Silk Road’s Forgotten Cities: Ancient Metropolises the Desert Buried Alive

The Taklamakan Desert’s name roughly translates as: “You go in, you don’t come out.” Temperatures swing from blistering to brutal. Sandstorms last for days. There is almost no water. And yet, beneath the sand, there are cities. Not one or two — a string of them, running along the ancient Silk Road, preserved by the ...