Northern Silk Road

The Northern Silk Road is a

The routes split west of Kashgar with one branch heading down the Alay Valley towards Termez and Balkh, while the other traveled through Kokand in the Fergana Valley, and then west across the Karakum Desert towards Merv, joining the southern route briefly.

One of the branch routes turned northwest to the north of the Aral and Caspian seas and then on to the Black Sea.

The Silk Road served not just as a means of trading goods, but also as an environment for cultural exchange. The Silk Road directed the flow of cultures, religions, and ideas, creating a rich tapestry of variety throughout Eurasia. Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and other religions thrived and expanded along these ancient trade routes, leaving lasting legacy in massive monuments such as China's Mogao Caves, Xi'an's Nestorian Stele, and Iraq's great mosque of Samarra. The civilizations and people that lived along the Silk Roads evolved and advanced as they traded and shared ideas, They learned and adapted from one another, promoting further breakthroughs in the fields of religion, language, and science.

The Northern Silk Road had a key role in promoting cultural and religious interchange among many governments and people. There were other faiths introduced through cultural exchange, but the three most popular were referred to as “The three alien religious”.^[2] Even though there was a lot of political friction at the time, cultural contact continued and expanded, resulting in a very large and rich trade between the west and east we witness today. For example, during the Sui and Tang periods of the Northern dynasties, there were good and strong diplomatic relations with the Sasanian Empire of Persia, which resulted in the spread of Zoroastrianism, Jingjia “The Church of the East”,^[3] and Manichaeism religions . The cultural fusion between Persia and China is only one of several cultural contacts that occur along the Northern route.

Another cultural interchange between Persia and China is Tang artisans in China employing Persian patterns in their works, which is a really beautiful approach to integrate different cultures through pattern design, which attracted the creative eye of the Tang crafters. The skills exchange also included a navigation log, which aided in road navigation and military strategy. The skill exchange occurred when Yang Liangyao, a diplomat of the Tang era, visited the Abbasid Caliphate.^[4] His visit resulted in a very valuable and important cultural exchange in which he was introduced to a complete navigation diary of the Silk Road to the Tang court, which was very useful for him and significant because there was a military conflict between Tibet and the Tang,^[5] making overland travel difficult.

The Northern Silk Road had many things discovered on it, and one of these things is the paintings on Buddhist cave temple. In the early 12th centuries many countries lead research journeys following the northern Silk Road. Some of these countries were Japan, The United Kingdom, Russia, and Germany. While on these journeys wall paintings were detached carefully from there original places. The original places they were removed form could be a interior wall or the ceilings of the Buddhist cave complexes. In expedition diaries during this time they describe "the wall paintings in a very detailed manner in the form of descriptions, photographs, sketches, and tracings, and map the context and work in situ".^[6]

During the 3rd Prussian Turfan expedition in 1906 a Buddhist cave were rediscovered. It was found in the valley of Sim-sim close to Kiriš in the district of Kucha.^[6] The cave temples were cut and shaped into cliffs were found. An example of this is a cave called "Ritterhöhle^[6]". It was named this because of art located on the central walls that looked like a knight in a suit of amor.

• Hexi Corridor
• Kashgar
• Dunhuang