that part of the world by the end of the 10th century and conquests of Central Asia by the Turkic Islamic Kara-Khanid Khanate, yet Nestorian Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Buddhism in Central Asia virtually disappeared.

During the early 13th century Khwarezmia was invaded by the Mongol Empire. The Mongol ruler Genghis Khan had the once vibrant cities of Bukhara and Samarkand burned to the ground after besieging them. However, in 1370 Samarkand saw a revival as the capital of the new Timurid Empire. The Turko-Mongol ruler Timur forcefully moved artisans and intellectuals from across Asia to Samarkand, making it one of the most important trade centers and cultural of the Islamic world.

Mongol empire (13th-14th centuries)

The Mongol expansion throughout the Asian continent from around 1207 to 1360 helped bring political stability and re-established the Silk Road (via Karakorum and Khanbaliq). It also brought an end to the dominance of the Islamic Caliphate over world trade. Because the Mongols came to control the trade routes, trade circulated throughout the region, though they never abandoned their nomadic lifestyle.

The Mongol rulers wanted to establish their capital on the Central Asian steppe, so to accomplish this goal, after every conquest they enlisted local people (traders, scholars, artisans) to help them construct and manage their empire. The Mongols developed overland and maritime routes throughout the Eurasian continent, Black Sea and the Mediterranean in the west, and the Indian Ocean in the south. In the second half of the thirteenth century Mongol-sponsored business partnerships flourished in the Indian Ocean connecting Mongol Middle East and Mongol China

The Mongol diplomat Rabban Bar Sauma visited the courts of Europe in 1287-88 and provided a detailed written report to the Mongols. Around the same time, the Venetian explorer Marco Polo became one of the first Europeans to travel the Silk Road to China. His tales, documented in The Travels of Marco Polo, opened Western eyes to some of the customs of the Far East. He was not the first to bring back stories, but he was one of the most widely read. He had been preceded by numerous Christian missionaries to the East, such as William of Rubruck, Benedykt Polak, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, and Andrew of Longjumeau. Later envoys included Odoric of Pordenone, Giovanni de' Marignolli, John of Montecorvino, Niccolò de' Conti, and Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan Muslim traveller who passed through the present-day Middle East and across the Silk Road from Tabriz between 1325 and 1354.

In the 13th century, efforts were made at forming a Franco-Mongol alliance, with an exchange of ambassadors and (failed) attempts at military collaboration in the Holy Land during the later Crusades. Eventually, the Mongols in the Ilkhanate, after they had destroyed the Abbasid and Ayyubid dynasties, converted to Islam and signed the 1323 Treaty of Aleppo with the surviving Muslim power, the Egyptian Mamluks.

Some studies indicate that the Black Death, which devastated Europe starting in the late 1340s, may have reached Europe from Central Asia (or China) along the trade routes of the Mongol Empire. One theory holds that Genoese traders coming from the entrepot of Trebizond in northern Turkey carried the disease to Western Europe; like many other outbreaks of plague, there is strong evidence that it originated in marmots in Central Asia and was carried westwards to the Black Sea by Silk Road traders.

Decline and disintegration (15th century)

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The fragmentation of the Mongol Empire loosened the political, cultural, and economic unity of the Silk Road. Turkmeni marching lords seized land around the western part of the Silk Road from the decaying Byzantine Empire. After the fall of the Mongol Empire, the great political powers along the Silk Road became economically and culturally separated. Accompanying the crystallisation of regional states was the decline of nomad power, partly due to the devastation of the Black Death and partly due to the encroachment of sedentary civilisations equipped with gunpowder.

Partial revival in West Asia

Significant is Armenians role in making Europe Asia trade possible by being located in the crossing roads between these two. Armenia had a monopoly on almost all trade roads in this area and a colossal network. From 1700 to 1765, the total export of Persian silk was entirely conducted by Armenians. They were also exporting raisins, coffee beans, figs, Turkish yarn, camel hair, various precious stones, rice, etc., from Turkey and Iran.

Collapse (18th century)

The silk trade continued to flourish until it was disrupted by the collapse of the Safavid Empire in the 1720s.

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New Silk Road (20th-21st centuries)

In the 20th century, the Silk Road through the Suez Canal and the overland connections were repeatedly blocked from the First World War on. This also applied to the massive trade barriers of the Cold War. It was not until the 1990s that the "old" trade routes began to reactivate again. In addition to the Chinese activities and the integration of Africa, this also applies to the increasing importance of the Mediterranean region and the connection to Central Europe such as the trade center of Trieste.

Trade along the Silk Road could soon account for almost 40% of total world trade, with a large part taking place by sea. The land route of the Silk Road seems to remain a niche project in terms of transport volume in the future. As a result of the Chinese Silk Road Initiative and investments, trade seems to be intensifying on the relevant routes.

Maritime Silk Road

The maritime Silk Road follows the old trade route that was opened by the Chinese admiral Zheng He during the early Ming Dynasty. In particular, the establishment of the lockless Suez Canal then strongly promoted maritime trade between Asia and Europe in this area. While many trade flows were interrupted in the 20th century by the World Wars, the Suez Crisis and the Cold War, from the beginning of the 21st century many of the trading centers that had already existed in the 19th century were activated again.

The Suez Canal was also continually expanded and its time-saving role in Asia-Europe trade was highlighted. At the beginning of the Maritime Silk Road are the major Chinese ports in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Ningbo-Zhoushan. The Chinese investments in Africa will connect large areas of Central and East Africa to the maritime Silk Road and thus to China and directly to southern Europe via the Suez Canal. The increasing importance of the Mediterranean as a trading center with its direct, fast connections to Central and Eastern Europe is evident from the international investments in port cities of Piraeus and Trieste. Trieste in particular plays a major role in the economic zone in Central Europe known as the Blue Banana. This includes a banana-shaped corridor from southern England via the Benelux region, western Germany and Switzerland to northern Italy. The transport via Trieste instead of northern ports such as Rotterdam and Hamburg shortens the delivery time from Shanghai by ten days and from Hong Kong by nine days. On the maritime Silk Road, on which more than half of all containers in the world are already on the move, deep-water ports are being expanded, logistics hubs are being built and new transport routes such as railways and roads in the hinterland are being created.

Today the maritime silk road runs with its connections from the Chinese coast to the south via Hanoi to Jakarta, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur through the Strait of Malacca via the Sri Lankan Colombo towards the southern tip of India via Malé, the capital of the Maldives, to the East African Mombasa, from there to Djibouti, then through the Red Sea via the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean, there via Haifa, Istanbul and Athens to the Upper Adriatic region to the northern Italian hub of Trieste with its international free port and its rail connections to Central Europe and the North Sea. As a result, Poland, the Baltic States, Northern Europe and Central Europe are also connected to the maritime silk road.

Railway (1990)

The Eurasian Land Bridge, a railway through China, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia, is sometimes referred to as the "New Silk Road". The last link in one of these two railway routes was completed in 1990, when the railway systems of China and Kazakhstan connected at Alataw Pass (Alashan Kou). In 2008 the line was used to connect the cities of Ürümqi in China's Xinjiang Province to Almaty and Astana in Kazakhstan. In October 2008 the first Trans-Eurasia Logistics train reached Hamburg from Xiangtan. Starting in July 2011 the line has been used by a freight service that connects Chongqing, China with Duisburg, Germany, cutting travel time for cargo from about 36 days by container ship to just 13 days by freight train. In 2013, Hewlett-Packard began moving large freight trains of laptop computers and monitors along this rail route. In January 2017, the service sent its first train to London. The network additionally connects to Madrid and Milan.

Revival of cities (1966) and Other Later 20th Century Travel

After an earthquake that hit Tashkent in Central Asia in 1966, the city had to rebuild itself. Although it took a huge toll on their markets, this commenced a revival of modern silk road cities.

It was also in this general period (late 1950s-late 1970s) that the Hippie trail followed parts of the Silk Road, particularly in Turkey and Iran, as thousands of travelers went overland from Europe to India. Into the next century tours and other individual travel has occurred on some of the route, though for political and safety considerations mainly through Central Asia.

Belt and Road Initiative (2013)

During a September 2013 a visit to Kazakhstan, China's Chinese President Xi Jinping introduced a plan for a New Silk Road from China to Europe. The latest iterations of this plan, dubbed the " Belt and Road Initiative" (BRI), includes a land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, with primary points in Ürümqi, Dostyk, Nur-Sultan, Gomel, the Belarusian city of Brest, and the Polish cities of Małaszewicze and Łódź-which would be hubs of logistics and transshipment to other countries of Europe.

On 15 February 2016, with a change in routing, the first train dispatched under the scheme arrived from eastern Zhejiang Province to Tehran. Though this section does not complete the Silk Road-style overland connection between China and Europe, but new railway line connecting China to Europe via Istanbul's has now been established. The actual route went through Almaty, Bishkek, Samarkand, and Dushanbe.

