The banquet table, laden with intricately carved gold and silver bowls and dishes, was graced by objects beloved among Tang aristocrats in their daily lives. Throughout the Tang Dynasty, exotic treasures and masterful techniques poured into the Central Plains with merchants from distant lands. With a broad and embracing spirit, the Tang people fused East and West into one living crucible. And within the grand feasts flowed the undimmed, thousand-year radiance of the Silk Road.