What is the Silk Road?

As long as a thousand years ago, the main commercial activity between Asia and Europe took place along a tortuous route from Persia and the Black Sea to the west to China in the east, traversing central Asian deserts and the high Himalayan plateaus of Tibet. The primary currency of that trade was silk, and thus the term "silk road" refers to the paths traveled in the pursuit of commerce in silk. As the map here illustrates, there was no one single route, but rather a system of commercial passageways that existed over the course of many centuries. The works in this exhibition were created by the cultures that thrived as part of this activity. Return to Top

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