History of Xinjiang 丨Yingpan Ruins

Yingpan ruins

Kuruktag Mountain, meaning "Arid Mountain", is located on the northeastern edge of the Tarim Basin and is the northern boundary mountain of the mysterious land of Lop Nur . Historically, the beautiful Peacock River once flowed eastward with it, nourishing the oasis along the river.

On the desert Gobi between the southern foothills of Mount Kuruktag and the north bank of the Peacock River, about 130 kilometers southeast of present-day Yuli County in Xinjiang, there is a Yingpan site, which is a Han and Jin dynasty remains composed of a circular ancient city site, Buddhist temple, farmland and public cemetery, which archaeologist Mr. Huang Wenbi once presumed as the "former site of the Moshan State" in the Han Dynasty.

The Moshan Kingdom, that is, the mountain country of the thirty-six states in the Western Regions. According to the Book of Han and the Biography of the Western Regions, "Mountain country, go to Chang'an for 7,170 miles ... It is the hub of the ancient Silk Road in the west for 240 miles in the west, Yanqi 160 miles in the northwest, 260 miles in the west, and Shanshan in the southeast.

Since 1989, archaeologists have carried out many clean-up and rescue excavations of the Yingpan site, unearthing a large number of various precious cultural relics with distinct Chinese cultural characteristics.

During the Han and Jin Dynasties, all parts of the Western Regions maintained close ties with the Central Plains Dynasty, and were deeply influenced by the more developed Han culture, and a large number of Han cultural relics appeared in the Tombs of Yingpan, and the exquisite silk fabrics, fragments of the "壽" character brocade, dark clothes, lacquerware, bronze mirrors, coins, pottery and other cultural relics were unearthed, reflecting the strong characteristics of the Central Plains Han burial culture.

Tomb 15 of Yingpan Cemetery is the best preserved and most distinctive of the excavated cemeteries. The owner of the tomb is a male, with a head pillow and a hemp mask on his face, a pale yellow silk robe on the inside, and a double-sided robe and silk pants on the outside of the red earth on the human and animal tree pattern.

The chicken singing pillow, 46 cm long and about 8 cm high, has a pair of bird-to-beast face patterns and a four-sided continuous arabeze pattern, and the two ends of the pillow are sewn with four petal-shaped flower-leaf-like silk ornaments.

The robe is collared, right, the hem is split on both sides, and the red and yellow warp and weft are woven into an overlapping plain weave table, and the red ground is used for the robe surface of the human and animal tree, and the light yellow silk is used as the lining. Each area consists of six groups of pomegranate trees bearing fruit on the axis, with two opposite figures and animals. The figure is male, with bulging muscles, naked curly hair, high nose and big eyes, all holding shield spears, as a spear swing, stabbing posture; cattle and sheep are vividly shaped, opposite or opposite, the front hooves are in the air, the back hooves are on the ground, the back of the cow has a wheat ear pattern, the sheep body has a curly pattern, and the whole pattern presents the artistic characteristics of the fusion of Greek and Persian cultures.

The tomb's painted wooden coffin is also covered with a lion velvet carpet, which has a strong West Asian art style.

The history of Xinjiang is the gateway and intermediary for Chinese civilization to open to the west, and it is the important place for the exchange and dissemination of civilizations between the East and the West, and these exquisite cultural relics are historical evidence.

Source: CCTV

Edit: Xiang Rong