In 1980, Chinese archaeologist Mu Shunying found an ancient corpse in Lop Nur and was historically known as the "Loulan Beauty". This is the earliest ancient corpse unearthed in Xinjiang so far, with a history of about 3800 years. Because in such a period of time, people know very little about this area, so there are many mysteries in the body of "Loulan Beauty", where her descendants went and how they lived, is also one of the focuses of people's attention.
The best and quickest way to understand the social life of a region is to understand the written word there, and the written record is the most true and powerful. In the era of the "Loulan Beauty", people living in the Lop Nur region and even in the southern Xinjiang Basin of present-day Xinjiang certainly did not have their own script, but this does not mean that people after them would not have written words.
The Shulu script is one of the earliest ethnic ancient scripts used in the Xinjiang region of China, also known as the "Book of The Lu" and the "Book of the Standing House". It is an abbreviation for the Sanskrit word for "佉虱吒", which comes from an ancient translation of Buddhist scriptures and means "donkey lips". According to legend, it was created by an ancient Indian immortal called "donkey lips", the image is strange, and later scholars have examined that its most original meaning is actually "words like the shape of donkey lips".
It is said that this script originated in ancient Gandhara and was later popular in a wide area of Central Asia, and was an important trade and Buddhist language on the Silk Roads. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, with the increasing collapse of the Kushan Dynasty, The Kushan refugees moved into the Tarim Basin, and the Luwen began to spread in Khotan, Shanshan and other places. At this time, The Luwen had been dead for a hundred years in its birthplace, but was resurrected in Nya, Loulan and other places in the Tarim Basin, but after the 5th century AD, it mysteriously disappeared. Since then, no other country or region in the world has ever used this script.
The British explorer Stein discovered the dead Gallowin in 1901 at the Nya ruins in the Taklamakan Desert. In Stein's eyes, it was a tadpole-like script, written from right to left on wooden mu, which was difficult to read, but it was a script frequently used by the Nyyars in ancient times.
Professor Lin Meicun of Peking University, the first archaeologist in China to master the Shulu script, wrote both in Latin and directly translated into Chinese. Cracking the Luwen gradually removed the historical fog of this area, revealing some of its true nature and origin, and also presenting the living conditions and social status of women in this area to the world.
From the excavated Records of the Luwen, it seems that the social status of women living in the cities of western China in ancient times was not lower than that in the Central Plains. After the death of their parents, they can divide their parents' property equally with their brothers in the family, or they can inherit the land independently as heirs to the land, rent the land for rent, and sell the land or exchange it for other property. For example, in a Document of Theraku excavated from the site of Nyaya, such a case of land sale and purchase is recorded:
A woman named Kosenaya bought a piece of land from Shigayedo in exchange for land. She can use the land to sow seeds, to farm, or to give away people. Although her sons disapproved of the deal, it was approved by the government. The royal scriveners and monks gave her the relevant documents, which were valid for 100 years.
They even had the "right to dispose" of their own women, such as a Loulan mother who sold her daughter to a scribe and left such a record:
This is a note about the girl Smith, which was properly preserved by the scribe Luo Wuso. It is hereby celebrated on 12 February 11 of the reign of His Majesty the Great King and Son of Heaven, His Majesty Abejevaga. There was a woman named Lebi Andi and her son, Named Bowl. He was willing to sell the girl Smith to the scribe Robusso in times of famine. The price is one year old camel with one peak. The Camel has now been received by The Rybi and the Bowl. And gave the sheep four heads. Therefore, Luo Wusuo now has the right to do whatever he wants to girls, and can scold, blind, tie up and give people.
Secondly, it has been observed that in this area, when a man marries a wife, he needs to send a dowry known as a "ransom" to his father-in-law's family. However, this dowry can be "owed" through verbal promises, provided that both men and women are voluntary, and if the man cannot afford to pay the "ransom", the woman's parents cannot force it. If the man and the woman are married and the man is unable to pay the bride price, then he will have to send his daughter to the tribe of the woman's parent in the future to "make up" for the lost population in the village.
Another point is more interesting, may be in order to stabilize the family, the local "law" for men and women eloping after marriage, but the punishment for men is significantly heavier than the woman, if the married woman elopes with her lover, the man has the right to go to the woman's parents to get back the "ransom" of the year, it seems that there is no other punishment. If the same happens to the man, not only will the man be punished for working in the woman's home, but even a camel will be used as compensation. Perhaps, at that time, the local desertification situation was already very serious, so people saw that camels were very expensive. People will compensate for the number of camels according to the severity of the mistakes made by the man.
In addition, people can also see that in the Wei and Jin dynasties, sexual customs in this area were very open, and "wife swapping" was very common. There are about two kinds of this situation, one is what was called "changing heads" in the past, that is, if a man marries a woman from his father-in-law's family, then his family must marry a woman to his father-in-law's family, and this measure forms the so-called "exchange". For example, in Loulan in the 3rd century, a mage named Sharibdoro married his adopted daughter Shishetye to the mage Bodhisattvavama. And Bhunavartiye, the daughter of Shishetye, was also married to the mage Ivaro Atamma. According to the historical situation, this kind of situation was by no means popular in the western region at that time, and even prevailed for a while in the later northern China.
Today, we must realize that this is clearly based on population growth and nothing else. (Text/Lu Sheng)