The Silk Road

[Julilla]

I highly recommend picking up the book, "Foreign Devils on the Silk Road" by Peter Hopkirk, detailing the exploration of lost cities in the Taklamakan Desert. While the archaeological finds tend to be Serindian rather than Roman, the book is a wonderful chronicle of 19th and early 20th century archaeological exploration in the region (and the fury of the Chinese at the plundering of their precious scrolls and frescoes.