Original title: An important witness in the history of Chinese civilization for more than 5,000 years
On July 14, General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed during his inspection of the Jiaohe Ancient City, a world cultural heritage site in Turpan, Xinjiang, that the Jiaohe Ancient City is the main traffic route of the Silk Road, an important witness to the history of Chinese civilization for more than 5,000 years, and has important historical value. It is necessary to strengthen the protection and utilization of cultural relics and the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage, continuously expand the international influence of Chinese culture, and enhance national pride and cultural self-confidence.
Jiaohe Ancient City is an important urban site on the Silk Road from the 2nd century BC to the 14th century AD, and has the most complete preservation, the longest duration and the largest ancient urban architectural complex of raw earth structures in the world. For more than 1,000 years, it has been the political, economic, military, cultural and tuntian activity center of Turpan in the ancient western region of the mainland, and so far the ancient city area has preserved the site of Gaotai City and the precious relics of YarNaiz Gou (east) and Ishgole ditch (west), Gaotai cemetery, grottoes and monasteries, salt mountains, paleolithic sites and so on.
Jiaohe Ancient City has witnessed the prehistoric human history of the ancient Western Regions of the mainland, the history of ancient Cheshi, Gaochang and other civilizations, witnessed the extraordinary process of the Western Han Dynasty in unifying the Western Regions and setting up the Western Regions Capital Protectorate, witnessed the Tang Dynasty's national governance wisdom of setting up the Anxi Protectorate to manage the Western Regions and continuously carrying out cultural and commercial exchanges, and demonstrated the spread, exchange and integration of the commercial and trade culture, construction technology, ethnic culture, religious culture and so on in the cities along the Silk Road. It can be said that the ancient Jiaohe City has played a very important role in promoting the history of civilization in Xinjiang, the continuous operation of the oasis Silk Road that benefits the people of the East and the West, and the consolidation and development of the unified multi-ethnic state of the mainland.
Empirical history – Xinjiang is an integral part of the mainland's territory
Jiaohe Ancient City is located on the terrace between the two riverbeds of the Yar Naizi Ditch, about 10 kilometers west of Turpan City, Xinjiang, and the 100-meter-wide river channel diverts from the north side of the terrace and merges into one in the south, becoming a natural barrier to the city site. The terrace is about 30 meters above the surrounding riverbed, and the surrounding area is like a knife and axe, and it is dangerous to the heights. The site above the terrace is about 1650 meters long and 300 meters wide at its widest point, with a total area of about 37 hectares, and looks like a willow leaf from the air.
Referring to many archaeological achievements and relevant historical documents, the historical and cultural development of Jiaohe Ancient City can be roughly divided into five stages.
As the dawn of the prehistoric civilization of the ancient Western Regions, it is an important area for ancient human life. According to archaeological excavations, in the late Paleolithic period, the terrace where Jiaohe City is located became one of the areas where early human life in Xinjiang was located. The two types of cultural relics in the Western Terrace of Jiaohegou and its surrounding areas, represented by stone leaves, end scrapers and fine stone tools, push the history of human activities in Jiaohe District to 30,000 to 40,000 years ago.
As an important hub of the Silk Road - an important city connecting the Central Plains and the vast areas of the Western Regions. During the Western Han Dynasty, Jiaohe City was originally the political center of the cheshi people in the ancient western region, and Ban Gu's "Book of Han and The Biography of the Western Regions" says, "Cheshi Qianguo, Wang Zhi Jiaohe City, the river water diverts around the city, so it is called Jiaohe River", this document records the status of Jiaohe City and its geographical characteristics. After Zhang Qian "chiseled the Western Regions" to open up the Silk Road, silk, lacquerware and iron tools from the Central Plains spread to the Western Regions, central Asia, West Asia and even the Mediterranean coast, and horses, walnuts, grapes, etc. from the Western Regions were also introduced to the Central Plains, and Jiaohe City had become an important hub on the Silk Road at that time. In 60 BC, the central government of the Han Dynasty established the Western Regions Capital Protectorate, the highest institution exercising state power, in the Western Regions, and set up the Pengji School of Tuntian in Jiaohe City. Under the management of the central government of the Han Dynasty, the people of all ethnic groups in the Western Regions and the Tunken soldiers actively developed and built the Western Regions, thus bringing the economic and cultural development of the Western Regions into a brand-new period.
