The antique rugs of the oasis towns of East Turkestan are incomparable. These exotic oriental carpets from Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan in the Chinese occupied Autonomous Region of Sikiang are collectively  known as Samarkands. Samarkand & Khotan Rugs typically, they are in a long and relatively narrow format with simplistic spacious designs rendered in a glossy wool, occasionally embellished with richly rocaded  silk and metal-thread. The distinctive and prevailing colorations of lacquer reds, Chinese yellows, heavily influenced by the neighboring countries of China and Turkey, have been produced in this region since at least the seventeenth century. For thousands of years these lands of arid steppes, deserts and brutal mountain ranges were traversed by caravans of merchants and traders from China to Western Europe along the Silk Route.