Although the capital of the province, Urumchi, is not a very interesting city in itself, its local museum has recently acquired certain fame due to the ‘discovery’ by an American scholar, Professor V.A. Mair, of a number of ancient mummies that he believed to be up to 4,000 years old. The mummies, which are in fact desiccated corpses and remarkably well preserved thanks to the dry climate, were brought to the museum from Lou-lan and were first believed to date from the early Middle Ages or, at the earliest, from the Kushan period (first century AD). This, at any rate, was the opinion of Sir Aurel Stein, who saw them at the site in 1907:
… the absolute aridity of the climate since ancient times had assured here a truly remarkable state of conservation of the bodies of men and women found in graves outside what evidently was a look-out post occupied by indigenous Lou-lan people. Several of the bodies were wonderfully well preserved together with their burial deposits… It was a strange sensation to look down on figures which but for the parched skin seemed like those of men asleep … and who, no doubt, were content with this dreary Lop region 2000 years ago. The characteristics of the men’s heads showed close affinity to that Homo Alpinus type which … still remains the prevailing element in the racial constitution of the present population of the Tarim basin.1
Stein already noticed the ‘Alpine character’ of their features, but their dating by Professor Mair to as far back as 2000 BC may, eventually, transform the established opinion of the ethnic and cultural origins of Xinjiang’s earliest population. Another interesting aspect of the ‘mummies’ is the remarkably good state of preservation of textiles that have been found on them. Their materials and weaving techniques were analysed by E. Wayland Barber.2
West of Urumchi, in the valley of the upper Ili, the fifteenth-century mausoleum of Tughluk Timur Khan should be mentioned. Situated near the town of Huoch’eng (Khoros), it is a cube-shaped structure domed with a large, Timurid-style iwan. Its tiled decoration is rather damaged, but inscription bands in Thulth and Naskhi can still be seen lining the pishtak and the pointed arch of the entrance vault. Inside the arch is a geometrical ornament in stylised Kufic. Other decoration consists of vertical bands of tiled geometrical and floral ornaments on the front façade and on the tympan above the entrance arch.
Also west of Urumchi, near the town of Hutupi, the Kangjiashimenzi anthropomorphic rock carvings were explored in 1991 and again in 1997. Low-relief images, dating probably to the second and first millennia BC depict human figure engaged in some fertility rituals. As other rock carving in Eurasia (see, for example, Tamgaly Tash, p.157) are mainly zoomorphic, the site of Kangjiashimenzi is, in a way, unique.3
The oasis of Turfan (Turpan) is, next to Tun-huang, one of the most important sites in Xinjiang. On the outskirts of the town itself, an eighteeth-century minaret is the dominant building of the oasis. Called Imin minaret (and sometimes, after its builder, Suleiman Wang), it is decorated with a profusion of simple, geometrical ornaments of monochrome baked bricks. Next to it is a rather plain mosque with a light ceiling supported on wooden columns. (See 53.) Several cemeteries, some with vaulted mazars are in the neighbourhood.
To the west, are the spectacular ruins of Jiao-he (also called in some sources Kia-ho or Yarkhoto), the capital of the kingdom of Che-Shi-Quian (Kia Che), dating from around 200 BC to AD 450 and corresponding roughly to the Kushan period in the west. (See colour plate 20.) It stands on a promontory between two steep river valleys. The name, in fact, means ‘city of joining rivers’. The citadel and the remnants of a stupa within the precinct of a Buddhist monastery can be clearly discerned.
After its demise the centre shifted to another site, now called Gaochang (or, alternatively Karakhoja, Kotcho or Idikut Shahri, i.e. the town of Idikut). (See colour plate 11.) Its origins go back to around AD 110, and it was definitely abandoned in the fourteenth century, having reached its peak in the ninth. A number of buildings can be seen here. Near the top end of the site there is a Buddhist stupa with niches where statues used to be and, next to it, a vaulted structure with the dome supported on interesting early squinches. Elsewhere, walls of palaces and temples, the grid of streets and the ramparts with many towers are still partially preserved. There were four gates, and the streets connecting them crossed in the centre where the mausoleum of Uighur Manichaean kings stood. In the seventh and eighth century a remarkable series of portraits, now in Berlin, were produced here. Texts found here were written in a number of languages and in several scripts and alphabets.