Northern route

The northern route started at Chang'an (now called Xi'an), an ancient capital of China that was moved further east during the Later Han to Luoyang. The route was defined around the 1st century BCE when Han Wudi put an end to harassment by nomadic tribes.

The northern route travelled northwest through the Chinese province of Gansu from Shaanxi Province and split into three further routes, two of them following the mountain ranges to the north and south of the Taklamakan Desert to rejoin at Kashgar, and the other going north of the Tian Shan mountains through Turpan, Talgar, and Almaty (in what is now southeast Kazakhstan). The routes split again west of Kashgar, with a southern branch heading down the Alai Valley towards Termez (in modern Uzbekistan) and Balkh (Afghanistan), while the other travelled through Kokand in the Fergana Valley (in present-day eastern Uzbekistan) and then west across the Karakum Desert. Both routes joined the main southern route before reaching ancient Merv, Turkmenistan. Another branch of the northern route turned northwest past the Aral Sea and north of the Caspian Sea, then and on to the Black Sea.

Southern route

The southern route or Karakoram route was mainly a single route from China through the Karakoram mountains, where it persists in modern times as the Karakoram Highway, a paved road that connects Pakistan and China. It then set off westwards, but with southward spurs so travelers could complete the journey by sea from various points. Crossing the high mountains, it passed through northern Pakistan, over the Hindu Kush mountains, and into Afghanistan, rejoining the northern route near Merv, Turkmenistan. From Merv, it followed a nearly straight line west through mountainous northern Iran, Mesopotamia, and the northern tip of the Syrian Desert to the Levant, where Mediterranean trading ships plied regular routes to Italy, while land routes went either north through Anatolia or south to North Africa. Another branch road travelled from Herat through Susa to Charax Spasinu at the head of the Persian Gulf and across to Petra and on to Alexandria and other eastern Mediterranean ports from where ships carried the cargoes to Rome.

Southwestern route

The southwestern route is believed to be the Ganges/ Brahmaputra Delta, which has been the subject of international interest for over two millennia. Strabo, the 1st-century Roman writer, mentions the deltaic lands: "Regarding merchants who now sail from Egypt...as far as the Ganges, they are only private citizens..." His comments are interesting as Roman beads and other materials are being found at Wari-Bateshwar ruins, the ancient city with roots from much earlier, before the Bronze Age, presently being slowly excavated beside the Old Brahmaputra in Bangladesh. Ptolemy's map of the Ganges Delta, a remarkably accurate effort, showed that his informants knew all about the course of the Brahmaputra River, crossing through the Himalayas then bending westward to its source in Tibet. It is doubtless that this delta was a major international trading center, almost certainly from much earlier than the Common Era. Gemstones and other merchandise from Thailand and Java were traded in the delta and through it. Chinese archaeological writer Bin Yang and some earlier writers and archaeologists, such as Janice Stargardt, strongly suggest this route of international trade as Sichuan- Yunnan- Burma- Bangladesh route. According to Bin Yang, especially from the 12th century the route was used to ship bullion from Yunnan (gold and silver are among the minerals in which Yunnan is rich), through northern Burma, into modern Bangladesh, making use of the ancient route, known as the 'Ledo' route. The emerging evidence of the ancient cities of Bangladesh, in particular Wari-Bateshwar ruins, Mahasthangarh, Bhitagarh, Bikrampur, Egarasindhur, and Sonargaon, are believed to be the international trade centers in this route.

Maritime route

The trade route encompassed numbers of bodies of waters; including South China Sea, Strait of Malacca, Indian Ocean, Gulf of Bengal, Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea. The maritime route overlaps with historic Southeast Asian maritime trade, Spice trade, Indian Ocean trade and after 8th century - the Arabian naval trade network. The network also extended eastward to East China Sea and Yellow Sea to connect China with Korean Peninsula and Japanese archipelago.

Expansion of religions

Richard Foltz, Xinru Liu, and others have described how trading activities along the Silk Road over many centuries facilitated the transmission not just of goods but also ideas and culture, notably in the area of religions. Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Manichaeism, and Islam all spread across Eurasia through trade networks that were tied to specific religious communities and their institutions. Notably, established Buddhist monasteries along the Silk Road offered a haven, as well as a new religion for foreigners.

The spread of religions and cultural traditions along the Silk Roads, according to Jerry H. Bentley, also led to syncretism. One example was the encounter with the Chinese and Xiongnu nomads. These unlikely events of cross-cultural contact allowed both cultures to adapt to each other as an alternative. The Xiongnu adopted Chinese agricultural techniques, dress style, and lifestyle, while the Chinese adopted Xiongnu military techniques, some dress style, music, and dance. Perhaps most surprising of the cultural exchanges between China and the Xiongnu, Chinese soldiers sometimes defected and converted to the Xiongnu way of life, and stayed in the steppes for fear of punishment.

Nomadic mobility played a key role in facilitating inter-regional contacts and cultural exchanges along the ancient Silk Roads.

Transmission of Christianity

The transmission of Christianity was primarily known as Nestorianism on the Silk Road. In 781, an inscribed stele shows Nestorian Christian missionaries arriving on the Silk Road. Christianity had spread both east and west, simultaneously bringing Syriac language and evolving the forms of worship.

Transmission of Buddhism

The transmission of Buddhism to China via the Silk Road began in the 1st century CE, according to a semi-legendary account of an ambassador sent to the West by the Chinese Emperor Ming (58-75). During this period Buddhism began to spread throughout Southeast, East, and Central Asia. Mahayana, Theravada, and Tibetan Buddhism are the three primary forms of Buddhism that spread across Asia via the Silk Road.

The Buddhist movement was the first large-scale missionary movement in the history of world religions. Chinese missionaries were able to assimilate Buddhism, to an extent, to native Chinese Daoists, which brought the two beliefs together. Buddha's community of followers, the Sangha, consisted of male and female monks and laity. These people moved through India and beyond to spread the ideas of Buddha. As the number of members within the Sangha increased, it became costly so that only the larger cities were able to afford having the Buddha and his disciples visit. It is believed that under the control of the Kushans, Buddhism was spread to China and other parts of Asia from the middle of the first century to the middle of the third century. Extensive contacts started in the 2nd century, probably as a consequence of the expansion of the Kushan empire into the Chinese territory of the Tarim Basin, due to the missionary efforts of a great number of Buddhist monks to Chinese lands. The first missionaries and translators of Buddhists scriptures into Chinese were either Parthian, Kushan, Sogdian, or Kuchean.

One result of the spread of Buddhism along the Silk Road was displacement and conflict. The Greek Seleucids were exiled to Iran and Central Asia because of a new Iranian dynasty called the Parthians at the beginning of the 2nd century BCE, and as a result, the Parthians became the new middlemen for trade in a period when the Romans were major customers for silk. Parthian scholars were involved in one of the first-ever Buddhist text translations into the Chinese language. Its main trade centre on the Silk Road, the city of Merv, in due course and with the coming of age of Buddhism in China, became a major Buddhist centre by the middle of the 2nd century. Knowledge among people on the silk roads also increased when Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya dynasty (268-239 BCE) converted to Buddhism and raised the religion to official status in his northern Indian empire.

From the 4th century CE onward, Chinese pilgrims also started to travel on the Silk Road to India to get improved access to the original Buddhist scriptures, with Fa-hsien's pilgrimage to India (395-414), and later Xuanzang (629-644) and Hyecho, who traveled from Korea to India. The travels of the priest Xuanzang were fictionalized in the 16th century in a fantasy adventure novel called Journey to the West, which told of trials with demons and the aid given by various disciples on the journey.

There were many different schools of Buddhism travelling on the Silk Road. The Dharmaguptakas and the Sarvastivadins were two of the major Nikaya schools. These were both eventually displaced by the Mahayana, also known as "Great Vehicle". This movement of Buddhism first gained influence in the Khotan region. The Mahayana, which was more of a "pan-Buddhist movement" than a school of Buddhism, appears to have begun in northwestern India or Central Asia. It formed during the 1st century BCE and was small at first, and the origins of this "Greater Vehicle" are not fully clear. Some Mahayana scripts were found in northern Pakistan, but the main texts are still believed to have been composed in Central Asia along the Silk Road. These different schools and movements of Buddhism were a result of the diverse and complex influences and beliefs on the Silk Road. With the rise of Mahayana Buddhism, the initial direction of Buddhist development changed. This form of Buddhism highlighted, as stated by Xinru Liu, "the elusiveness of physical reality, including material wealth." It also stressed getting rid of material desire to a certain point; this was often difficult for followers to understand.

