Gandhara art inspires legends

"Through this exhibition, I want to highlight the fact that the Silk Road was not just a single route, but was a network which could reach the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau," Luo says.

"Cultural communication between our two countries has a long history," says Mahmood-ul-Hasan, deputy director of the Department of Archaeology and Museums of the National Heritage and Culture Division of Pakistan. "Archaeological studies prove that as early as the late Bronze Age, people who lived in Sichuan province had established close cultural contact with people of the Indus Valley civilization, and such links were strengthened during the Iron Age.