They are described by Talbot-Rice:
In each case a single sitter was portrayed on a large silk panel in hieratic pose, yet often shown holding a flower in one hand. The paintings combine physical exactitude with real psychological insight. Generally, only kings and soldiers of distinction appeared on these panels … certain items of their armour recall Assyrian models and others Gandharan ones, but those made of solid pieces of metal are obviously of local origin. The portraits foreshadow very similar pictures of far smaller size produced by Islamic painters in Persia.4
On the northern fringes of the oasis two sites should be mentioned. Bezeklik was a Buddhist cave monastery where a number of wall paintings still exist showing Iranian and Soghdian influence as well as that of India and China. (See colour plate 19.) In Bezeklik, as well as in other cave monasteries in the area mentioned below (Kyzyl, Kumtura, Kyzyl Kara), the wall paintings suffered considerable damage in different periods. Some were damaged after the Islamic conquest, some were taken down, often rather brutally, by Western expeditions, and the Red Guards during the ‘Cultural Revolution’ did the rest. As a consequence, better preserved are those out of reach, high on the walls and on ceilings.
A long prayer corridor was discovered by von Le Coq in 1904. Leading to a big temple, it was completely covered with murals depicting various scenes from the life of the Buddha. In the centre was a large portrait of the Buddha dressed in red. The murals that were removed by successive Western expeditions survived in a number of museums: London, Delhi, St Petersburg, Seoul, and also in Berlin, despite the war-time bombing in which some large frescoes that could not be moved to safety, perished. In 2005 a Japanese team from the University of Kyoto embarked on an ambitious project of restoration of the entire corridor, using modern methods of digital reproduction either from existing originals or from colour photographs of the missing ones.
Stein took down some of the Bezeklik frescoes and shipped them to the museum in Delhi. He describes the monastery as:
… an extensive series of ruined temple cellas, partly cut in the rock, their walls decorated with paintings in tempera dating from Uighur times and representing scenes of Buddhist legends and worship in considerable variety of style and subject. In richness and artistic merit they surpassed any similar remains in the Turfan region … 5
Astana is a series of underground tombs (Karakhoja tombs) dating from AD 273 to 782. Beautifully preserved frescoes with strong Chinese influence can be seen in some; two mummies of tall men are in one of them. (See colour plate 12.)
Stein also opened some of the Astana tombs, where he found ‘neatly worked models of household furniture and utensils as well as many painted stucco figurines intended to represent the attendance to be provided for the dead in another world…’.6
A number of interesting sites can be found north and south of the town of Kucha, halfway between Turfan and Kashgar. Some 15 miles south of the town, in Kumtura, there are about ninety Buddhist caves with some inscriptions in runic or old Turkish script, in old Uighur and Sanskrit. When a house was recently built in Kumtura, a chest full of papers with runic inscriptions was found. It was probably an old Turkish book, but the finders were so scared of charms that they burnt everything. Poucha7 visited Kumtura, copied some of the inscriptions and also saw the remaining frescoes, which were not taken away by von Le Coq fifty years previously. According to recent reports, the frescoes are increasingly threatened by humidity rising from an artificial lake nearby.
To the north of the modern town, in the foothills of the mountains, are the ruins of Subashi believed to be the capital of the kingdom of Qinci. The citadel and the temple mound can be seen, as well as the walls, ruined houses etc. The city dates approximately from the fourth century, the palace probably from the fifth. It was destroyed and abandoned in the twelfth. The palace walls show interesting patterns of layers of unbaked bricks and river gravel fixed in mortar.
