Abstract
This chapter builds on ethnographic research with and among carpet dealers in Islamabad and Kashgar and aims to recount the little-known story of Xinjiang carpets from Khotan, as these have travelled between China, northern Pakistan and Afghanistan since the opening of the Karakoram Highway in the 1980s. As cross-border relations grew with the opening of the road, Pakistani carpet collectors and traders began looking for old Khotanese carpets. These collectors, besides selling such antiques on the well-known Islamabad carpet markets, brought Khotanese designs to carpet-makers in Afghanistan. From there, newly made carpets in the Khotanese style travelled back to Xinjiang, where they are now sold to tourists and collectors alike as a local, traditional product. Through this story, I show how Khotanese carpets have become both a symbol of local identity and an example of the transnational mobility of goods and capital - and how the Karakoram Highway features prominently in these narratives. I conclude by discussing how travelling Khotanese carpets can contribute to ongoing ethnographic studies of roads and by reflecting on the value of multi-sided ethnography.