Judging from the archaeological data, the development of Jiaohe City in this period is mainly concentrated in the south and middle of the terrace, and gradually developed to the north, and the construction technology is mainly based on raw soil excavation, combined with rammed construction, adobe masonry and other methods, forming a peculiar high-platform urban architectural cultural landscape. The two terraces of Jiaohegou West and North Gougou were used as cemeteries for the Cheshi people, and archaeologists excavated the cemeteries and found a number of precious cultural relics such as gold crowns, silverware, and bone carvings.
As an important stage for ethnic integration, it promotes the formation of a pattern of pluralism and integration of the Chinese nation. During the southern and northern dynasties governing the western region, the former Liang regime established the Gaochang state in Turpan, and the political, economic, and cultural centers of the Turpan Basin gradually developed to the east, and Jiaohe City became the Jiaohe County under Gaochang, which was the first time that the mainland extended the county management model to the western region. During this period, Jiaohe City developed rapidly, including various ethnic groups that flowed due to the trade activities of the Silk Road, as well as early residents Cheshi and Han Chinese who migrated west. The mixed and integrated of various ethnic groups, the collision and blending of various ethnic cultures, especially the traditional Chinese culture such as Confucianism and Taoism, as well as the Central Plains folk customs and foods such as paper-cutting and dumplings, are prevalent in the Turpan Basin, and a large number of classic literary readings have been introduced. The "Biography of the Northern History and Western Regions" has Gao chang "characters also with Huaxia, and also uses the Book of Hu. There are records of "Mao Poems", "Analects", "Filial Piety", and "Disciples of Scholars, And Professors of Xiang", which reflects the recognition and admiration of the excellent traditional Chinese culture in the Western Regions.
It can be said that at this stage, whether it is language and writing, living customs, cultural inheritance and religious beliefs, Jiaohe City is closely related to the Central Plains, has oneness, and is the empirical evidence of the pattern of the Chinese nation and Chinese culture.
As the political center and military outpost of the governance of the Western Regions, it further strengthens the identification of all ethnic groups with the great motherland, the Chinese nation and Chinese culture. During the Tang Dynasty's governance of the Western Regions, the central government set up the first military palace in charge of the Western Regions, the Anxi Capital Protectorate, in Jiaohe City, opening up a new era in the governance of the Western Regions. The establishment of the Anxi Protectorate in Jiaohe City embodies the Tang Dynasty's political pursuit of inheriting the "great unification" of the Han Dynasty, which is good at summarizing the achievements of the early Chinese culture, and is also good at absorbing foreign cultures under the new situation of great unification, and continues to implement the central dynastic decrees in the western region, maintain stability in the western regions and the smooth flow of the Silk Road.
During this period, Jiaohe City presented a scene of merchants from all over the world, prosperous international trade, and unprecedented cultural exchanges between various ethnic groups. At that time, many People from the Western Regions were still serving in the Government of the Tang Dynasty, which was a true portrayal of the history of China jointly created by all ethnic groups. For example, in the tomb of the Sogdian Kang family excavated from the Jiaohegou West Cemetery, the epitaph inscription of Kang Yanyan, the "leader of the soldiers", records: "(Tang) Long Shuo three years (662) Kang Yan wish inscription, which first came from China and was relocated to Jiaohe County", indicating that he completely regarded himself as a member of the Chinese nation.
As a relic of the Silk Road - decline. In the 14th century, the Black Fire Fighters launched a large-scale war against Turpan, capturing Jiaohe and Gaochang, and after years of war, Jiaohe City gradually declined and eventually became a ruin. During the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, Chen Cheng, an emissary from the Western Regions, reopened the Silk Road, and the Jiaohe and Gaochang he saw were already deserted cities. Chen Cheng wrote in the poem "Ya'er City": "In the exchange of two waters in the Shahe River, the sky sets the head of the dangerous city. The cliffs and cliffs are dangerous, and the abandoned sites of the wasteland are several spring and autumn. Qiang'er should resign from the horse, and Hu Nufeng is not ashamed. The envoy went straight from the western region, and the flowers and embankments on the shore were not left behind. ”
The history of the development and change of jiaohe ancient city clearly proves that Xinjiang has been an inseparable part of the mainland territory since ancient times. After the Han Dynasty, successive Dynasties of the Central Plains were strong and sometimes weak, and the relationship with the Western Regions was sparse and dense, and the central government's administration of the Xinjiang region was tight and loose, but any dynasty regarded the Western Regions as an inherent territory, exercised its dominance, and safeguarded the common interests of all ethnic groups.
Selected as a World Cultural Heritage, highlighting the unique value of Chinese culture
As one of the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units on the mainland and an ancient city on the Silk Road that enjoys a reputation at home and abroad, Jiaohe Ancient City provides important information for the study of ethnicity, religion, culture and architectural technology of cities along the ancient Silk Road, and has high historical value, artistic value and scientific value.
