Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Icy winters, scorching summers and fierce sandstorms made life tough for the people of the Taklamakan desert long before traders began plying the Silk Road.

The east-west trading route wound its way around the fringes of the parched Tarim Basin, now in the northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang. It linked oases fed by melted glaciers from the steppes to the north and, eventually, connected the Far East to the Mediterranean.

That climate, so harsh for people, proved perfect for preserving the contents of their tombs. Textiles, musical instruments and even food dating from as long ago as 4,000 years have been uncovered in recent excavations. The best examples are on display outside China for the first time at Berlin's Martin- Gropius-Bau through Jan. 14, 2008.

``Urspruenge der Seidenstrasse'' (``Origins of the Silk Road'') includes the usual bronze-age ceramics and tools. More startling are woolly tasseled belts, jaunty felt caps and a cozy goatskin coat from as early as 2,200 B.C.

There is an intimacy about the clothing that brings our prehistoric forebears much closer than their tools or pots. A blue-and-red silk caftan bears 2,000-year-old sweat stains. A richly patterned skirt shows evidence of careful mending.

Moccasin-like sheepskin boots and bright woolly blankets summon the chill wind sweeping off the steppes. A pair of eighth-century B.C. trousers are equipped with an extra seat panel to make horseback-riding more comfortable.

Ancient Cookies

The remnants of food are even more amazing. A packet of millet cookies looks as though it has seen better days, although it's hard to believe it's more than 2,000 years past the best- before date. An eighth-century B.C. lamb-rib on a skewer still contains thin strands of dried meat. There are small bowls of millet seeds and noodles and cubes of meat.

A konghou harp that has survived 2,500 years is the oldest found in China. Wooden figures were probably buried in lieu of those who died far from home and dressed to resemble them.

One of the most touching exhibits is the mummy of a baby girl who probably died in about 800 B.C. The colors of her felt burial clothing are as bright as they must have been three millennia ago: a deep blue cap and double-layered wine-red blanket, wrapped around with twists of blue and red wool. Next to her, archaeologists found a cow's horn and pouch for food and drink.

Photographs of Xinjiang province show empty expanses of sand, so the boat-shaped coffins in the exhibition come as a surprise. Though the climate hasn't changed much since humans inhabited it, the region was much wetter and boats were once widely used. Water from the glaciers nourished tamarisk trees, poplars, reeds and olive trees. Tigers, deer and wild boar roamed free.

Camel Trains

The people of the region were ethnically mixed and their lifestyles also varied: some were nomads, others were farmers. From the second century B.C., merchants and businessmen played a bigger role in the oasis towns.

That is about when the Silk Road came into being, a network of routes used to transport much more than silk (which the people of the west believed grew on the leaves of trees in China). Excavations have proved that camels brought gold from the nomadic cultures of the north and bronze from China.

Some of the finds show how the Tarim Basin was a melting pot of cultures long before the Silk Road's heyday. A gold death mask, probably from the fifth or sixth century B.C., depicts Asian features using European stone-setting techniques -- a sign that technologies, cultures and ideas were exchanged here, as well as goods. Globalization is nothing new.

``Origins of the Silk Road'' is on show at Berlin's Martin- Gropius-Bau through Jan. 14, 2008. It then moves to the Reiss- Engelhorn-Museum in Mannheim and may travel on to Chicago -- probably not by camel.

(Catherine Hickley is a writer for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer on this story: Catherine Hickley in Berlin at chickley@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 15, 2007 23:46 EDT