The Dunhuang cave temples on China's fabled Silk Road constitute one of the world's most significant sites of Buddhist art. Founded by monks as an isolated monastery in the late fourth century, Dunhuang evolved into a spiritual and artistic mecca renowned throughout China and central Asia. Here, in some five hundred caves carved into rock cliffs at the edge of the Gobi Desert, was preserved the pageantry of one thousand years - miles of wall paintings, more than two thousand statues, magnificent works on silk and paper, and tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts.Cave Temples of Dunhuang tells the fascinating story of this remarkable site and of the nearby town, desert gateway to China. It also describes the long-term collaboration between the Getty Conservation Institute and Chinese authorities to preserve the Dunhuang shrines.

The Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Art and History on the Silk Road

Computers & Technology

Susan Whitfield

Graphics & Design

British Library Publishing Division

<p>366p large heavy paperback, well preserved copy, published to accompany the 2004 British Library exhibition, from the library of illustrator John Griffiths with his name to endpaper</p>

The Silk Road : Trade, Travel, War and Faith - Exhibition Catalogue

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Chicago: Serindia, in association with the British Library, 2004

<p>In the first 1,000 years AD, merchants, missionaries, monks, mendicants and military men travelled on the vast network of Central Asian tracks that became known as the Silk Road. Linking Europe, India and the Far East, the route passed through many countries and many settlements, from the splendid city of Samarkand to tiny desert hamlets. This book recounts the lives of some of these people and the Central Asian towns in which they lived: a Uighur nomad from the Gobi Desert accompanying a herd of steppe ponies for sale to China, widow Ah-long wife of a prosperous merchant accustomed to dispensing largesse to the Buddhist church, yet reduced to near poverty after her husband's death; and the Chinese princess sent as part of a diplomatic deal to marry a Turkic kaghan. Based on contemporary sources and using first-hand accounts wherever possible, Life Along the Silk Road brings alive the now ruined and sand-covered desert towns and their inhabitants.</p>

Life Along the Silk Road

History

Asia

John Murray

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Books by Susan Whitfield