Xinjiang – World Travel

Astana Tombs Turpan Attraction

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:59:57 +0000

Xinjiang China travel destination Astana Tombs Turpan Attraction. View more details including related videos clips reviews comments and rating.

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The ancient tombs of Astana, located in the Three and the Two Castles County in Turpan City, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, are a significant and protected national cultural relic.
These tombs are the burial sites of the residents of the Three Castles County (Astana), and the Two Castles County (Halahezhuo) since the time of the West Jin Dynasty and the Sixteen Kingdoms Period (about 3-5 Century AD). Most of the residents in Gaochang Ancient Town and the surrounding environs were buried here (a large part of them were buried as families in a common grave). For centuries the location was continuously used as a gravesite, and this continued until the Qu Gaochang State Period (500-640 AD) and the Xizhou Period of Tang Dynasty (640 -8th Century AD).
The tombs of Astana are distributed in a ten square kilometer aspect, east of Halehezhuo and north of Astana, roughly 5 kilometers long east to west, and 2 kilometers wide north to south. About 400 or so tombs have been discovered and resurrected, while it is assumed many more remain undiscovered.
All of the ancient tombs dug up recently were from the period between West Jin to the middle of the Tang Dynasty, and all of the people were buried according to families clearly marked with gravel. Others buried in the tombs of Astana include people from Han, Cheshi, Tujue, Hun, Gaoche and Zhaowu ethnic groups. Of these the Han People accounted for a large percentage. Most of their tombs are called “coup tombs”, while some of them were one man and two women, or three women tombs, with a few just single tombs as well.
Characteristic of all of these ancient tombs of Astana, almost every one is equipped with a sloping grave passage, a cave grave room with gravel piled up on the floor, and the plane in the shape of Chinese character “?” . The tombs usually have a height of at least two meters, the ceilings are either flat or concave, and most of the corpses were put on an earthen kang, or instead a simple bed in the rear of the grave room, with no coffin.
The bodies were rested with the head on a pillow with a pattern of a crowing chick; there would usually be a cloth on the face and another on the eyes, and the body would be holding a stick with both hands. The deceased were clothed in garments of cotton or silk yarn.
Around the bodies could be found the models of kiosks, vehicles, horses, musical instruments, chess, pens and ink, or foods like grapes, Jiaozi or Chinese cakes. Some of the tombs even display frescoes with smooth painted lines on the back wall of the grave room.
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The Ruins of Ancient Niya Hetian Attraction

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:59:57 +0000

Yunnan China travel destination The Ruins of Ancient Niya Hetian Attraction. View more details including related videos clips reviews comments and rating.

