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The historical Silk Road spanned the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, passing through deserts, grasslands, mountains, rivers and lakes, where countless materials and cultures were born, forming the splendid Silk Road civilization. The author selected ten ancient objects and narrated their stories, which not only showed the craftsmanship and shape, theme and decoration of the material, but also told the intricate connection between people and objects: Who created the material? Who carries them across mountains and rivers? Who regards them as treasures and sacred objects? Who abandoned them, and who unearthed them from the layers of loess... Materials and the people and society behind them interact with each other, different cultures collide and blend with each other, and economies, systems, technologies, and ideas continue to develop and evolve in the process of communication. All of this is integrated into a vivid and tangible history of Silk Road civilization.

From the 8th century to the 10th century AD, the Tang Dynasty turned from prosperity to decline, and the situation in the Western Regions was turbulent. In the long history of the Tang Dynasty, we can see the Middle Eastern captain Tazena who was eventually buried in the ocean, the Tibetan soldier Seglatun who was defeated in the Iron Blade City, Princess Taihe who went to Mobei, and the prostitute Lerishka who wandered throughout her life... Both nobles and people are trying to grasp the rhythm of fate and try to survive. It is this life trajectory that has illuminated the Silk Road for more than two thousand years, and has followed history to the present.