Project Summary

The Silk Road, as an interconnected web of trade routes linking the ancient societies of Asia with those of the Subcontinent and the Near East, has contributed to the development of most of the world's great civilizations. The Yale Silk Road Database presents over 11,000 images of major sites in the Silk Road region taken during faculty site seminars led by Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan (Professor, History of Art) under the auspices of the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University in the summers of 2006-2010. Photographs included in this collection were taken during faculty site seminars in Gansu, Ningxia, and Xinjiang Provinces in 2006, seminars in Sichuan and Yunnan during the summer of 2007, visits to Liao Dynasty sites in Shanxi, Liaoning, Hebei, and Inner Mongolia during the summer of 2008, a program along the Tarim Basin and in northern Xinjiang during the summer of 2009, and a program for educators in Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Tibet Extension during the summer of 2010.

The collection serves as a multi-disciplinary resource with relevance to students and faculty working in the fields of art and archaeology, religious studies, history, East Asian languages and literatures, Central Asian and Islamic studies. The Yale Silk Road Database is sponsored by the Council on East Asian Studies' Silk Road Studies Project through major funding awarded to the Council's National Resource Center Title VI Grant from the United States Department of Education. 

Permission to publish any image from this collection in print or on the Web is granted at the discretion of the relevant copyright holder and requests may be forwarded to the Council on East Asian Studies, Yale University.  Site technical questions and comments may be e-mailed to the Visual Resources Collection, Yale University.

Selection of Images

Kashgar Old City, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Yale Silk Road Seminar 2009,  ©Abbey Newman.

Labrang Monastery, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, Yale Silk Road Seminar 2009, © Abbey Newman.

People's Plaza, Kashgar (Kaxgar), Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Yale Silk Road Seminar 2009, © Abbey Newman.

Yanqi Ancient City, Bayingholin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture,  Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Yale Silk Road Seminar 2006, © Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan.

Abakh Khoja Tomb, Kashgar (Kaxgar), Haohan Village (Ayziret), Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Yale Silk Road Seminar 2009, © Abbey Newman.

Huashan, Shaanxi Province, Yale Silk Road Seminar 2008, © Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan.

Binglingsi Caves, Lanzhou Prefecture, Gansu Province, Yale Silk Road Seminar 2006, © Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan.

Jiufengsi, Laitan Township, Hechuan County, Chongqing Municipality. Yale Silk Road Seminar 2007, © Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan.