Urumqi, China - Turpan

Digg this page | Save This Page | Stumble It!

The Flaming Mountains The Flaming Mountains, lying in the middle of the Turpan Depression and running from east to west, are one of the branch ranges of the Tianshan Mountains and were formed in the organic movements of Himalayas fifty million years ago.

Over millions of years, the natural weathering and numerous folded belts caused by the movements of the Earth's crust have formed the undulating lie and the crisscross gullies and ravines of the Flaming Mountains. Under the blazing sun, the red rock glows and hot air curls up like smoke as though it were on fire, hence it's name.

The mountains are ninety-eight kilometers long and nine kilometers wide. The highest peak is forty kilometers east of the city of Turpan (map) and 831.7 meters above sea level.

The Flaming Mountains are so hot and so dry that "flying birds even a thousand miles away dare not to come." Yet, the mountains at the same time act like a giant natural dam of the underground reservoir in the basin.

Situated on the north route of the ancient Silk Road, the Flaming Mountains have many cultural relics and the well-known story of the Monkey King (a leading figure in the Chinese classical novel "Journey to the West"), who extinguished the flame with a magic fan, have enjoyed high popularity . In recent years, the number of visitors to the mountains has been on the increase and a clamoring to go on the Flaming Mountains tour has risen.

The Ancient City of Gaochang The Ancient City of Gaochang is located near the seat of the "Flaming Mountains" Township forty-six kilometers southeast of the city of Turpan. The city walls are high and the crisscrossing streets and the city moat are still visible. The city walls, which are basically intact, divide the city into three parts: the inner city, the outer city and the palace city.

The 5.4 kilometer wall of the square outer city is 11.5 meters high and 12 meters thick. The wall is built of tamped earth, with some sections repaired with adobe. There are two gates on each side of the outer city and the two on the west side with defense enclosures outside the gates are the best preserved.

The rectangular palace city is in the northern part of the city of Gaochang and it shares the north wall with the outer city and uses the north wall of the inner city as its south wall. There are still several three to four meter high earthen platforms in the palace city where the court of Huigu Gaochang Kingdom was seated.

In the north-central part of the inner city, there is a high terrace on which stands a square pagoda built of adobe called "Khan's castle" which means "Imperial Palace". Somewhat to its west there is a half-underground two storey structure which was probably the ruins of a palace.

In the southwestern part of the outer city there is a temple which is 130 meters long from east to west, 85 meters wide from south to north and covers an area of 10,000 square meters. The temple consists of an arched gate, a courtyard, a lecture hall, a library of sutras, a main hall and the monk's dormitory . Murals remaining in the main hall are still visible.

The renowed Buddhist monk Xuan Zang of the Tang Dynasty is said to have lectured in the temple for more than one month in the year 628 on his way to India to obtain Buddhist scriptures. In the vicinity of the temple there are also ruins of workshops and market sites. In the southeastern part of the outer city there is a smaller temple, the ruins of the murals within which are better than those in the main hall.

The construction of the city of Gaochangbi was a key point on the ancient Silk Road, but after many changes in fortune over a period of 1,300 years, and under the jurisdictions of the Gaochang Prefecture, the Gaochang Kingdom, the Xizhou Prefecture, HuiguGaochang Kingdom and Huozhuo Prefecture, the city was burnt down in the fourteenth century.

It was classified as an important cultural unit protected by the state in 1961.

The Ancient City of Jiaohe The Ancient City of Jiaohe is located in the Yarnaz Valley, thirteen kilometers west of Turpan. It was first the capital of the State of South Cheshi, which was one of the thirty-six states in the Western Region. As described in the dynastic history book "The Note on the West Region, A History of the Han Dynasty", the State of South Cheshi made the city of Jiaohe its capital, which was circled by rivers flowing by the city, hence the name of 'Jaohe' (the city of joining river).

Built on a loess plateau thirty meters high, the ancient city is 1,650 meters long and 300 meters wide. The city has no walls and is protected by the natural fortification of the precipitous cliffs.

During the west Han dynasty, the central government established "Jiaohe" (an administration division) and appointed and dispatched a commanding general officer to the Turpan area. During the period for the Northern Wei the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Jiao hebi was Jiaohe prefecture under the jurisdiction of Gaochang Kingdom. The Anxi Military Viceroy's Office, the highest civil and military administrative organ set up by the Tang Government in the Western Region, was first established in the city.

Between the middle of the eighth century and the middle of ninth century, the City was occupied by Tibetans. After that, it was called Jiao he Prefecture and fell under the jurisdiction of the Huigu Gaochang Kingdom . At the end of the thirteen century, it was destroyed in Mongolian aristocratic rebellions. There are hideouts built in the gate for soldiers to defend the city.

The ruins of the buildings, divided basically into temples, civilian dwellings and government offices, have an area of 220,000 square meters. Entering the southern gate, one can see a 10 meter-wide and 350 meter-long main street leading to the biggest Buddhist temple located in the north-central part of the city. The tower in front of the temple gate is still intact, and standing on top of the tower one can enjoy the panorama of the whole city.

There are still more temples in the city. In the southeastern area of the city are located administrative office buildings built of bricks and tiles. According to researchers, the magnificent, half-underground, two-story building is probably the seat of Anxi's Military Viceroy's Office during the Tang Dynasty.

The architectural style of the ancient city of Jiaohe differs from that of the city of Gaochang. Here in Jiaohe, courtyards are pits dug in the ground, dwellings are caves opened into the earth and walls are built of tamped earth. Houses are two-storied without windows and doors on the side facing streets and courtyard gates are hidden in the deep lanes. The architectural style also features some typical elements of the Tang Dynasty. Visitors to the city can still walk along the streets and go through the halls into the charming inner rooms.

The ancient city of Jiaohe was classified as an important cultural unit protected by the state in 1961.

The Bizaklik Thousand Buddha Caves The Bizaklik Thousand Buddha caves, forty eight kilometers northeast of the Turpan urban area, are located in the Flaming mountain's Moutou valley. They were called Ningrong Grottoes in the Tang Dynasty.

There are 77 numbered Grottoes, about forty of which still have murals on them. The group of grottoes in Bizaklik, with a total of 1200 square meters of murals, has the most grottoes, most diversified architectural style and the richest mural content in the Turpan area.

The oldest grottoes were hewn in the period of Qushi Gaochang. From the Tang Dynasty right up to the Yuan Dynasty in the thirteenth century, it was an important Buddhist gathering place; its most prosperous period was under the reign of the Xizhou Huigu government, which built the royal temple of the king of Huigu on this site. Most of the existing grottoes were extended or reconstructed during the Huihe period.

Even today, one can still see on the remaining Buddhist murals the features of the King and Queen of Huigu and people of different status, as well as scenes of the lives of ancient Uygur people. Inscriptions in the ancient Huigu, Chinese and Brahmi languages are valuable materials for research on the written languages and History of Xinjiang's various nationalities, and Uygur in particular.

The murals depicting "Buddhist disciples wailing in the mourning" on the back wall of Grotto #33 are rare artistic pieces which depict the inner feelings of the figures with vivid images and individual characteristics. The ancient instrument shown in the mural depicting "Female dancers on performance" in Grotto #16 and the mural of "Transformation in the Hell" in Grotto #17 are seldom seen in Buddhist grottoes in China.

The Bizaklik Thousand Buddha Caves became an important cultural unit protected by the state in 1961.

Astana-Karakhojo Ancient Tomb It is known as "The Underground Museum" and is widely valued by Chinese and foreign archaeologists and historians. This group of ancient tombs is forty kilometers southeast of Turpan city proper, and six kilometers from the ancient city of Gaochang. Astana means "Capital" in Uygur and Karakhojo is the name of legendary hero of the ancient Uygur Kingdom who removed evils from the people by killing a vicious dragon. They are now the names of two local villages.

Buried in these tombs are nobles, officials and others from the period beginning in the Western Jin and ending in the middle of the Tang Dynasty. Curiously, the tomb of King Gaochang is found nowhere in the group of tombs, but renowned general Zhang Xiong of the Qushi Gaochang Kingdom was buried here with his wife and son Zhang Huaiji.

Almost all of the corpses in the more than five hundred tombs have not rotted; instead they have become dried-up bodies, a phenomenon more unusual than the mummies found in the pyramids of Egypt. Thanks to the dry and hot climate, many paintings, earthen figurines and thousands of other unearthed cultural relics are well-preserved and as colourful as new ones. The unearthed boiled dumplings of the Tang Dynasty are the same shape as those of today and the stuffing of the dumping is still fresh. Furthermore, on a bail of horse fodder are written words "Judge Cen" and "Minister Feng."

Judge Cen is the famous frontier poet Cen shen of the Tang Dynasty and Minister Feng is Feng Changqing, the governor of Beiting prefecture of the Tang Dynasty. Most of those buried here were people of Han nationalities, such as Cheshi, Hui, Xianbei, Gaoche, and Zhouwujiuxing.

Now three tombs have been opened to visitors. Besides corpses, there are murals depicting figures, birds and flowers on display in the three tombs.

It was classified as an important cultural unit protected by the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Regions in 1957.

Emin Tower Emin Tower ("The Tower for showing Gratitude for Eminhoja"), also called "Sugong Tower" and "The Turpan Tower" by the Uygur people, is located two kilometers east of the city of Turpan. Built in 1778, it is the biggest tower in Xinjiang, and has an architectural style of its own.

In the shape of a cone and built of bricks arranged in fifteenth patterns of rhombuses, ripples, varied four-petal flowers, and mountains, the tower is thirty seven meters high and ten meters in diameter at the base. The tower has fourteen windows opening in different directions and at different heights and a seventy-one-stepped spiral flight of stairs leading to the top.

At the entrance of the tower stands a stone tablet erected when the tower was built, on which is recorded, in Uygur and Chinese, the reasons for building the tower. It was built by Turpan prefecture commandant Su Laiman to commemorate and praise his father who achieved brilliant military success in suppressing the armed rebellion raised by the Jungar aristocrats.

Next to the tower is the biggest mosque in the Turpan area, and the two form an integral whole. The rectangular mosque has a hall in its middle and an arched gate with a pointed top. The hall can hold up to one thousand people attending service. During religious festivals, crowds of people stream into the mosque and make the mosque a hive of activity.

The Karez System The Karez system, an irrigation system of wells connected by underground channels, is considered as one of the three great ancient projects in China, the other two being the Great Wall and Great Canal. There are, in the Turpan area, nearly one thousand Karez totaling five thousand kilometers in length.

The structure of the Karez basically consists of wells, underground channels, ground canals and small reservoirs. In spring and summer, a great amount of melting snow and rainfall flow down from the Bogda and Karawuquntag mountains north and west of the Turpan depression into the valleys and then seep into the Gobi Desert.

Taking advantage of the mountain slopes, the working people ingeniously created the Karez to draw the underground water to irrigate the farmland. The water in the Karez will not evaporate in large quantities even under the scorching heat and fierce wind, hence ensuring a stable water flow and gravity irrigation.

The Grape Valley Looking at the Flaming mountains in the distance from the city of Turpan, one can see nothing but glowing, barren, red sand. But the Grape Valley of the Flaming Mountains, fifteen kilometers from the city center, is a world of unique beauty, presenting a striking contrast with the hot, dry and barren outside.

Cushioned by green grass and graced with green trees, the valley is a world of green with brooks, canals and sparkling springs; there is a poetic flavor to the idyllic beauty of the valley. Scattered everywhere in the valley are trees; mulberry, peach, apricot, apple, pomegranate, pear, fig, walnut, elm, poplar and willow; also watermelons, and muskmelons, making the valley into a "Garden of one hundred flowers" in spring. There is a reception center where dense grapevines interweave with each other and winding paths lead to secluded places with clusters of grapes within easy reach.

Eight kilometers long, half a kilometer wide and inhabited by about 7,000 people of the Uygur, Hui and Han Nationalities, the Grape valley has more than 400 hectares of cultivated land, 220 of which is grape-growing area. Grape growing in the valley are of several kinds, including the seedless white, rose-pink, mare-teat, black, Kashihar, Bijiagan and Suosuo. There is a fruit winery producing several kinds of wines and canned Grapes.

Strange Stone Gully It is located about 45 km northeast of Bole in the Yili area of west Xinjiang. I have been to strange stone gully in August and I do think it is very a interesting place. Strange stone gully is actually a small mountain and some strange shaped stones on it with different postures. Some like lion and some look just like elephant, tiger and other animals. The visitor also can live in the Kazak tent there just like as if you were in another world. This is not a very famous place but very interesting indeed.

Questions? If you want more information about this area you can email the author or check out our Asia Insiders page.

Digg this page | Save This Page | Stumble It!