During the 5th and 6th centuries CE, merchants played a large role in the spread of religion, in particular Buddhism. Merchants found the moral and ethical teachings of Buddhism an appealing alternative to previous religions. As a result, merchants supported Buddhist monasteries along the Silk Road, and in return, the Buddhists gave the merchants somewhere to stay as they traveled from city to city. As a result, merchants spread Buddhism to foreign encounters as they traveled. Merchants also helped to establish diaspora within the communities they encountered, and over time their cultures became based on Buddhism. As a result, these communities became centers of literacy and culture with well-organized marketplaces, lodging, and storage. The voluntary conversion of Chinese ruling elites helped the spread of Buddhism in East Asia and led Buddhism to become widespread in Chinese society. The Silk Road transmission of Buddhism essentially ended around the 7th century with the rise of Islam in Central Asia.

Judaism on the Silk Road

Adherents to the Jewish faith first began to travel eastward from Mesopotamia following the Persian conquest of Babylon in 559 by the armies of Cyrus the Great. Judean slaves freed after the Persian conquest of Babylon dispersed throughout the Persian Empire. Some Judeans could have traveled as far east as Bactria and Sogdia, though there is not clear evidence for this early settlement of Judeans. After settlement, it is likely that most Judeans took up trades in commerce. Trading along the silk trade networks by Judean merchants increased as the trade networks expanded. By the classical age, when trade goods traveled from as far east as China to as far west as Rome, Judean merchants in Central Asia would have been in an advantageous position to participate in trade along the Silk Road. A group of Judean merchants originating from Gaul known as the Radanites were one group of Judean merchants that had thriving trade networks from China to Rome. This trade was facilitated by a positive relationship the Radanites were able to foster with the Khazar Turks. The Khazar Turks served as a good spot in between China and Rome, and the Khazar Turks saw a relationship with the Radanites as a good commercial opportunity.

According to Richard Foltz "there is more evidence for Iranian influence on the formation of Jewish [religious] ideas than the reverse." Concepts of a paradise ( heaven) for the good and a place of suffering ( hell) for the wicked, and a form or world-ending apocalypse came from Iranian religious ideas, and this is supported by a lack of such ideas from pre-exile Judean sources. The origin of the devil is also said to come from the Iranian Angra Mainyu, an evil figure in Persian mythology.

Expansion of the arts

Many artistic influences were transmitted via the Silk Road, particularly through Central Asia, where Hellenistic, Iranian, Indian and Chinese influences could intermix. Greco-Buddhist art represents one of the most vivid examples of this interaction. Silk was also a representation of art, serving as a religious symbol. Most importantly, silk was used as currency for trade along the silk road.

These artistic influences can be seen in the development of Buddhism where, for instance, Buddha was first depicted as human in the Kushan period. Many scholars have attributed this to Greek influence. The mixture of Greek and Indian elements can be found in later Buddhist art in China and throughout countries on the Silk Road.

The production of art consisted of many different items that were traded along the Silk Roads from the East to the West. One common product, the lapis lazuli, was a blue stone with golden specks, which was used as paint after it was ground into powder.

Commemoration

On 22 June 2014, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) named the Silk Road a World Heritage Site at the 2014 Conference on World Heritage. The United Nations World Tourism Organization has been working since 1993 to develop sustainable international tourism along the route with the stated goal of fostering peace and understanding.

To commemorate the Silk Road becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the China National Silk Museum announced a "Silk Road Week" to take place 19-25 June 2020.

Bishkek and Almaty each have a major east-west street named after the Silk Road ( Kyrgyz: Жибек жолу, Jibek Jolu in Bishkek, and Kazakh: Жібек жолы, Jibek Joly in Almaty). There is also a Silk Road in Macclesfield, UK.

References

Further reading

External links

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Silk Road Time period Around 114 BCE - 1450s CE Official name Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Type Cultural Criteria ii, iii, iv, vi Designated 2014 (38th session) Reference no. 1442 Region Asia-Pacific The Silk Road ( Chinese: 絲綢之路) was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century.

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The Surprisingly Simple Origins of the Silk Road

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Soft, strong, and shimmering-silk was first cultivated in China, perhaps as early as the mid-third millennium B.C. The art of turning the cocoons of the silkworm moth (Bombyx mori) was, according to legend, discovered by the wife of the Yellow Emperor, a mythical forebear of the tribe that later founded China's first dynasty, the Xia, in circa 2070 B.C. While she was drinking tea in the shade of a mulberry bush, a cocoon fell into her cup. Instead of throwing it away, she examined it and discovered that pulling on a strand could completely unravel it.

Traditionally, silk production was entrusted to Chinese women and carefully guarded as a state secret. Revealing the confidential methods of sericulture was punishable by death. Centuries later, it would be these silken threads that would weave together a vast trade network, linking the lands of China to Rome.

In the 19th century German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen looked for a term to describe the trade routes that shuttled silks and other luxury goods between the Far East and the Mediterranean from the first century B.C. until the Middle Ages. It seemed appropriate to name it for the item most associated with Eastern opulence, and Richthofen's term, "Silk Road," has stuck ever since.

Beyond the Wall

The Chinese did not make an effort to sell silk outside of their country until circumstances forced them to do so. At the end of the third century B.C., Emperor Qin Shi Huang Di (r.221-210 B.C.) began consolidating forts in the north, the first phase of what would eventually become the Great Wall. His aim was to halt the incursions of the nomadic Xiongnu tribes. Over time, the wall proved to be insufficient on its own; in 138 B.C. Han emperor Wudi tried another approach. He attempted an alliance with another Central Asian tribe, the Yuezhi, enemies of the Xiongnu.

Zhang Qian, a young officer of the emperor's palace guard, was appointed as the leader of the diplomatic mission. In order to reach the Yuezhi, he had to enter enemy territory to the northwest and was captured by Xiongnu forces. After a long imprisonment, he returned to China 13 years later, his mission to the Yuezhi a failure.

In this and other subsequent adventures, however, Zhang Qian learned a great deal about the mysterious lands to the west: India and the Parthian Empire, whose lands correspond to northeastern regions in Iran today. In the Fergana Valley, north of the Hindu Kush, he observed horses much larger than those in China. He recognized that these beasts would be valuable military additions to Chinese forces. While in Parthia, he also made contact with the remnants of the Hellenist culture established by Alexander the Great in Central Asia, marking the first major contact between China and Indo-European society. Most important of all, he identified a widespread desire for Chinese silk.

Having absorbed Zhang Qian's reports after his return, the Han dynasty saw the advantages of westward trade, especially the prospect of obtaining the superior Fergana horses. Officials knew they could trade silk for these horses. In time this trade would plug China into the lucrative markets of the West, including the booming Roman world.

The route did not arise out of a vacuum. In the fifth century B.C. the sprawling Persian Empire had already improved travel through western Asia, while Alexander the Great's eastward expansion helped lay the foundations of trans-Asian trade. Even so, Zhang Qian's remarkable adventures were important early steps in creating the Silk Road.

Through Snow and Sandstorms

The Chinese capital, Chang'an (Xi'an), was the eastern starting point of this trading route. Strictly speaking, the Silk Road was not a single highway but a network of roads that twisted and turned on the way from east to west. From Chang'an, for example, one branch went southwest to the mouth of the Ganges in India. Among the luxury products traveling west were jade, turtle shells, bird feathers, and, of course, silk. Traders also brought metals-silver, iron, lead, tin, and gold-and foodstuffs-saffron and other spices, tea, carrots, and pomegranates.

By 102 B.C. the Chinese controlled traffic along the Silk Road as far as the Fergana Valley. Although goods traveled thousands of miles in both directions, the merchants themselves probably only journeyed along short sections. When they reached the next city, they would sell their merchandise to the locals, who then would travel along the next segment and trade with the merchants there. The Dunhuang Oasis was the main Chinese customs post. Westbound traders had to wait several days to pay their exit duties while soldiers carefully searched their baggage to make sure no one was smuggling silkworms or cocoons out of the country.

From there, the westward journey split into three main routes. The two northern roads passed on either side of the Heavenly Mountains (Tian Shan), whose peaks soar to heights of 24,000 feet. The third road went south and passed through Khotan (near modern-day Hotan in China), famous for silken rugs. This route skirted the edge of the almost impassable Taklimakan Desert, where extreme temperatures and sandstorms claimed the lives of many travelers.

The northern and southern roads met again near Kashgar, on the border with modern-day China and Kyrgyzstan. The traders then crossed the Pamir Mountains along narrow snowy tracks, before descending into the Fergana Valley. Somewhere near here they rested in a place the second-century Egyptian geographer Ptolemy referred to only as the "Stone Tower."

Believed by modern historians to be the city of Taxkorgan, Ptolemy considered it the midway point of the Silk Road. Here, as in other cities along the route, merchants from all over central Asia waited to trade. These included the Sogdians, whose lands centered on the trading city of Samarqand (Uzbekistan), and who became the most prominent of the Silk Road's middlemen between China and the West. Farther west still, the Parthians thronged the routes that passed through their lands, centered on areas of modern-day Iran, Iraq, and Turkmenistan, where the great trading city of Merv is located.

