Silk Road

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When the 13'th Century traders returned from Asia's Silk Road, along with textiles and spices they brought back vivid accounts of other Eastern wonders, from eyglasses to ice cream. But there was suspicion in the Occidental mind about wheter this fabled bounty truly existed.

Venetians didn't begin to believe the tales until 1925, when Nicolog Polo and his son returned from their second trip along the legendary route laden with some of the treasures that Nicolo claimed to have seen on previous journeys.

Over 700 years after the Polos made theri epic journeys along the Silk Road, the romance of this route has hardly dissipated. Today we have the opportunity to document our trips with digital cameras, digital video recorders or cameraphones.

The Silk Road begins in Samarkand, in the kingdom of Sogdia, in present day Uzbekistan - one of the lasst of Alexander the Great's conquests before he went south to India - and moves east through the now wanished kingdoms of Khotam, Kroraina and Miran befor ending in China.

The trade route had an extraordinary inluence over the lives of the people who lived along its path, and the ability to demonstrate that is the great achievement of an exhibition that did run until September 12, 2004.