Stunning works in precious metals, glass, and stone--many recently excavated and virtually unknown outside China--shed new light on a pivotal epoch in Chinese history. From the 4th through 7th century, monks and merchants freely traveled along the fabled Silk Road, linking China with the west, propagating Buddhism, and purveying exotic goods and artifacts that fundamentally transformed Chinese culture and society.

This sumptuous volume, the first to explore the magnificent treasures and sites of China's northwest section of the Silk Road, accompanies an exhibition at the Asia Society in New York. The text by an international team of scholars illuminates the importance of the region in this period of fertile cross-cultural exchanges between Eastern and Western Asia.

375 pictures, 232 in color.

Review:

Monks and Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China is a saga of cultural exchange on a grand scale during the lawless period between the Han and Sui dynasties. Accompanying a traveling exhibition organized by the Asia Society in New York, this book reproduces more than 200 objects in clay, metal, and glass from the fourth through seventh centuries. They document new concepts of Chinese identity, including Buddhism (imported by Indian monks), horseback riding (from nomadic tribesmen, patrons of the Buddhists), and non-native stylistic motifs and materials (introduced by Sogdian merchants, �migr�s from present-day Iran). The big payoff came in the Tang dynasty, famed for its artistic use of foreign imagery and techniques. But a number of noteworthy pieces date from this period of disunity, including a clay statue of Kasyapa, Buddha's oldest disciple, who sports a hawklike "foreigner's" nose. Scholarly yet gracefully written, this groundbreaking volume is itself a treasure. --Cathy Curtis

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