Black Horse Odyssey

ISBN: 1 86254 270 8
Publisher: Wakefield Press 1991

The search for the lost city of Rome in China

Imagine waking up each day knowing you have reliable clues to the lost city of Rome in China but not going to look. Impossible. I had in my hands the life's work of the Oxford Professor of Chinese who'd identified a possible location.

So I set out to search for Li-jien, built by Romans in China 1300 years before Marco Polo entered Cathay. I was alone, an amateur, I didn't know the language, and I was broke. The edge of the Gobi Desert

Every step on the road to Li-jien surprised me. It led me to high officials and slums, priceless friends, bizarre adventures, a woman I married beneath a willow tree near the Yellow River, a massacre of innocents, and to ruins in the desert where the Gobi meets the ramparts of the Qilian Range.

Those ruins are a Chinese National Monument and focus of international interest.

The mystery walls that drew David Harris to China

Awards

Visiting Fellowship, University of New England
Virgiliana Medal, Italian Encyclopedic Institute, for identification of Lijian
ArtSA, quick response travel grant

Further Information

Discovery Asia documentary Rome in China, filmed in 2004, was based on Black Horse Odyssey

This book is currently out of print, but may be available from your local library.