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The archeological site known as Niya (hereafter referred to as the Ruins of Ancient Niya), which lies deep in the Takla Makan Desert on the southern rim of the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, has been called the Pompeii of the East, owing to Niya having been buried, quite suddenly, as had ancient Pompeii ages earlier. Or so it seems, for no one really knows what caused the residents of Niya to abandon their city in such a panic that they even left their dogs tethered in front of their houses, apparently fleeing for their lives from some unknown-to-us, impending calamity.
It is true enough that most of Niya was buried under the sands of the Takla Makan Desert when the Hungarian-born British archaeologist, Sir Marc Aurel Stein, rediscovered it in 1901, based on certain artifacts that had surfaced and whose existence came to Stein’s attention when the archaeologist was in the area searching for lost cities along the southern route of the Silk Road, cities that had been described by a 7th century Chinese Buddhist monk by the name of Xuanzang (“Hiuen-Tsiang”, in the writings of Stein). But one cannot conclude from this that the residents of Niya were fleeing a massive sandstorm. The mystery that enshrouds ancient Niya may, alas, never be cleared up!
Niya gets its name from the fact that it lies near to a much younger and smaller city by the same name, which lies near the Niya River. The Ruins of Ancient Niya lie, as suggested above, on the southern route of the famous Silk Road. The ancient city extends 25 kilometers north-south, and averages some 6 kilometers in width, along an east-west axis. According to available historical texts, the Ruins of Ancient Niya lie in the geographical area of what was once the ancient Kingdom of Jingjue.
Since the Kingdom of Jingjue in the Ruoshui region of northwestern China was believed to have been a city-state, of which there were apparently several throughout the western and northern parts of China during various historical periods, some modern sources choose to call the Ruins of Ancient Niya “Jingjue”. The recovered artifacts from the Ruins of Ancient Niya suggest that the city was indeed a prominent stopping-off point along the Silk Road.
According to a Chinese historical document whose English title translates to Han History: Biography of the West, Niya had only 480 households, comprising 3360 individuals, plus about 500 soldiers (from which data we can deduce that the average Niya household – not counting the soldiers, but surely counting members of the extended family – consisted of 7 individuals). The document goes on to say that during the Eastern Han (CE 025-220) Dynasty, Niya was annexed by the Shanshan Kingdom.
Since Niya lay directly on the southern route of the Silk Road, one can easily deduce that the camel caravans that transported the traded goods along the Silk Road would necessarily have to pass by Niya, and since there was no other major city in the region which could have competed with Niya as a provider of the basic necessities required by travellers – principally, food and drink for both man and beast, though other goods and services beyond mere necessities may have been demanded – one can with reasonable certainty claim that Niya was a key stopping-off point along the Silk Road.
Moreover – and this is a crucial point – the stopping-off points along the Silk Road were not mere reprovisioning oases, they were as well important hubs from which goods travelling east along the Silk Road were distributed into the hinterland, to be sold for a handsome profit there. These included handicrafts and artworks from Greece as well as cotton textiles from India. Indeed, not only was there a demand for imported goods in the hinterland, but the wealthy merchants of the hub cities along the Silk Road who managed the hinterland trade would themselves have eventually acquired a taste for exotic imports. Of the traded items from China, silk cloth and silk brocade formed the bulk of course, but there were many other traded items such as lacquer works, copper-framed mirrors, and paper.*
The remnants unearthed at Niya also bear witness to the city’s importance as a cultural crossroads. The images of flying dragons in various shapes on still-intact girders, the Buddhist paintings and the many other artifacts retrieved from grave sites at Niya all point to China’s anchoring as one of the four ancient civilizations (the other three being Babylon, Egypt, and India).
The discovery of the Falu Manuscript is perhaps the most important archeological find to emerge from the excavations at Niya. The eight hundred wooden “chards” that make up the Falu Manuscript cover almost every aspect of life among the Jingjue people. They include official announcements, official and private letters, and various other written documents and instructions. The Falu Manuscript offers a unique insight into the life and times of the Jingjue people.
Ancient Han Chinese civilization, which included knowledge of relatively advanced methods of agriculture and irrigation, is believed to have reached its peak during the Han (BCE 206 – CE 220) Dynasty. In the arid west of the country a thousand years later, however, increasing drought and resulting sandstorms seem to have become a familiar pattern, testing even the best agricultural innovations. In an attempt to reduce soil erosion and the devastating effect of wind-blown sand, the residents of Jingjue cleverly planted vast areas with the hardy (i.e., not requiring large amounts of water), but quickly growing, poplar tree as a barrier against the inexorable onslaught of wind-driven sand.
By Jingjue law, the cutting of trees was strictly prohibited; violaters were fined to the tune of a horse, while simply cutting off branches was punishable to the tune of a cow. This is perhaps the earliest environmental protection policy implemented in history! The king himself took upon his person the safeguarding of the seeds for the next season’s crops, as well as the water supply that would be needed for growing them.
In spite of these precautions, the wind-driven sands eventually buried Niya, although, as indicated above, it is not possible to determine whether the residents of Niya, when they fled in haste – abandoning their city, never to return – did so in the face of a sandstorm of tsunami proportions. However, having abandoned the city, it was only a matter of time before the desert sands would claim it, given the pre-existence of long-term drought and wind-driven sand in the region, for the poplar tree expires almost as rapidly as it spires, requiring constant replanting in order to maintain an effective barrier against the ravages of the wind, including the sand it bears with it.
The sudden and mysterious flight from Niya, suggesting parallels to Pompeii – if not to Sodom and Gommorah – will continue to puzzle scholars until solid evidence comes to light that can explain this curious enigma.

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* It would seem that in the early period of the Silk Road trade, many “Chinese” silk products that reached Europe were in fact reprocessed in the Phoenician port cities of Sidon and Tyre from heavy Chinese silk cloth. This Chinese cloth was remade into lighter, more transparent (gauze-like) silk products, then dyed in a variety of colors to suit Mediterranean and European tastes. Evidence of this “reprocessing” can be found both in Roman as well as in Chinese sources. For example, the Roman scholar and historian, Procopius (CE 500 circa – 565 circa) made extensive reference to how the “value-added” – as one would describe it in modern terms – silk reprocessing business in Phoenicia was a thriving cottage industry.
And the Chinese historical writer and encyclopaedist, Ma Duanlin (alternatively, Ma Tuan-lin), writing in his work, Wenxiantongkao, over a half-century later, but referring to the early-period silk trade, also corroborates the existence of the Phoenician silk reprocessing “cottage industry” with these words: ‘They always made profit by obtaining the thick plain silk stuffs of China, which they split in order to make foreign ling kan wên’ (“purple patterned damask”, purple being an especially popular color among the Romans).
These considerations notwithstanding, Chinese brocade especially was highly prized in markets from the Aegean to the Mediterranean to the Baltic Seas, as well as on the British Isles, of course. Silk brocade was not only one of the main components of the west-bound Silk Road trade, silk brocade was also highly popular among the more well-to-do members of Chinese socitey. For example, a silk brocade item with the Chinese characters wuxingchudongfanglizhongguo embroidered on it that was unearthed in the joint tomb of a Chinese husband and wife, and which has been dated to the Eastern Han Dynasty, is considered by experts as an exquisite exemplar of the art of brocade, and a rediscovered lost treasure of the Silk Road.