Parthian kings built caravansaries to accommodate the traders and their camels along the route to Ctesiphon (near Baghdad), their first-century B.C. capital. From here, they crossed the desert wastes of Syria via Palmyra. Having reached the Mediterranean, goods were shipped to Rome from ports such as Tyre and Antioch.

Rome itself had developed a love-hate relationship with silk. One of the earliest recorded observations occurred during a conflict with the Parthians, whose archers soundly defeated Roman troops in 53 B.C. at the Battle of Carrhae in modern-day Turkey. Before the battle, Romans made note of the Parthians' bold, beautiful spectacle that conveyed power and invincibility as well as finesse: colorful banners woven from Chinese silk. The Roman second-century historian Florus later described the moment when the Parthian generals "displayed all around [the Romans] their standards, fluttering with . . . silken pennons" before describing how the army was slaughtered and its Roman commander killed.

Ever since the shameful rout at Carrhae, silk both troubled and delighted the Romans. A century after the battle, silk was immensely popular across the Roman Empire. This weakness for a foreign luxury was bitterly criticized by Rome's stern moralists. In the first century Pliny the Elder wrote: "At least a hundred million sesterces flow out of our empire every year to India, China, and Arabia. That is how much luxury and women cost us!"

The Road that Changed the World

In A.D. 220 the Han dynasty collapsed, and China passed through a period of political upheaval. Over the coming centuries, the monopoly on silk that the Han had so carefully nurtured fell apart, and silk production started to spring up outside China. By the sixth century even the Romans had secured their own independent supply after the Roman emperor Justinian successfully smuggled silkworms into his empire.

Since the moment it left Chang'an, to its unpacking in the aristocratic surroundings of a Roman villa about a year later, a roll of silk would have passed through a dazzling array of cultures, languages, and climes. Even though silk production had spread to the western lands, the Silk Road continued to be a vibrant connection of cultures and trade. Not only products traveled along the Silk Road, but ideas too: convulsions in human thought and faith that reshaped the world. Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam would all travel along these paths and touch cultures along the way, shaping people's beliefs and philosophies over time. In the seventh century, after China returned to growth and prosperity under the Tang dynasty, the route was boosted by renewed Chinese demand for luxury goods from the West, including silver-making techniques, chairs, and ceramics. In part to protect this trade, the Tang embarked on a major expansion westward, even as the first Christian missionaries were moving east along the Silk Road. At the same time, Islam was rising in the Arabian Peninsula, and during the eighth century, it spread farther and farther east along the trade routes.

In A.D. 751 Muslim Abassid troops clashed with the Chinese at the Battle of Talas. This pivotal battle, which checked China's westward expansion, may have contributed to another, no less significant outcome: According to lore, several of the Chinese prisoners from the Battle of Talas taught their captors a craft, that disseminated through the Muslim lands into southern Europe. The skill these Chinese artisans passed on to their captors was nothing less than how to make paper, which would transform history and how it would be written.

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Trading Silk for Horses: The Surprisingly Simple Origins of the Silk Road

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Soft, strong, and shimmering-silk was first cultivated in China, perhaps as early as the mid-third millennium B.C. The art of turning the cocoons of the silkworm moth (Bombyx mori) was, according to legend, discovered by the wife of the Yellow Emperor, a mythical forebear of the tribe that later founded China's first dynasty, the Xia, in circa 2070 B.C.

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Traveling the Silk Road - ppt video online download

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By Gabe Castagna and Connor Bitterman Chang'an To Dunhuang By Gabe Castagna and Connor Bitterman

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Silk Road Seattle sponsored by the University of Washington

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Silk Road Seattle sponsored by the University of Washington

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Online Museum

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near eastern languages and civilizations

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A rich collection of images, text and annotated resources on the cultures of the historic Silk Road across Eurasia.

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Getty Dunhuang Exhibition: Mogao Grottoes

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Getty Dunhuang Exhibition: Mogao Grottoes

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The interior of Cave 85 at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang (Photo credit:) Courtesy of the Getty

A comprehensive exhibition of rare art from the Silk Road now on view at the Getty Center

At the remote edge of the Gobi Desert, Dunhuang emerged as a global hub of art, culture, and trade along the Silk Road. For around a thousand years, 492 grottoes at the Mogao Caves were carved by hand into a mile-long stretch of cliff face, and painted with elaborate visual narratives covering the walls and ceilings. The nearly 500,000 square feet of murals contained within offer a rare window into a vibrant multicultural past along the Silk Road.

Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang were nearly lost to history, engulfed by desert sands for four centuries. Despite its internationally celebrated status today, the sheer remoteness of the site remains in sharp contrast with the lush artwork depicting expansive parallel worlds just within its rocky cliffs.

"The scale and quality of the wall paintings and their location in this unspoiled and stark desert setting is what I find most remarkable about the Mogao Grottos" said Tim Whalen, Director of the Getty Conservation Institute. "It is one of the world's most impressive and complete cultural heritage sites and it bears witness to a millennium of human artistic achievement and cultural exchange."

Arguably the crown jewel of sites along the Silk Road, the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang is the focus of a first of its kind exhibition at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. "The challenges for the exhibition curators were at times truly mind-boggling. How to authentically present the wonders of the site to viewers halfway around the world?" says Marcia Reed, Chief Curator at the Getty Research Institute.

"The Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China's Silk Road" exhibition will feature full-scale hand-painted replica caves transported from China, an immersive 3D tour experience, and three exhibit halls showcasing some of the most prized artifacts from international collections, many of which have never traveled to North America.

The exhibition is the culmination of a more than 25-year collaboration between the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) and the Dunhuang Academy to preserve the fragile heritage of the ancient site, while managing an increase in visitors and promoting recognition of its importance worldwide. The GCI and Dunhuang Academy dedicated more than ten years to the conservation and study of Cave 85, which culminated in the development of the China Principles, establishing a set of national conservation guidelines for cultural heritage conservation and management.

"This exhibition highlights the historical importance, artistic significance, as well as the conservation issues facing this cultural gem located on a nexus of the silk route," says Boon Hui Tan, VP of Global Arts and Cultural Programs and Director at Asia Society and Director of the Asia Society Museum.

"I think the exhibition will surprise people, showing how global China was from the 4th to the 14th century. Plus it's beautiful, so it's so easy to appreciate," says Mimi Gates, Board Chairman of the Dunhuang Foundation and champion of the exhibition for the past five years. "I think this exhibition gives Americans a chance to understand the depth and richness represented by Dunhuang. The fact that there was this whole intersection of cultures along these trade routes; it's very relevant to our age because of all the global interaction."

Dunhuang was a place where major world cultures from Greece and Rome, the Persian Empire, Middle East, Central Asia and China came together. The exhibition also coincides with a significant shift in present China's role on the world stage through the One Belt One Road initiative. From 2013 to 2015 Chinese policy banks and other government-backed institutions have invested over USD $100b in One Belt One Road countries.

"We believe that bridging the East and West goes beyond trade finance or import export. It's truly about the people, the culture. There's so much more beyond the financial bridge," says Emily Wang, Senior Vice President Director of Marketing and Community Development at East West Bank, which is the lead corporate sponsor of the exhibition.

The exhibition is bringing together a wide range of stakeholders to explore the cultural dialogue around Dunhuang. "We're using the Getty exhibition as a launching pad, we're looking to partner with organizations to do projects related to Dunhuang over the next 10 - 15 years," says Susan Pertel Jain, director of the UCLA Confucius Institute.

A series of programming around the exhibition will include a two-day symposium with leading international scholars, film screenings of the 1927 silent film Cave of the Silken Web, and musical events, including an evening with composer Tan Dun. "We're working with the UCLA department of Ethnomusicology to produce a musical event combining Persian, Turkish, Chinese, Indian, Uzbek and Tibetan music, in traditional ensemble and new ensembles," says Pertel Jain.

Logistical challenges

A vast team of curators and institutions collaborated on an innovative and multifaceted approach to recreating the experience of visiting Dunhuang for international audiences in Los Angeles. They commissioned two new replica caves, which took artists from the Dunhuang Academy three years to complete at the site of the Mogao Caves using authentic period materials and methods.

Transporting the replica caves to Los Angeles required large-scale coordination with in-kind sponsors Air China and China Cosco Shipping. Once the materials arrived in Los Angeles, the Getty constructed a giant climate-controlled tent to house the replicas and flew over specialized teams who spent three weeks completing the installation.

In addition to the experience of entering full-scale replica caves, visitors can also take an immersive VR tour of cave 45. "This is the first time in a museum setting that anyone has used this new spherical stereoscopic 3D technology. It gives a more volumetric or immersive experience than regular VR, using a special 360 degree dome shader. It was a year-long process to merge the 2D photographs and merge them into the 3D geometry for the entire cave," explains Garson Yu, founder and creative director of the creative graphics and storytelling firm yU+co.