In modern times, some scholars at home and abroad have successively conducted surveys or test excavations in the ancient city of Jiaohe. From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, explorers from Russia, Germany, Britain, Japan, France, Sweden and other countries carried out investigation and excavation in the ancient city of Jiaohe in the name of scientific investigation. From 1928 to 1930, Huang Wenbi, a famous archaeologist on the mainland and a historian and geographer in northwest China, inspected the ancient city of Jiaohe, presided over the excavation of the ancient tomb area in Gouxi, and then collated and published works such as "Gaochang Brick Collection", "Gaochang Pottery Collection", "Turpan Archaeological Record" and so on. In 1956, teachers and students of the first training class for archaeologists in Xinjiang carried out archaeological excavations in the ancient city of Jiaohe, cleaned up 25 houses such as monasteries, unearthed more than 700 cultural relics such as epitaphs, pottery, Buddha statues, costumes, coins, etc., and comprehensively surveyed and mapped the floor plan of the ancient city of Jiaohe. In 1994, the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology excavated the cheshi nobleman or Wang Ling cemetery on the Jiaohe No. 1 terrace, conducted a trial excavation of the jiaohe No. 2 terrace tomb, and also excavated the east gate of the ancient city, the No. 2 residence, the northwest small temple, and the underground temple. From 1994 to 1996, the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Waseda University of Japan twice cooperated to conduct archaeological surveys and excavations on the western terrace of Jiaohegou, and found dozens of early tombs and tombs from the Gaochang Uighur period. In 2004, the Turpan Regional Cultural Relics Bureau conducted rescue archaeology at the Gouxi Cemetery.
After thousands of years of ups and downs, the main structure of the architectural layout of jiaohe ancient city has been miraculously preserved. The current scale of the ancient city of Jiaohe is largely a remnant of the Tang Dynasty. During the Tang Dynasty, Jiaohe City gradually developed from east to west, forming an urban pattern of two vertical trunk roads and one horizontal trunk road, and the urban pattern characteristics of the dual axis showed the exchange and interaction between the Central Plains and Central Asian civilizations. The architectural form is also similar to the Tang Dynasty Chang'an City, and many of the architectural relics preserved so far are divided into cliffs, city gates, streets, official offices, residences, defense facilities, Buddhist buildings, tombs, etc. according to function and nature, reflecting that the ancient Jiaohe City was a city that integrated politics, life, religion and military.
As the world's largest and oldest and most complete preserved raw earth architecture city, the construction method of Jiaohe Ancient City is extremely unique, mainly including "rammed earth construction method", "pressing and convexing method", "adobe method", "land reduction and wall retention method" and "mud chopping method". Among them, the "land reduction wall retention method" is mostly used for building houses, the "mud mining method" is mostly used to build religious buildings such as monasteries and pagodas, the "mud mining method" is still adopted by the Xinjiang Uyghurs, and the "pressure and convex method" has a certain correlation with the traditional cave excavation methods in Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia, etc. These rich architectural techniques show the exchange of architectural skills and urban culture between the western region and the Central Plains. The tombs in jiaohe ancient city have a variety of shapes, including the vertical pit tombs of the Cheshi people, the cave tombs of the slope tombs of the Han people, etc., and the Uighur and Han chinese characters in the city sites and tombs reflect the exchanges and exchanges between the Han and Uighur ethnic groups. The location of the city site and the cemetery shows that people were good at using natural hazards as the city's defense system and living space at that time, reflecting the wisdom and creativity of the ancient working people on the mainland.
As an important witness to the development of Chinese civilization and the exchange of civilizations between the East and the West, in the past hundred years, especially since the founding of New China, the archaeology, research and protection of the ancient city of Jiaohe on the mainland, as well as the full recognition and interpretation of its diversity value, have finally won the recognition of the world. In 2014, Jiaohe Ancient City was successfully inscribed on the World Heritage List as a site in the "Silk Road: Road Network of the Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor", a joint heritage project of China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Jiaohe Ancient City carries historical empirical values, urban planning layout and architectural scientific values, social and cultural values, etc., which can not only explain the pattern of the Chinese nation's pluralism and integration to the world, but also show the process of friendly exchanges and common achievements between Chinese civilization and other civilizations, reflect and transmit China's cultural tradition of adhering to peaceful development, benevolence with neighbors and mutual learning among civilizations since ancient times, and is of great significance for contemporary enhancement of understanding and respect between Chinese culture and different cultures of the world.
