Article: A passage to China: not just a conduit for merchandise, the ancient Silk Road also brought new religions and foreign populations into China--as is reflected in the hybrid objects in a traveling Asia Society show. (Import/Export).

The inaugural exhibition for the Asia Society and Museum's newly renovated, intimate galleries opens up a vista of the Silk Road, that ancient route stretching from Byzantium on the Mediterranean coast to the Chinese capital, Changan (modern Xian). Almost 5,000 miles long, the Silk Road was defined by a series of caravan stops across Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia to the oasis cities of Central Asia, including Merv, Bukhara and Samarkand (in what is now Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). Northern and southern byways converged and diverged, following the oases skirting the edge of the Taklamakan desert, eventually reuniting in the thousand-mile Gansu Corridor--wedged between the ...

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