Cultural relics are on display at the Silk Road Exhibition at the National Museum, Beijing, Nov 5, 2014. [Photo/CFP]

A large-scale of exhibition on the Silk Road opened to the public in the National Museum on Thursday. The exhibition displays more than 400 treasures from Shaanxi province, Gansu province and 14 other regions. It is largest scale exhibition that shows the history of the Silk Road in recent years. As APEC is going on in Beijing, the exhibit aims to show the world this brilliant section of history.

The Silk Road is a series of trade and cultural transmission routes that were central to cultural interaction through regions of the Asian continent. It connected the West and East by linking traders, merchants, pilgrims, monks, soldiers, nomads, and urban dwellers from China and India to the Mediterranean Sea during various periods of time.