Flaming Mountains - Silk Route

Silk Route

In ancient times, the Taklamakan Desert was avoided by merchant traders traversing the Silk Route in southeast Asia and oasis towns such as Gaochang, built at the foot of the Flaming Mountains on the desert's rim near an important mountain pass, became respite stops for traveling merchant traders. Buddhist missionaries often accompanied traders on busy international trading routes and during the times trade boomed on the Silk Route, Buddhist monasteries and temples were built in the busy trading centers and in nearby remote mountain spots.

The Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves site lies in a gorge under the cliffs of the Flaming Mountains near the pass by Gaochang. It is a complex of seventy Buddhist cave grottoes dating from the 5th to the 9th centuries CE, many with thousands of murals of Buddha.