The four-footed legends of the silk road

According to historical records, the Han government later set up breeding grounds in Gansu, hoping to localized the superior genes of the heavenly horses.

Perhaps the best proof of the horses' enduring popularity can be found in tombs of the Tang Dynasty, another golden period in Chinese history that was separated from the Han era by four centuries. There they abounded as polychrome glazed ceramic sculptures, mirroring the fact that in 725, during the reign of the Tang Emperor Xuanzong, the number of bred heavenly horses was put at about 430,000.

Another type of animal that often found itself standing side by side with the horses in the burial chamber of their masters was the camel, on whose back almost the entire history of the ancient Silk Road was sustained.

The stout animal, a veritable novelty when it first set its split hoof in Han China, was no doubt oblivious to the curiosity and confusion it aroused with the locals. Seeing a camel for the first time, many believed they were "horses with swollen backs", to quote a piece of contemporaneous writing.

However, it was not long before the animal was impressing all and sundry with its ability to endure hardship. The two species - the single-humped camels of West Asia and the double-humped ones of Central Asia - became the most preferred pack animals for all traders trekking back and forth along the ancient Silk Road.