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The Mogao Caves, or Mogao Grottoes (Chinese: mò gāo kū), also known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas and Dunhuang Caves, form a system of 492 temples 25 km (15.5 miles) southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis strategically located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu province, China.<br/><br/> The caves contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art spanning a period of 1,000 years. The first caves were dug out 366 AD as places of Buddhist meditation and worship. The Mogao Caves are the best known of the Chinese Buddhist grottoes and, along with Longmen Grottoes and Yungang Grottoes, are one of the three famous ancient sculptural sites of China. The caves also have famous wall paintings.
Shifting sands, sandstorms, extreme heat, bitter cold, an almost total lack of water and immense distances all contributed to the death of Silk Road pack animals (as well as, sometimes, their masters) during the interminable crossings. It was common practice to use bones or parts of animal skeletons to point the way to other travellers, or to indicate dangers.
The Tea Horse Road (Cha Ma Dao) was a network of mule caravan paths winding through the mountains of Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet in Southwest China.<br/><br/> It is also sometimes referred to as the Southern Silk Road and Ancient Tea and Horse Road. From around a thousand years ago, the Ancient Tea Route was a trade link from Yunnan, one of the first tea-producing regions, to India via Burma, to Tibet, and to central China via Sichuan Province. In addition to tea, the mule caravans carried salt.<br/><br/> It is believed that it was through this trading network that tea (typically tea bricks) first spread across China and Asia from its presumed origins in Pu'er county, near Simao Prefecture in Yunnan.