"Cave 45 was really the ideal cave to do this because it has one of the best preserved sets of sculptures. It's also a beautiful cave," explains Jeffrey Levin of the Getty Conservation Institute who worked with yU+co on the narrative. "One of the great achievements of this was taking the individual 2D images, modelling them into a 3D landscape, and creating a fluid experience."

A rare glimpse from European collections

After the fortuitous rediscovery of the Mogao Caves among the desert sands in the 19th century, new mysteries surrounding the site have continued to spring up. A sealed passage concealed within another Grotto revealed the so-called library cave, containing some 40,000 texts, paintings and objects; many of which ended up in the collections of the British Museum, the British Library, the Musee Guimet, and the French National Library where they continue to be studied.

The backstory of how these artifacts survived to the present is not well understood. "Why was the library cave sealed? Was it to protect these objects? Were they fearing raids to the site or the town?" asks Julia Grimes, Dunhuang exhibition project assistant, "This constellation of objects were all in the library cave at one point, and they're being reunited on the Getty campus for this exhibition."

"If we were able to, we would travel the show, but it's exclusive to the Getty because of the restrictions on the loans. The artifacts are all silk and paper, which makes them very fragile and long-term exposure to light can damage the works, so they can only be seen for a limited period of time," says Gates.

The artifacts from the library cave on show at the Getty are among the best direct evidence of the cultural and technological exchange along the Silk Road. "The variety of media chosen for this exhibition - paintings, tapestries, banners, wooden sculptures, manuscripts, and printed works on paper - reflect the complex ideas, beliefs, and artistic styles of the diverse populations who traveled through and traded and lived at the site," says Reed.

"Images and written documents make it clear that Manicheans, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Jews also had a presence on the Silk Route. We have written documents from the site in seventeen different languages. There is still so much to be learned from the rich legacy we have from this site," says Tan.

"Textual sources about early trade are few and we rely much on material culture - the archaeology and artifacts - to learn about Dunhuang's role on the Silk Road," says Susan Whitfield, historian at the International Dunhuang Project and the British Library. Among the objects on display is a copy of the Diamond Sutra from 868 CE, making it the world's oldest dated complete printed book. "This copy of the Diamond Sutra shows the ingenuity of humans in inventing new technologies - such as printing," says Whitfield, who will give a lecture on the Diamond Sutra.

An ancient theater: illumination in the dark

Even to modern visitors, the sensory experience of entering the Mogao Caves is enchanting. Over 650 miles west of the nearest major city of Lanzhou (a formidable journey even today), visitors to the caves suddenly leave behind the arid desert surroundings and step into vast narrative worlds filled with exotic imagery in lush jewel-like colors. Intensifying the mystery of the experience is the unanswered question of how the ancient site was used and by whom?

"The caves were such fantastic complexes filled with rich decorations. But how much were the caves known to people? Were people coming for pilgrimage? Also, what other kinds of activities took place at the caves and during which periods? This remains a great mystery," says Reed.

Though largely culturally Chinese, the convergence of so many cultural traditions and the relative geographic isolation of the Mogao Caves may have contributed to the singular aesthetic of the artwork. "When you look at the artwork at Dunhuang, what you see is everybody's culture right there on the wall," says Pertel Jain.

The large-format narrative panels were an ancient means of sharing complex stories. The fantastic larger-than-life themes, novel juxtaposition of distant peoples and customs, and transporting experience of entering into a dark space has attracted some comparisons to a modern industry in Los Angeles. "Hollywood is an example of art that's illumination in the dark. What is Dunhuang?" says Pertel Jain.

"Great art and great culture is frequently based on telling a great story. During the 20th century, perhaps nothing told a story better than that revolutionary new medium of film - and Los Angeles rose out of the desert to become the film capital of the world and an important nexus of world culture, which it remains to this day. Like Los Angeles, Dunhuang rose out of the desert to become the crossroads of world culture and a power for inspired artistic creativity which survives as a true wonder of the world," said Ted Lipman, CEO of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation.

Powerful patrons behind the artistic heritage

While few signs of an advanced economic and social order that supported the Mogao Caves can be seen today, the sheer scale and sophistication of this artistic community over the centuries suggests powerful patrons. "There would have been designers or engineers of the space itself, groups of people doing the cutting and carving, artisans to prepare the wall surfaces and then lay the painting down. So it's a very sophisticated and complex undertaking, and given the scale of that which would mean that at the site, or near the site there clearly would have been a group of workshops with highly skilled artisans, engineers and logisticians to make this possible," says Whalen.

Fortunately there is some compelling information about the patrons that commissioned these caves throughout history. "In a number of the caves, the men's dress is more reflective of the nomadic or Central Asian traditions, which may point to the particular cultures of which the ruling elites sprang. But with the women, you'll notice in most cases have fully adopted Chinese metropolitan fashion, they were extremely cosmopolitan ladies and they want you to know that," says Grimes.

The Mogao Caves offer detailed depictions of many different ethnic and cultural groups, including diverse costumes and more than 40 varieties of musical instruments. "This exhibition serves as an educational tool for reaching contemporary audiences so that they can better understand how our actions today can impact our joint global heritage. The world of global trade and interaction that the treasures of Dunhuang and the Mogao caves document is of significance to current affairs," says Tan.

An early globalization

Dunhuang's role in history was influenced by its geographic location and the expansionist vision of Emperor Wu in the Han Dynasty. In 139 BCE Emperor Wu sent envoy Zhang Qian on a 13 year voyage to explore the far West, reaching the distant kingdoms of Ferghana, Bactria, and Parthia - around present day Iran. Zhang returned with reports of vast vineyards, heavenly horses, and markets eager for Chinese goods. In particular horses were highly coveted by Emperor Wu in order to transform China's military capacity, resulting in a massive military campaign to the area of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

After expanding the great wall to the edge of the Gobi desert, Wu established Dunhuang as the westernmost outpost of the Han Dynasty. As a strategic impasse along one of the only traversable land routes in and out of the central plains of China, Dunhuang would play a crucial role as a trade gateway and base for diplomacy with non-Han nomadic tribes.

"I think we all have incredibly romantic notions about the Silk Road, where a caravan would start in Xi'an, and then find its way to Syria. In fact, I think the more we understand about the site and about the Silk Road, it's that caravans would move back and forth along a certain stretch, but not necessarily the entire distance by one caravan as we envision it," says Whalen. Even if this relay model of transcontinental trade implies a more regional understanding of the traders, that doesn't necessarily mean the exclusive dominance of the local culture. "Dunhuang was a very cosmopolitan environment. Today when we talk about globalism, as if it was something we discovered and created, but in fact no. Globalism is ancient."

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Bringing the Ancient Theater of the Silk Road to Los Angeles

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The interior of Cave 85 at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang (Photo credit:) Courtesy of the Getty A comprehensive exhibition of rare art from the Silk Road now on view at the Getty Center At the remote edge of the Gobi Desert, Dunhuang emerged as a global hub of art, culture, and trade along the Silk Road.

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The Silk Road: Connecting the ancient world through trade - Shannon Harris Castelo

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The Silk Road and Ancient Trade: Crash Course World History #9

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Alexander the Great also made a great contribution to the development of Silk Road. Around 330 BC, he defeated Greece, Egypt, the Persian Empire and the northern India. During his conquest, Alexander the Great had founded many important trading cities which later became centers of Silk Road trade, such as the Alexandria, Khujand in Tajikistan, Samarkand.

Around BCE 200, envoys from both Alexander's successors and the Chinese court reached Kashgar which was the first contact between China and Europeans.

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Silk Road may have helped diseases spread

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The proof is often in the pudding, but sometimes it's in the poop. That's the case in western China, where scientists have found fossilized intestinal parasites in 2000-year-old human excrement: the first evidence of infectious diseases spreading along the Silk Road. Preserved by the arid climate and stone walls of the latrine in which they were found, the poo was deposited on "hygiene sticks," bamboo sticks with strips of cloth used to wipe the nether regions. The sticks, excavated in 1992 from a latrine at a relay station where travelers most likely slept and ate, were kept in a museum and forgotten about until now. The sticks-and their trimmings-were transported to the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, where researchers examined the feces under microscopes. They discovered eggs from four different parasites, including the Chinese liver fluke-a flatworm endemic to marshy areas. People contract the parasite by eating infected fish. Because the sticks were found on the eastern edge of the Taklamakan desert-dry and arid even then-scientists concluded the parasite must have been picked up from the marshy lands of modern-day Guangdong province, about 2000 kilometers away. The findings, reported today in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, suggests two things: that infectious diseases were carried and spread along the Silk Road, and that these early travelers toted a lot more than silk.

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Ancient poop shows how diseases may have spread along the Silk Road

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The proof is often in the pudding, but sometimes it's in the poop. That's the case in western China, where scientists have found fossilized intestinal parasites in 2000-year-old human excrement: the first evidence of infectious diseases spreading along the Silk Road.

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The Silk Road
Centuries prior to the Internet, much earlier than the steam engine, and well before the arrival of the airplane, there still existed a way to connect the world. The Silk Road, the trading path between East and West was the artery which contributed to cultural and monetary exchange between civilizations. Deriving its name from the then rare and highly in-demand commodity, silk, the Silk Road was established roughly 2200 years ago, and comprised of both land and marine routes, spanning more than 4000 miles, across the known world at the time (Vadime, 2001).

From ancient China towards the West, the Silk Road snaked through the high valleys of the Tibetan plateau and over the roof of the world - the Himalayan mountain ranges. Passing through the expansive plains of the Indian subcontinent, it ran across the deserts of Arabia to reach the Mediterranean Sea, and onwards to Europe via the sea. Simultaneously, along the coastline of Asia, the Silk Route knitted together the entire region in a triangular web of numerous marine routes - extending from Java in the far East to the coast of Africa in the Southwest (Wilson, 2007).

In essence, the Silk Road efficiently and effectively connected the entire known world. Primarily a carrier of silk from China to the world, and of rare goods from the world to China, the Silk Road, with time, emerged to become the most significant and only conduit of all goods the world could have exchanged - and even the evils. It ushered in an unprecedented era of progress and prosperity for human civilization. It brought relative food security to regions short of rations. It enabled the exchange of human values: religion, art, and culture. It introduced the world to Marco Polo and his stories. And above all, it helped the spread of knowledge to humankind as it brought the pen, the paper and even the printer to the world.

Likewise, the Silk Road also facilitated the distribution of the wickedness of its era. When Genghis Khan, a tribal wanderer, arose from the anonymity of Mongolia, he took the Silk Road southwards to deliver his wrath to the world. The "Black Death" or bubonic plague raged around the world to the deepest regions of Russia through the Silk Road. Yet, the human quest for the righteousness of the world based on the cherished principle of mutual co-existence far outweighed and outpaced the evils of those times.

The Silk Road, connected civilization to civilizations, human to humans, trader to traders, artist to artists, soldier to soldiers, and kings to the kings. Thus, it became the colloquial "melting pot," and a launch-pad for today's internationalism and glottalization. It aided civilizations in learning from other civilizations. It promoted human values, culture, art, economy, diplomacy, technology and peace, to help shape the modern, prosperous, free and open world.

Not surprisingly, while the original and functional utility of Silk Road has diminished over time, thanks to the modern and efficient means of worldwide exchange like the airplane and the Internet, the timeless esteem the world holds for this historic road remains ceaseless.
Bibliography
Vadime, E. (2001). The Silk Roads: Highways of Culture and Commerce. UNESCO Publishing/Berghahn.

Wilson, P. (2007). The Silk Road: A Route and Planning Guide. Amazon.

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The Silk Route: Free Descriptive Essay Samples and Examples

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The Silk Road Centuries prior to the Internet, much earlier than the steam engine, and well before the arrival of the airplane, there still existed a way to connect the world. The Silk Road, the trading path between East and West was the artery which contributed to cultural and monetary exchange between civilizations.

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Caravans of the Silk Road - An Ancient Tradition

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Caravans of the Silk Road - An Ancient Tradition

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Caravans crawled across the Silk Road buying, selling, and transporting culture from Rome to Chang'an for two thousand years.

The indelible image of a caravan stretching across the dunes conjures unknown horizons in our imaginations. The Silk Road was the arterial system that linked remote civilizations and great empires to one another. Its routes contended with vast distances, towering mountain ranges, and hostile deserts. The logistics and expertise required for a successful expedition were sophisticated and ancient. A 20th century caravan would employ many similar animals, methods, and materiel as its second century CE counterpart.

The Significance of Silk Road merchants

Merchants of all nationalities traveled beyond their horizons. They were the beasts of burden that transported raw materials and manufactured goods from point to point at great cost and risk to themselves. The merchant class of the ancient world forged maps, wrote guides, and helped establish international standards of trade. They were prolific translators of secular and religious texts, and they established safe routes for generations of traders and travelers to follow.

Their collective knowledge of the land and their closely guarded trade secrets were shared from father to son for centuries. That information eventually found its way into journals, manuals and other rare documents that have shed some light on their advanced skills in navigation.

The Composition of a Caravan

The undisputed leader of a caravan is, in Turkic languages, called the bash. He achieved his station only after spending many years on the trade routes, learning every path in the land, and the dialects of the cities in his region. He cultivated an expertise on shipping any type of cargo.

In Central Asia the two-hump Bactrian camel was the beast of choice. The Bactrian camel can carry a load of 300 to 500 pounds. Their fortitude to extreme conditions made them the perfect animal for the job. Trained and experienced camels were valued above many other commodities in the market.

Horses and mules also played an important role. An expedition required them by the hundreds. The size of a caravan varied from the small (12 to 50 camels), to the average (75 to 200), or to the massive (500 to 2,000 camels). The number of horses and mules would nearly double.

The Business of the Silk Road

A caravan was an expensive venture. They were financed by guilds, houses of royal families, or by a regent. Only the wealthiest merchants afforded private caravans.

Many caravans operated within the boundaries of a region, repeating a circuit of routes with regular destinations and a seasonal schedule. They paid taxes and license fees to the local shah, khan, or king for permission to conduct business.

The long distance caravans were usually larger and due to exorbitant costs; sponsored. Weather conditions and the ephemeral stability of Silk Road rulers dictated the itinerary of long distance journeys. These epic expeditions were usually diplomatic, and included a return trip home.

A merchant needed to obtain authorization in advance from the government of the destination kingdom, as well as the permission of local regent. Ambassadors making the journey from Samarkand to Chang'an, for example, could only do so if they received an amulet from the imperial court of China as an invitation. The amulet was one half of a piece, or the tailpiece. The court possessed the other half, or the headpiece. A schedule was imposed on the caravan, stating a specific month of arrival and a specific destination city.

Danger on the Silk Road

A caravan faced many dangers depending on region: bandits, weather, animals, geographic obstacles, and malicious despots. Many expeditions hired armed escort in the form of light cavalry. The size of the escort would be proportionate to the value of the cargo and the budget. There could be anywhere from 10 to 1,000 armed riders. Security was very expensive, but an essential investment.

Animals, more than bandits, proved to be the largest threat. Bandits still preyed upon victims across the vast desolate expanses. Sand storms would confuse caravans, many were swallowed by the vast Gobi and Taklamakan deserts. Individual travelers often joined a caravan. Traveling over mountain passes at 18,000-feet, or navigating 350 miles of open desert was a death sentence for any single person. Traveling in numbers with an experienced guide was the difference between life and death.

Sources:

1. Edward H. Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand, The University of California Press, 1963

2. Luce Boulnois, Silk Road: Monks, Warriors and Merchants on the Silk Road, Odyssey, 2004

3. Mildred Cable with Francesca French, The Gobi Desert, Readers Union & Hodder and Stoughton, 1950

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Caravans of the Silk Road: An Ancient Tradition - World History

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Caravans crawled across the Silk Road buying, selling, and transporting culture from Rome to Chang'an for two thousand years. The indelible image of a caravan stretching across the dunes conjures unknown horizons in our imaginations. The Silk Road was the arterial system that linked remote civilizations and great empires to one another.

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3. Banchao Conquered the Western Regions

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3. Banchao Conquered the Western Regions

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After West Han Dynasty, the Silk Road had been closed because of continual wars between Western Region (now Xinjiang and parts of Central Asia) countries. In East Han Dynasty, Banchao was firstly sent as envoy to strengthen the relationships beween Han and the Western Region. During his 31 years’ administration in Western Regions, Banchao had conquered more than 50 small countries, and opened the Silk Road again.

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1. Ambassador Zhangqian’s Visit to the Western Regions

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1. Ambassador Zhangqian’s Visit to the Western Regions

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CASE STUDY CONCEPT: Timeless Supply Chain Challenges (inventory, location, transportation, and the bullwhip effect).

Imagine it is the year 210 A.D. and you are the head of the largest merchant trading house on the Silk Road. The long prosperity of the Pax Romana has created strong demand in the Roman Empire for the luxury products you import from China and India. Chief among those products is silk. Everybody who is anybody wants their clothes made of silk.

Along the length of the Silk Road stretching from the borders of the Roman Empire in the west to the Middle Kingdom (China) in the east, there are many cities and many merchants, yet all know your company and your name - you are the Merchant Trading House of Barmakid, in the city of Merv.

The Silk Road was approximately 4,000 miles (6,440 km) from its start in China to its end on the shore of the eastern Mediterranean. This compares with 2,440 miles ( 3930 km) between New York and Los Angeles, and 1,760 miles (2,830 km) between Paris and Moscow.