Innovative integration of culture and tourism, promoting cultural development The ancient city site shines in the contemporary era
Jiaohe Ancient City is one of the earliest national key cultural relics protection units in Xinjiang to explore and practice the integration and development of cultural relics protection and tourism. As early as 2002, the Turpan Cultural Relics Bureau prepared relevant plans to explore the road of cultural relics protection and utilization with the national key cultural relics protection units such as Jiaohe Ancient City, Gaochang Ancient City, Baizi Creek Thousand Buddha Cave and Flame Mountain as the core.
From 2013 to 2017, the team of the Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage of Nanjing University was entrusted by the Turpan Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics to participate in the conservation and utilization of the Jiaohe Ancient City. Focusing on the four goals of excavating the value of the Jiaohe River, protecting the value of the Jiaohe River, creating the value of the Jiaohe River, and disseminating the value of the Jiaohe River, the working team proposed the concept of building the "Dajiaohe Relics Tourism Area" from the construction of the four systems of time series, spatial sequence, resource sequence and cultural sequence, and put forward the display concept of "three looks at the Jiaohe River" through the cultural exhibition hall, surrounding the large heritage area and going deep into the ruins city. According to this, the Turpan Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics has gradually improved the functional areas of the Jiaohe Ancient City Great Ruins Conservation Area, realized the organic integration of the inheritance of various functional areas in the historical context and the satisfaction of modern recreation and education functions, and has become the first practice of the strategy of tourism to revitalize Xinjiang.
In order to release more cultural tourism value of Jiaohe Ancient City, the Turpan Municipal Government and the Turpan Municipal Cultural Relics Bureau also jointly planned to centrally allocate tourism reception facilities in Jiaohe Ancient City outside the heritage buffer zone, transform traditional villages and build peasant resettlement areas, forming the space of Jiaohe Ancient Village and Jiaohe Town, which not only serves the tourism reception of Jiaohe Ancient City, but also promotes rural revitalization. Jiaohe Ancient Village takes the intangible cultural heritage of Turpan City as the main content, showing the "living culture" of the local multi-ethnic convergence and integration. Jiaohe Town is mainly to show the modern urban civilization and music and art in the process of oasis civilization. At the same time, visitors can also swim the Jiaohe River at night with traditional lanterns, pass through the ruins and broken walls, sit on the ground in front of the ruins of the Great Buddha Temple, and feel a pristine Night of The Jiaohe River.
The protection and utilization of the Ancient City of Jiaohe has given this thousand-year-old site a new brilliance, and has also made new contributions to the prosperity, economic development and social progress of Xinjiang's cultural undertakings. At present, under the guidance of national strategies such as cultural power and digital China and cultural xinjiang projects, the protection and utilization of Jiaohe Ancient City bears a more important mission and responsibility. First, it is necessary to let the Chinese culture carried by the Ancient City of Jiaohe be fully displayed and reach the hearts of the people, educate and guide the masses of all ethnic groups to establish a correct view of the country, history, nationality, culture and religion, and enhance their identification with the great motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the Communist Party of China, and socialism with Chinese characteristics; Second, we must pay attention to showing the spiritual identity of China's excellent traditional culture, empirically verify the diversified, inclusive and continuous development of Chinese civilization, and enhance the international dissemination and influence of Chinese culture; Third, we must explore the integration of culture and science and technology, vigorously implement the development strategy of "digital communication", and make positive contributions to xinjiang's promotion of the construction of cultural, scientific and educational centers in the core area of the Silk Road Economic Belt.
In the digital age, we should also boldly imagine and explore the "Jiaohe Metacosm". Imagine that one day in the future, the historical story, scientific knowledge, cultural connotation and other information of the ancient city of Jiaohe will be digitized, visualized, and scened, and when we wear somatosensory equipment, we can cross back to the prosperous Jiaohe City of the Han and Tang Dynasties, visit the scene of important historical events, and feel the creative vitality of the people of all generations and the determination of the Central Dynasty to firmly safeguard the reunification of the motherland; Feel the scene of Chinese and foreign merchants, monks and envoys in Jiaohe City; Feel the Silk Road music played by various ethnic groups in Jiaohe City with huqin pipa and Qiang flute. In short, the Jiaohe Ancient City still contains too much energy, waiting for us to recognize and activate!
(The author He Yun'ao is the director of the Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage of Nanjing University and a professor of the School of History, and Ma Tao is the director of the Cultural Tourism Research Center of the Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage of Nanjing University)