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Tomb of Gaisi Kumul Attraction

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:59:57 +0000

Jiangsu China travel destination Tomb of Gaisi Kumul Attraction. View more details including related videos clips reviews comments and rating.

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The Tomb of Gaisi is also called “Tomb of Saint” or ” Green Tomb”. It’s 758 meters above sea level. It was said the Prophet of the Muslims-Mohammed sent his three disciples-Gaisi, Wuwaisi and Wangasi to china to perform missionary work at the invitation of Lishimin who was an emperor of China in the Tang Dynasty. Wangasi died of illness in Guangzhou. Gaisi and Wuwaisi arrived at Chang’an. They were warmly received by Lishimin. On their way to reture their homeland, Wuwaisi died of illness in Huihui Town of the Hexi region. Gaisi died in the Star Gorge in the 9th year of the Zhenguan time of the Tang Dynasty (A.D.635). He was buried hastily and roughly. Later, Huiwang of Hami sent someone to build a tomb for him in the Star Gorge.
The tomb of Gaisi is oriented south and north. It’s in the structure of wood and earth and in the form of pavilion. It’s about 10 meters high. The lower part is in the shape of square and the upper part is in the form of vault. The top lays out green glazed tiles. There are eaves of the veranda around. It is a mixture of the styles of Han Nationality and Uigur nationality. The tomb isn’t on a large scale, but it’s famous for burying a “Saint”. A lot of Muslims, who can’t go to Mecca to make a pilgrimage, come here to pilgrimage. The silk banners offered by pilgrims are hung on the wall inside the tomb and covered tier upon tier on the tomb of “Saint”.
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Bositeng Lake Turpan Attraction

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:59:57 +0000

Xinjiang China travel destination Bositeng Lake Turpan Attraction. View more details including related videos clips reviews comments and rating.

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Bositeng Lake, the largest inland freshwater lake in China, is known as the Hawaii of Xinjiang. It is 14 km away from Bohu County, 1,084 meters above sea level. It occupies a total area of 1,084 square kilometers, east to west 55 kilometers in length and north to south 25 kilometers in breadth.
Being there, you can enjoy the picturesque lake surrounded by white snow mountain, sparkling lake water, oasis, desert, odd birds and so on. Tens of thousands of people are intoxicated by the splendid scenery. That’s why it is highly praised as a pearl in desert.
Mostly, in summer, the lake is dotted with fishing boats as well as leisurely-flying birds; in golden autumn, reeds are shaken by the wind, while the wild geese are swimming among them; in winter, the lake is just like a silver mirror displaying scenery of the northern border area of China.
In recent years, a lot of scenic spots have been established, such as Lotus Lake, Love Lake and so on. The lake still provides yacht, water skiing, lakeside beach and other entertainment activities. Apart from appreciating the spectacular landscape of lake and hill, you could also have special feast of fish by the lake.
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Golden Sand Beach Bayan Gol Attraction

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:59:57 +0000

Liaoning China travel destination Golden Sand Beach Bayan Gol Attraction. View more details including related videos clips reviews comments and rating.

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Heshuo Golden Sand Beach Tourism District is located in the north of Yanqi county, Heshuo county of Bayan gol Mongolian Municipality in Xinjiang. It is in the north-east bank of Bositeng Lake, the biggest interior fresh water, and is 369 kilometers from Urumqi. It is one of the well-known scenic areas of “Five Areas and Three Routes” which belong to the development strategy of tourism resources made by Xinjiang Uygur municipality. It is also a summer tourism resort in Xinjiang, whose outdoor bathing place is with the material of golden fine sand on the ground, thus got the name” Golden Sand Beach”. Here the lake water is limpid and many seagulls are circling on the sea, which is also called “Hawaii of Xinjiang”.
You can get to West Sea seashore – Golden Sand Beach from the west part of Wushentala village for 23 kilometers. Watching it at a glance, you can see ten thousand hectares of flat lake and connection of the sky and the sea. The silvery sand is very fine and soft, and the slow slope of 1.7 % lake and the sand beach with the length of 2000 meters and the width of 60 meters, which has just provided a natural bathing place for people to swim and play with water here. Taking a yacht to the center of the lake, you can see the towering mountains covered with ice and snow in the distance of the north; you can also overlook the fluctuated sand mountains with the coexistence of both sand and water in the south, which is very mysterious. The long blue water and lots of fishing boats make kind of sky-blue tender feelings. The sunshine, the sand beach and the ocean waves here are all very special attractions in the West Sea. It is distributed nearby many reed marshes with green waves of reeds, which has become the paradise of water birds. The crisscross water routes in the reed marshes, cloud-like green waves as well as the flying and singing water birds all create a beautiful ink landscape painting, just as was said in a poem “ the growing grass, flat lake as well as flying egret”. At present, Golden Sand Beach Club Ma Lan Holiday Village has been open to the tourists.
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Kizilgaha Beacon Tower Kuche Attraction

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:59:57 +0000

Xinjiang China travel destination Kizilgaha Beacon Tower Kuche Attraction. View more details including related videos clips reviews comments and rating.