Your city of Merv (3) is the largest city on the Silk Road ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merv). It sits at the main crossroads that connect the road's starting points in China (1) and India (2) with its end point in the Roman Empire on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea (4).
Products on the Silk Road
There is great desire in the west to have the exotic goods of the east. And the most widely desired of those goods is that marvelous fabric called silk. It is beautiful to the eye, smooth to the touch, light in weight and very strong. How it is made is a mystery, only the Chinese know that, and they carefully guard the secrets of its manufacture.

You also trade in other fine products to enhance the enjoyment of life. There are jewels to delight the eye, spices to tantalize the palette, medicines to heal the body and substances to sooth the mind. These are the products that are carried on the Silk Road. They are high in value, and smaller in size and weight than common commodities of daily life such as grain, leather, wood or woolen cloth. It is this combination of high value, small size and lightweight that makes it profitable to transport such products over long distances.
Cities and Facilities on the Silk Road
During all but the coldest months of the year, there is a steady stream of caravans and exotic merchandise flowing from east to west on the Silk Road. And coming back the other way the caravan owners carry gold and silver coins exchanged for their silk and precious goods, and other products to sell in the cities they return to. Along the length of this road cities have prospered because of this trade.

The city of Xi'an (1) is where the Silk Road starts. It is the city where the first great emperor of China built his capital. His walls were strong and his army (1A) was unstoppable; he united much of China under his rule. This is the place where silk and exotic merchandise is gathered and loaded onto caravans to start the journey to the west.

Note the regular street grid and the large square moat that surrounds the entire old core of Xi'an. The size and layout of the city shows the builders had great resources and a disciplined workforce.

The other source of exotic merchandise is the cities of India to the south. The Indian city (2) of Indraprastha (Delhi) on a tributary of the Ganges River is the place where spices and jewels and other products begin their journey north and west.

The cities of India in many cases still occupy sites where people have lived for thousands of years even though most traces of the older cities are gone. Delhi occupies a site on the banks of the river where Indraprastha once stood.

The central meeting point on the Silk Road is the city of Merv (3). It is the place where the many different routes of the Road become one. The city was founded by Alexander the Great in the year 330 B.C. on his campaign through Persia and Afghanistan and beyond. Even then, this was where the ancient trade routes converged; that is why Alexander chose this place. There was already a small city surrounded by round walls (3A) that you can see inside the straight walls of the Greek city.

The city has been ruled by Greeks, Parthians, Persians and Arabs. Over the centuries it grew in size and splendor. The main warehouses (3B) that hold the Barmakid inventory are located inside the walls of the old Greek City (once known as Margiana Antiochia), later overshadowed by a much larger city (3C) that came to be known as Merv.
The site of Merv is now abandoned. It prospered for more than a thousand years and grew to become a city of a million or more people. Then in 1221 it surrendered to Tolui, son of Genghis Khan, and he massacred its inhabitants and burned its buildings.
It is hard to say where the Silk Road ends because there are always merchants who buy the products and sell them to others even further west. Yet one could say the Silk Road ends in the city of Palmyra (4). It is a city of wealthy merchants on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire. That city is located in the biggest oasis between the Euphrates River and the city of Damascus. Beyond Palmyra lie the cities of Damascus, Tyre and Antioch where the products imported on the Silk Road are exported to the rest of the Empire.
Notice the curve of the city walls outlined in shadow across the top of the picture. In the lower part of the walled area are the main buildings, the theater, agora, senate house and the Sanctuary of Bel. Palmyra became so powerful that in 270 A.D. it rebelled against Rome and took control of Egypt and other eastern Roman provinces. It was defeated in a war that followed, and in 273 a Roman general destroyed the city after putting down a second rebellion. (The ruins of this city were further destroyed by the extremist group ISIS in the summer of 2015.)
Many of the cities on the Silk Road were fortress cities protected by strong walls that can still be seen today. In addition to Merv and Palmyra, walled cities such as Bukhara, Bactra, and Kunduz are shown below. A big risk that comes with large amounts of valuable inventory is the risk of raiding tribes and bandits. It takes lots of money to build and maintain the walls, and pay the soldiers needed to keep raiders and bandits from carrying off the merchandise.
Vehicles and Transportation (from the left to right: Bokhara, Bactra, Kunduz - click for larger image)
The Silk Road depends on a hardy animal called the camel. No other animal can carry the cargo it carries and endure the hardships it endures. On the roads to the east of Merv the camels with two humps (Bactrian camels) are most common, and to the west, it is the camels with one hump (Dromedary camels) that are most common.
Routes of the Silk Road
Each kind of camel is best adapted to the climate they encounter on their part of the Silk Road. The double humped camel can survive both the heat of the eastern deserts and the cold of the high mountain passes. The camels with one hump are better in the relentless heat and dust storms of the western deserts. Without these unique animals to transport products through such harsh lands, there could be no Silk Road.

To the east of Merv, the routes are especially challenging and unpredictable. The Silk Road splits into northern and southern routes to cross the great Taklamakan Desert and the high passes of the Tian Shan Mountains before they arrive in Merv.
(click on image for bigger picture)
The desert routes follow the best paths from one oasis to the next. In the pictures below you see how the routes follow the streams and rivers (fed by melting snow from the surrounding mountains). Cities grew up in the big oases where the caravans stop to rest and refit.

Travel times between the oasis cities are 10 to 20 days because camels and people cannot journey much longer before needing to rest and replenish their food and water. Woe to the caravans that lose their way in a storm, or fail to follow the landmarks properly. They are never heard from again.

These cities are also places where caravan leaders can sell their products to local merchants and return to their cities of origin. One way to manage the risks inherent in a long journey on the Silk Road is to specialize in just one or a few shorter routes between certain cities. The prices you can get for products increase the further you go from the origin points of those products, but costs and risks also increase the further you carry those products. So you balance the risks against potential profits.
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In the picture below, Merv is marked with an orange circle where different routes converge. It makes sense for those routes to converge on this large oasis because such an oasis can grow a lot of food and feed a lot of people. So a big city can grow there. And because it is where the different routes converge, this city can exert considerable influence on the operation of that supply chain called the Silk Road.
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Looking to the west from Merv, you see a similar pattern. Again the cities are 10 to 20 days travel from each other until Palmyra. At Palmyra the routes split again with one going south to Damascus and Tyre, and the other going north to Antioch. These cities in turn become the starting points for other supply chains within the Roman Empire that supply the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean.

In meetings with caravan leaders, and countless conversations with other merchants, travelers, priests and soldiers, you are forever gathering information about conditions on the Road and prices and supply and demand for different products. You work at developing an intuitive sense for opportunities and risks. And as you sense what is happening, where supplies are running out and where they are building up, you see possibilities and business opportunities.
[ We are glad to provide a free evaluation account to instructors, students and supply chain professionals interested in exploring SCM Globe simulations - click here to request an account - Get Your Free Trial Demo ] ANCIENT SILK ROAD CASE STUDY CHALLENGE - Part 1 Import a copy of the ancient Silk Road supply chain model from the library into your account. Then open the model in your edit screen and explore the model. Let this article guide you in your exploration; zoom in on the cities and locations mentioned in this article and turn on the satellite view and look around. See how the facilities and routes are influenced by the constraints imposed by the terrain through which the Silk Road travels.
In the next article of this three-part series, "Taming the Bullwhip on the Silk Road" we explore how the Silk Road was organized and operated so as to maintain a predictable flow of products from one city to the next. And in the final article, "Taking Care of Business on the Silk Road", we investigate how prices were set and how inventory was managed. We use simulations of the supply chain model presented here to try out different options and see what works best. That reveals a lot about the probable inventory management and supply chain practices on the ancient Silk Road (HINT: those practices were surprisingly modern).

Turn on the "Terrain" option under the Maps view to get a better look at the terrain and note how facilities and routes follow the terrain. Form a mental picture of the terrain and the cities along the road. Notice how the Silk Road routes connected cities and followed rivers and the topography of the land (modern roads still follow essentially the same routes).

Click on the " Simulation " button in the upper right corner of the edit screen and open up the simulation screen. When the simulation screen opens, click on the "Play" button in the upper right corner of the screen (you might want to set the speed of the simulation to "Fastest" because this is a big supply chain model and it can run slowly). Notice vehicles (camel caravans) moving between the cities on the Silk Road. Zoom in and look at the cities and click on the city names in the display menu on the right side of the simulation screen. Notice how the inventory levels of the different products fluctuates from week to week and from one city to the next.

The time scale of the model has been modified so each day represents a week - daily demand and production rates at facilities are multiplied by seven to be weekly rates and vehicle speeds are seven times faster than for a daily model (see more about this in the "Timeline" section of Tips for Building Supply Chain Models).

In week 19 of the simulation a problem will arise and cause the simulation to stop. Click on the city names in the display menu on the right side of the screens. Try to get a mental picture of how the different products are flowing through the Silk Road supply chain. It's hard because there are so many different cities but do the best you can.

