7 The Murals and Albert von Lecoq (Lost Oasis on the Silk Road)

This is the last three sections of a nine-part series of documentaries on the Silk Road kingdom of Kucha.

In part seven we see the great destruction of the caves that was wrought by some of the European expeditions in the early part of the 20th century.

Not only did they cut out many of the murals to be taken back to Europe, but in the attempt they destroyed a number of others, which they left behind.

As they didn’t keep records as to where the murals had been taken from, it is almost impossible now to reconstruct what a lot of the caves must have looked like.

Besides these disasters, more than 40% of the murals that were taken back to Germany were destroyed during the bombing of Berlin during World War II.

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