The Taklamakan Desert, covering some 330,000 square kilometers, is the second largest shifting sand desert in the world. As a "cemetery of civilizations." in the early years of the 20th century, the Tauamakan attracted explorers from all around the world and treasures excavated here and in the Tarim Basin are in the museum collections of more than ten countries.

It is the world's largest underground treasury of cultural relics. The desert destroyed many towns and villages, swallowing lives, legends and details, but left ruins, remote echoes, fragmentary memories and unlimited imaginings. Loulan, Niya, Xiaohe, Milan and Dandanwulike¡­these famous ancient cities recorded the prosperity of the Silk Road; after years, they are still like sparks in the wilderness which can light up flames in people¡¯s minds. The winged angel mural, the brocade beating the words "five planets appearing in the east bode well for me Middle Kingdom," the Roman pillar, the Indian Buddha statue. the mummified "Loulan Beauty"¡­all these excavated discoveries show that this was the only place on earth where the four great ancient civilizations mixed together.

From just about every standpoint-geography, ecology, psychology and symbolism-the Taklamakan Desert is a fearsome, nightmarish place. It has been called the "Sea of Death." Sparsity and desolation are its only themes, but the most dangerous thing is the lack of water. For a weary and exhausted traveler. even more awful is the seeming boundlessness of this never-ending desert. Once a sand storm forms, roaring and howlin9, it can even uproot large trees. This is the "fury of God..." Frightful white bones in the desert are all that is left of persons, horses and camels.

High hovering vultures looking for carrion, a crouching sand fox, nose still bloody from prey eaten a few hours earlier, a lizard, hiding in the loose sand to escape predators, a scurrying scorpion carrying a brood of tiny scorpions on its back, gruesome wolf spiders, six eyes glittering cruelly, the other two eyes closed...But none of these could stop people trying to explore this desert. For hundreds of years, an endless stream of expeditions, trade caravans, treasure seekers, robbers and pilgrims entered the desert. They came with different purposes. But the real attraction might be something else--not dead civilizations, gold or treasure, but the scared magic of the desert itself.

The Swedish explorer Sven Hedin once likened the shifting dunes of the Taklamakan to "graves without crosses" and the expedition departures to "funeral processions."

Late in the 9th century, Satuq Bughra Khan of the Qarakhanid Dynasty, who was just l6 years old at the time, was hunting one day in the Tddamakan when he saw a caravan of Muslims, prostrating themselves toward Mecca in daily prayer, oblivious to their goods and baggage scattered around. He was surprised and intrigued. Considering such devout belief and strict discipline would help him realize his ambitions, he became a fervent convert to Islam. Several centuries later, Islam was the only religion in the Taklamakan area. What a coincidence that Islam£¬born in the Arabian desert, should find a home in the Taklamakan.

The native Keriya and Ywungkax people who have lived deep in the desert for centuries say that the Taklamakan, in fact, is not uninhabitable. Until not long ago, crossing the desert along the old watercourse of the Keriya River, the Uygur shepherds of Yutian County always herded their sheep and camels by the banks of the Tarim River in Shaya, and returned to Yutian once the sheep and camels were fattened up. For them, the wadi in the desert is a road, a road to oasis and life.

The Taklamakan Desert is called the "Sea of Death." Sven Hedin translated it into "if you go in, you won't come out." However. in Uygur, the name actually means "old home."