Summarize what you learn about the structure of the Silk Road and the flow of products along the Silk Road in a short presentation using screenshots and data from the model to illustrate your findings.
Now advance to the second part of this case, "Taming the Bullwhip on the Silk Road". Your challenge there will be to organize and operate the Silk Road so as to maintain sufficient inventories and flow of products to meet demand in all the cities.
SAVE BACKUP COPIES of your supply chain model from time to time as you make changes. Click "Save" button next to your model in Account Management screen. There is no "undo", but if a change doesn't work out, you can restore from a saved copy. And sometimes supply chain model files (json files) become damaged and they no longer work, so you want backup copies of your supply chain to restore from when that happens.

There is a spreadsheet reporting template you can use to analyze downloaded simulation data. Import your simulation data into the template and create profit & loss reports as well as generate key performance indicators. See more about this in the online guide section "Analyzing Simulation Data" - scroll down to the heading titled "Download Simulation Data to Spreadsheet Reporting Templates". The sample template is set up for the Cincinnati Seasonings company, but look at how the reports read the simulation data and you will see how to change the spreadsheet as needed to accommodate this case study.

To share your changes and improvements to this model (json file) with other SCM Globe users see "Download and Share Supply Chain Models"

Register on SCM Globe to gain access to this and all other case studies. Click the blue " Register" button on the Log In page (app.scmglobe.com) and buy a subscription (if you haven't already) using a credit card or PayPal account. Then go to the SCM Globe library and click the "Import" button next to this case study. Scan the "Getting Started" section (if you haven't already), and you are ready to go.

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Ancient Silk Road - First Global Supply Chain

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CASE STUDY CONCEPT: Timeless Supply Chain Challenges (inventory, location, transportation, and the bullwhip effect). Imagine it is the year 210 A.D. and you are the head of the largest merchant trading house on the Silk Road. The long prosperity of the Pax Romana has created strong demand in the...

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The history of sericulture in China is a long one. The oldest silk found in China has been dated to about 3630 BC, which means that it is from the Chinese Neolithic period. This silk was found in the Henan Province, a region widely regarded as the cradle of Chinese civilization.

Another example of very old silk in China is a group of silk threads, a braided silk belt and a woven silk cloth fragment dated to circa 2570 BC. These items were excavated from the Liangzhu culture site at Qianshanyang, in the Zhejiang Province. The Liangzhu was the last Neolithic jade culture in the Yangtze River Delta.

The oldest known written reference to silk is on a bronze fragment found at the Shang Dynast site at Anyang. The Shang Dynasty existed from circa 1600 to circa 1050 BC.

A small ivory cup adorned with a carved silkworm design found in China is thought to be between 6000 and 7000 years old.

The legend of Hsi-Ling-Shih

According to Chinese myth, sericulture and the weaving of silk cloth was invented by Lady Hsi-Ling-Shih, the wife of the mythical Yellow Emperor who is said to have ruled China in about 3,000 BC. Hsi-Ling-Shi is credited with both introducing sericulture and inventing the loom upon which silk is woven. In Chinese texts, she is sometimes referred to as The Goddess of Silk.

Only for a select few

For a long time, silk was a material reserved for the Emperor of China and those very close to him, such as important family members and very high-ranking dignitaries. Some very old and possibly semi-legendary sources write about how the Emperor always wore white silk within his imperial palace, and yellow silk when venturing outside. The principal wife to the Emperor and the heir to the imperial throne are also described as wearing yellow silk when showing themselves outside the palace.

The use of silk spreads

Gradually, the restrictions on who could wear and use silk in China began to vanish, and more and more people - who could afford the precious material - could be seen sporting silk clothing and decorating with silk ornaments.

Eventually, silk production grew to become quite a large industry in China. Silk was used for a variety of things, from fishing-lines and bowstrings to musical instruments. Earlier, documents had been written on silk cloth. Now, Chinese paper makers developed techniques for making more affordable, yet still luxurious, paper where silk rags were mixed with other naturally occuring fibers to make the pulp.

Soon, silk was present in so many aspects of Chinese life that it began altering the language. Even today, well over 200 of the 5,000 most commonly used characters in Mandarin texts have silk as their "key".

Silk as a currency / commodity

During the Han Dynasty, silk became somewhat of a currency. There are for instance documents from this era telling us about farmers who paid their taxes in grain and silk. When taxes were paid in silk, it also ment that the state would make its payments in silk, and civil servents could for instance get their salary in the form of silk. The cost of something could be described using lenghts of silk as the unit of measurment, just like many other societies would use weight units of gold or silver.

Since silk was highly valued and appriciated outside China as well, lenghts of silk became a well-established trading commodity between China and foreign countries. It remain an important commodity to this day and you can buy a number of different silk based securities and financial instruments including futures, binary or over/under options, and ETFs.

The Chinese monopoly begins to faulter

The Chinese autorities worked hard to keep everything pertaining to silk production a secret to retain the nation's monopoly, but eventually information began to slip out - partly through Chinese migrants that settled abroad and made a living there from silk making.

Silkworm cultivation for silk production, also known as sericulture, reached Korea around the year 200 BC, but it would take until after 300 AD before the practice was established as far away as India.

According to legend, sericultur reached the Kingdom of Khotan (today's Hetian) in 440 AD. A Khotan prince courted and won the hand of a Chinese princess, and when she left China she brought silkmoth eggs with her in secret, hidden inside her voluminous hair-do.

Sericulture reaches the Byzantine

Around the year 550 AD, two monks affiliated with the Nestorian Church arrived to Emperor Justinian's court in Byzantine. Inside their hollow bamboo staves, they were smuggling silkmoth eggs. Under the care of the monks, the eggs hatched into larvae, and the larvae eventually spun cocoons and developed into the adult moths that became the ancestor silkmoths of the Byzantine silk industry.

The Byzantine church and state took silk production very seriously and set up imperial silk workshops. Just like pretty much everyone else, those involved wanted to keep the sericulture secrets to themselves to avoid competition.

Still, the Byzantine silk industry was never able to compete with China when it came to high-quality silk. The Byzantine Empire became a notable producer of low-grade and medium-grade silk, but for consumers willing and able to pay for high-qaulity silk, imports carried along the Silk Road from China was still the way to go.

By the 6th century, silk weaving had been established in Persia. Over time, Persian silk weavers developed their own patterns rather than simply trying to copy established Chinese ones.

It would take until the 1100s before silk production was established in Europe. During the time of the Second Crusade, 2,000 skilled silk weavers from Constantinople arrived to Italy, setting up their business there.

The Silk Road

The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk carried out along its lenght. It was this trade that made it possible for people in places located far away from any silk cultivation and silk weaving to wear and use silk. For instance, silk has been found with an ancient Egyptian mummy in the village of Deir el Medina; a mummy dated to 1070 BC.

Official dispatches

During the 2nd century BC, the Chinese Emperor Han Wu Di dispatched ambassadors far and wide, and one of the many types of precious gifts they carried with them was silk. These embassadors travelled east as far as Persia and Mesopotamia.

Ancient Rome gets silk from the Silk Road

Exactly when the Ancient Romans first came into contact with silk remains unknown, and it is also quite possible that it took a long time before knowledge of silk - a very precious material - became widespread among the commoners.

We do know that during the 4th century BC, mentionings of Seres - The Kingdom of Silk - begin to appear in Greek and Roman texts.

We also know that as late as 53 BC, Roman soldiers were so startled by the sight of the bright silken banners carried by the Parthian troops at the Battle of Carrhae that they fled in panic, indicating that they were probably not at all familiar with the material.

As a precious material, silk - imported through the Silk Road - eventually became the hallmark of well-off Romans. By the 3rd century AD, the Roman Emperor Heliogabalus, who reigned 218-222, reportedly wore nothing but silk.

In 380 AD, when the Roman Empire had already split into West Rome and East Rome, the Roman soldier and historian Marcellinus Ammanius writes that " The use of silk which was once confined to the nobility has now spread to all classes without distinction, even to the lowest. "

When the Gothic leader Alaric I beseiged the city of Rome in the early 400s, his demand for sparing the city included 4,000 tunics of silk.

Some remarkable finds of very old silk has been made in places located along the Silk Road. One of these amazing finds were made by the Hungarian-born British archeologist Aurel Stein in 1907 as he was exploring The Caves of the Thousand Buddhas near Dunhuang. Dunhuang, located in northwestern Gansu, was once one of the pit stops along the Silk Road.

What Stein found in one of the cave rooms was more than 10,000 manuscripts and silk paintings, silk banners, and textiles. It is believed that these treasures were hidden in this room around the year 1015, by Buddhist monks fearing an Tangut invasion. They hid the items in the cave room and sealed it up, and did such a good job that the items remained hidden for nearly 900 years.

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The history of sericulture in China is a long one. The oldest silk found in China has been dated to about 3630 BC, which means that it is from the Chinese Neolithic period. This silk was found in the Henan Province, a region widely regarded as the cradle of Chinese civilization.