Kishin ShinoyamaSILK ROAD (Complete set)

The eight volumes comprising Kishin Shinoyama's

Silk Road were published between May 1981 and July 1982 at a rate of one volume every two months. The project marked the 55th anniversary of Shueisha, one of Japan's top. five publishers.

The eight volumes, in 27 × 34.5 cm format, bound and boxed, represent a total weight of over 17 kg, 2,236 pages and more than 1,214 photographs.

Kishin Shinoyama wrote the texts for each book.

The flyleaves feature tales about the Silk Road and texts on the photographer's work from renowned Japanese authors, poets and researchers.

A three-volume paperback edition was

published in 1983.

Silk Road comprises the following volumes:

• vol. 1: Japan 
•  vol. 2: Korea
• vol. 3 and 4: China
•  vol. 5: Pakistan/ Afghanistan/Iran
• vol. 6: Syria/Jordan/Iraq
• vol. 7: Egypt
• vol. 8: Turkey/Greece/Italy/Vatican City

The journey begins in the south of Japan at Todai-ji Temple in Nara, the country's former capital, and ends in Vatican City.

The choice has been made to leave out a number of the countries Kishin Shinoyama travelled through for this book. Here his journey ends on the banks of the Bosphorus in Turkey, staying true to the spirit of the original Silk Road.

The network of trade routes owes its name to the most costly of the goods it conveyed: silk, the secret of whose production was known only to the Chinese for many years. the name was coined in 1877 by German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen (1833-1905), who had been tasked with proposing a route for a railway line between Germany and China. However, certain sections of the Silk Road back as early as the 2nd century BCE.