At Kyzyl, north-west of Kucha, there was a Buddhist monastery consisting of some 235 caves, cut deep into the rock. Some were monk’s cells, some were temples, others served as stores or workshops. Each temple usually had an anteroom and behind it a shrine with a statue. Wall paintings there date from the fifth to the eighth century. Some temples are domed, as in Persia; their paintings are older and show Indo-Iranian influence with some Hellenistic elements. In one of the biggest caves, von Le Coq found a library with manuscripts on palm leaves, birch bark, paper and wood, with texts in Sanskrit and Tokharian, all very well preserved.8
The first period of wall paintings at Kyzyl may be dated from AD 450 to about 650.9 It is characterised by precise modelling, subdued and discreet colours, grey, brown-red, dark brown and brigh green. Indian influence is dominant, but Sasanian elements may also be found. The second period is dated by Hackin10 as AD 650 to 750. Modelling is less apparent, colours are brighter, and Sasanian influence dominates both in appearance and in dress. In the military scenes, for example, the knights of Kucha wear cone-shaped helmets, armour and long lances reminiscent of Sasanian knights and, at the same time, of Sarmatian horsemen from the frescoes of Panticapaeum in Crimea.11
Not far from there, on a promontory between two deep valleys, the monastery of Kyzyl Kara also consists of a number of caves decorated with frescoes. (See 47 and 63.) There are rows of paintings of small Buddhas, on the ceiling a band of apsaras, with symbols of the sun and the moon, the wind etc. In one place there is an image of a bird with two faces. In another cave, the ceiling has two bands of apsaras and musicians in alternating black and white. Fifty other caves are in a place called Sim-Sim, 30 miles from Kucha.
East of Kucha, in the oasis of Karashahr, the ruins of what is now called the city of Shorchuq are probably those of another ancient capital. The layout was similar to that of Idikut Shahri. It was a city of temples and shrines; some domed structures in Persian style were tombs. Art objects found here by von Le Coq were mostly in Gandhara style. The city was destroyed by fire some time in the second half of the eighth century. Few of the frescoes survived.
At Tumshuq, between Kucha and Karashahr, there are two monasteries, Toqquz Sarai and Tumshuq Tagh, the frescoes of which show a marked Indo-Iranian influence. It is interesting to compare them with those of Shorchuq, lying east of Karashahr, where Chinese influence is more dominant. Grousset has words of high praise for the society of Kucha in the seventh century.
This society, as we know it from the texts and frescoes in Kyzyl and Kumtura, seems a strange success, almost a paradox in time and space. It benefited from all the intellectual heritage of India, brought in by the Buddhist civilisation, and on the other side, used caravan links with Iran to copy material civilisation of Sasanian Persia. It seems like a dream, that such an elegant and sophisticated society could develop only a few days’ ride from all these Turco-Mongolian hordes, on the border of all that barbarity, on the eve of being submerged by the most uncivilised of all primitives. It is a sheer miracle that it could survive so long on the fringes of the steppe, protected only by stretches of desert and threatened every day by the raids of the nomads.12
On the eastern fringe of the Gobi desert, on the border between Xinjiang and the province of Kansu, in 1908 a Russian expedition discovered the ruins of a large walled city called Karakhoto (Black fortress). Ramparts 10m high and almost completely covered in sand formed a rectangle in which, even now, towers and remnants of temples and houses can be seen. It was the capital of the Tangut kingdom of Si-Hia before it was destroyed by Chinghiz Khan in 1226. It was later visited by Marco Polo who called it Etsina (Yi-tsi-nai). It was finally destroyed in 1372 by the Ming army when, after a long siege, the Chinese commander built a dam higher up the river Etsina-gol and deprived the city of its water supply. The Russians found a whole library of prints and manuscripts here in the si-hia script based on Chinese.13 Buddhist paintings on silk, linen or paper were found here in the tomb of a princess, which can now be seen in the Hermitage.14 Further excavations were carried out by Aurel Stein and Langdon Warner.
Full details of abbreviations and publications are in the Bibliography
1 Stein, A., On Ancient Central Asian Tracks, pp.135–36.
2 Wayland-Barber, E., The Mummies of Urumchi.
3 Davis-Kimball, The Kangjiashimenzi Petroglyphs.
4 Talbot-Rice, Ancient Art of Central Asia, p.197.
5 Stein, Ancient Tracks, p.230.
6 Stein, Ancient Tracks, p.234.
7 Poucha, P., Innermost Asia, p.151.
8 The Grunwedel–von le Coq expeditions are referred to by Dabbs in History, p.125ff.
9 Grousset, L’Empire, p.91.
10 Hackin, J., Buddhist Art in Central Asia.
11 Grousset, L’Empire, p.9.
12 Grousset, L’Empire, p.92.
13 Grousset, L’Empire, p.188.
14 Hopkirk, P., The Great Game, p.201.