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Nanati Grassland Bayan Gol Attraction

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:59:57 +0000

Jiangxi China travel destination Nanati Grassland Bayan Gol Attraction. View more details including related videos clips reviews comments and rating.

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Shi Hezi Army Reclamation Museum Shihezi Attraction

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:59:57 +0000

Chongqing China travel destination Shi Hezi Army Reclamation Museum Shihezi Attraction. View more details including related videos clips reviews comments and rating.

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There is a house on the south of the park at the interjections of Shi Hezi City, that was the former residence of the 22nd regiment. It is called “Tao Shiyue Mansion”. At the end of 1994, the culture office of Shi Hezi adopted it and did repair work, and it became Shi Hezi Army Reclamation Museum, it was officially opened to the tourists in October, 1995.
The museum covers an area of 460 square meters. The museum is divided into three exhibition halls, the hall on the left side of the entrance is the first exhibition hall, and the theme is “the ancient Shi Hezi”, the unearthed earthenware pots, stoneware, fossil, bronze ware are exhibited in this hall. The fossil of eight-toe horse has a history of 3,000,000 years, it provide a clue for searching the traces of primitive man in Shi Hezi. The discovery of stone arrowhead is a valuable clue for the archaeological studies in Xinjiang. Turn right at the entrance, you’ll see the second exhibition hall, in this hall, you can see the development of reclamation. Hundreds of farming tools, clothes that people wore and articals of everyday use that people used during the reclamation period are exhibited in this hall, it shows the history and development of reclamation, and the process that how Shi Hezi became a modern garden city from a deserted gobi desert . Next to the second hall is the third hall, the theme is “ extending footsteps”, the photo of the soldiers who did reclamation work, and the photo of the leaders of central government are exhibited in this hall the photos were taken when they visited Shi Hezi to inspect the reclamation work, the number of the photos reach more than 80. Reclamation Museum shows the development of Shi Hezi, especially the cultivation process of the lastest 40 years. From a certain sense, the museum is a miniature of Xinjiang production and Construction Regiment, it is also a window of Xinjiang Reclamation work.
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Thousand Buddha Caves of Tuyuq Valley Turpan Attraction

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:59:57 +0000

Shandong China travel destination Thousand Buddha Caves of Tuyuq Valley Turpan Attraction. View more details including related videos clips reviews comments and rating.

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The same as Christianity from Europe, Buddhism spread into China from India via the ancient Silk Road. And Buddhism played a vital role in ancient China. Some people claim that the art of Dunhuang is the art of Buddhism. So Thousand Buddha Caves of Tuyuq Valley, located amid the valley, is one of three major Buddhist Grottoes in Xinjiang. It was listed by the autonomous region as a conservation unit in 1957.
Thousand Buddha Caves of Tuyuq Valley is without a doubt the world’s extraordinary gallery of Buddhist art: a gallery whose magnificent murals and stucco sculptures were not collected from far distant regions, but created locally in a period of nearly a thousand years. Moreover, there is a particular cave contained a sealed library whose contents consisting of written documents, silk paintings and woodblock prints. Many pavilions, towers, temples, pagodas, palaces, courtyards, towns and bridges in the murals provide valuable materials for the study of Chinese architecture. Other paintings depict Chinese and foreign musical performances, dancing and acrobatics.
Over the past 1,700 years, the caves stood the test of natural damage and man-made destruction. Just now there are 94 caves, only 8 incomplete frescos. Those survived grotto murals, which are still demonstrating the appeal of the ancient civilization, have been attracting many art experts and scholars to study on the history of Buddhism and Buddhist art from around the world. These precious relics are of great historical and scientific value!
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Xinjiang Silk Road Museum Urumqi Attraction

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:59:57 +0000

Shanxi China travel destination Xinjiang Silk Road Museum Urumqi Attraction. View more details including related videos clips reviews comments and rating.

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The museum covers an area of 5850 square meters. There are three special halls and four basic exhibition halls, which are comprehensive hall, ethic groups’ hall, grassland arts hall and jade culture hall. Through those displaying articles, one can have some knowledge about nomadism culture and the history of west regions in Tang and Han Dynasties; one can also enjoy silk arts as well as huge rock paintings about generative adoration in ancient times.
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