stylistic considerations. It is a "central pillar" cave, with a small, very colorfull, square cella (3.80x3.90 meters) with a vaulted ceiling, a central pillar with two side corridors, and a back room. These caves were possibly small chapels to nearby viharas. In Cave 17, on the lower left panel of the entrance wall, appeared a Royal family, composed of the King, Queen and two young Princes. They are accompanied by monks, and men in caftan. The relief is now in the Hermitage Museum. The King wears a crown and a triple halo, with Sasanian-type royal ribbons. He wears a long white caftan decorated with small diamond designs, and has long boots. His right hand is in front of his chest, holding an incense lamp, and he holds an akinakes sword and a red bag in the left hand. The end of a long knight's sword is visible behind the first boot. The king can be identified as a Tocharian king of Kucha. His Queen wears a long robe, and his two sons, Princes, wear ornate caftan and are fair-haired. According to Historian of Art Benjamin Rowland, the portraits in Kizil show "that the Tocharians were European rather than Mongol in appearance, with light complexions, blue eyes, and blond or reddish hair, and the costumes of the knights and their ladies have haunting suggestions of the chivalric age of the West". The Chinese named Kuchean kings by adding the prefix "白", meaning "white", probably pointing to the fair complexion of the Kucheans. The Chinese Monk Xuanzang in 645 CE, noted that "they clothe themselves with ornamented garments of silk and embroidery". This cave also shows Central Asian traders encountering various dangers on their way, such as being lost in the dark, and being saved by the Dragon-King Mabi. Another is the story of the good merchant Sabu (萨缚), who, in order to show the way to a party of 500 merchants lost in the darkness, puts his own arms on fire to use them as torches, and successfully rescues them. The story appears in numerous paintings, in which the merchants are in Central Asian garb and accompanied by camels, and Sab has the attributes of a Bodhisattva. Cave 17 is contemporary with the earliest decorated Mogao Caves near Dunhuang (caves 268, 272 and 275), which were built and decorated by the Northern Liang between 419 and 439 CE, before the invasion