The Silk Road 08 A Heat Wave Called Turfan

A Heat Wave Called Turfan. Mud lake below sea level, excessive heat in summer with people sleeping in open air on roofs. Spectacular ruins of city of Gaochang (Kocho) with a fair amount on history and culture and some pictures of important artifacts including Manichaean and Nestorian paintings. Emphasis on cosmopolitan nature of the town. Impressive T'ang era fortress of Jiaohe (Yarkhoto) on a large plateau, but minimal comment on its history. Importance of grape harvest and raisins to the local economy; shows process of drying the raisins. The important Bezeklik Buddhist caves in nearby mountains, but talks as much about destruction by locals and foreign archaeologists as it does about content of paintings. One painting shows supposedly foreign ambassadors from more than a millenium ago. Interesting footage of the karez underground irrigation system including a walk through the channels. Overall, a lot of useful material in this film.

[@suzannabradley3576]

Thanks for video amazing history.

[@elpetr2738]

really nice documentary :) thank you :)

[@passenger47X]

My favourite episode in this series

[@schpleeinsanity]

"they use the same method which has been passed down from father to sunday" sounds about right to me :p haha

[@SNEEZY67]

Bwa ha ha....the english caption of this is too much Don't know if someone was seriously trying to translate or just being gumb ball...anyway, thank you..my ribs are sore. But a great informative series though..another thank you.

[@JulianPerez-zv6os]

Captions are auto-generated, so no person was involved