Kuqa: The Revitalized Oasis on the Silk Road

Today, we’ll introduce a somewhat overlooked oasis in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Kuqa, which was located in the ancient state of Qiuci, was an important stop along the Silk Road, and now residents there are revitalizing its outstanding legacy.

Transcript

Kuqa: The Revitalized Oasis on the Silk Road

Today, we’ll introduce a somewhat overlooked oasis in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Kuqa, which was located in the ancient state of Qiuci, was an important stop along the Silk Road, and now residents there are revitalizing its outstanding legacy.

A hit TV show that premiered on China Central Television earlier this year has made northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region a new top-tier tourism destination among young people this past summer. Tourists attracted by the show even went beyond Xinjiang, pouring into neighboring countries like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

The eight-episode show called To the Wonder is adapted from writer Li Juan’s prose collection of the same title. It tells the story of Li Wenxiu, a young woman who returned to her hometown of Altay Prefecture in northern Xinjiang to live with her mother after failing in her dream of becoming a writer and having setbacks at work. There, she found the meaning of life – and love.

The show manages to covert the collection of stylized essays into an idyllic story of individual growth while introducing the heartwarming lives of local residents. The magnificent natural scenery and unique folk culture depicted in the show are what tugged at the heartstrings of the audience and triggered a tourism boom in Altay and in Xinjiang.

Besides its emphasis on Xinjiang’s diverse natural scenery, the Xinjiang tourism industry is seizing this opportunity to tap into local historical resources to inject a more cultural vibe.

Kuqa, an oasis city in southwest Xinjiang, was previously best known as the end of the Duku Highway, a section of scenic mountainous along China’s National Highway 217, spanning over 500 kilometers between Dushanzi and Kuqa. A major road linking northern and southern Xinjiang, the highway is famous for its spectacular natural scenery including grasslands, forests, and even glaciers.

In mid-July, the Qiuci Wei and Jin Ancient Tomb Site Museum was opened in Kuqa. As is becoming common among museums in China these days, the museum has created digital exhibitions, virtual reality experiences, interactive screens and more to present the way people lived in ancient Qiuci.

Kuqa is located at a juncture along the ancient Silk Road and was known by the name of Qiuci in ancient times. The state of Qiuci was one of 36 in a vast area that was called the Western Regions during the Han Dynasty, which existed from 202 BCE to 220 CE. The Western Regions encompassed all areas west of the Yumen Pass in northwest China’s Gansu Province, including present-day Xinjiang and parts of Central Asia.

Since the Han Dynasty, various imperial governments began to build strategic military defense systems in Qiuci. As part of the ancient Great Wall defense system, the Kizilgaha Beacon Tower on the outskirts of Kuqa, for example, played a vital role in safeguarding passage of the Silk Road and improving stability and development in the Western Regions.

Moreover, Qiuci is the only place in the world where the four ancient cultures— Chinese, Indian, Persian and Greek— interacted and fused with one another. A splendid Qiuci culture was created during its 1,000 years of prosperity; people there enjoyed music, dance, folk customs, fine arts, literature, and grottoes. However, the city was lost to history with almost all of its city walls destroyed by floods. Today, what remains to testify of the ancient state is only a plain mound – a mere 2 meters in height and about 20 meters long, surrounded by modern high-rise buildings.

The Qiuci Wei and Jin Ancient Tomb Site Museum is built on the actual site of a tomb complex discovered in 2007 during the construction of a road. The tomb complex consists of 15 brick chambers dating back to the Wei and Jin dynasties during the 3rd and 5th centuries. According to archaeologists, the tomb owners could have been any of three types of people: local Qiuci nobles who were influenced by the culture of the Central Plains region; military officers stationed there to guard the imperial frontier; or wealthy merchants conducting trade along the ancient Silk Road.

The 15 tomb chambers were built in consistence with the brick chamber tombs in the style of the Han Dynasty found in the Central Plains region, showing clear features of tomb doors, corridors and burial chambers. The doors are adorned with carvings of traditional Chinese mythical creatures, such as the green dragon, white tiger, red bird and black warrior, representing power, victory, prosperity and auspiciousness.

Some of the tomb owners were buried with coins in their mouths or hands, a reflection of the burial customs in the Central Plains region. And although nearly all the tombs had been robbed sometime prior to being excavated, still a considerable number of artifacts survived, including glazed pottery jars, bronze mirrors, gold-gilt iron hairpins and iron knives, many of which were made using the techniques of the Central Plains region.

According to Wu Yong, researcher at the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, the Wei and Jin dynasties were a period of great migration and integration of various ethnic groups in China, and the influence of Central Plains culture on the Western Regions was more profound than that of the Han Dynasty. The tombs have thus provided a valuable testament to the close relations and vibrant interactions between China and the Western Regions.

As early as the 3rd century, Buddhism had been introduced in Qiuci via the Silk Road. As the first stop of Buddhism’s entry into China, the Qiuci Grottoes are even older than those in Dunhuang Mogao in northwest China’s Gansu Province.

Qiuci Grottoes are a collective name for over 20 grottoes scattered in the ancient Qiuci State. During the thousand years since their completion, the caves have witnessed the rise and fall of Buddhism. Now more than 700 caves and 20,000 square meters of mural paintings remain, serving as proof of the once splendid Qiuci culture and the close exchanges between China and other regions along the Silk Road. 

Among them, the largest are the Kizil Caves, located 69 kilometers west of Kuqa. Built between the 3rd and 8th centuries, the Kizil Caves are believed to be the earliest Buddhist cave complex in China. In 2014, the site was listed as a World Heritage Site as part of the Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang’an-Tianshan Corridor.

The Kizil Caves comprise 339 caves carved into the cliff of a mountain extending two kilometers from east to west. Inside the caves, there remain a total of 4,000 square meters of mural paintings.

The murals depict religious themes such as scenes from the life of the Buddha, as well as day-to-day life along the various routes of the Silk Road, including stories of merchants, travelers, musicians, and farmers. These paintings have served as important evidence for the close commercial, cultural and religious interaction, exchange, and transmission along the Silk Road.

For example, the painting in Cave No. 17 tells the story of a caravan of 500 merchants trapped in a dark valley. Anxious of being robbed in the dark, the head of the merchants wrapped his arms with felt, dipped them in oil and lit them to guide his fellow merchants in the dark. After seven days and nights, they finally walked out of the valley. If you look closely, the merchants were wearing white hats and robes with turned-down collars. These are clothes worn by Sogdians who usually lived in West Asia and played an important part in trade along the Silk Road.

More evidence of the thriving commercial and cultural exchanges come from the materials used to make these mural paintings. One of the most notable features of the Kizil murals is the widespread use of the color blue. The blue pigment was made from lazurite, a mineral produced in Afghanistan and also used in many cultural relics in Europe and in Egypt. Furthermore, the styles of the paintings are clear reflections of the artistic influence of Greco-Roman world, the Indian Subcontinent, as well as the Iranian Plateau.

Unfortunately, many more mural paintings in the Kizil Caves were removed by foreign explorers in the early 20th century, including British archaeologist Sir Aurel Stein and German Orientalist Albert von le Coq. Fragments of those murals are now in the collection of the Museum of Asian Art in Germany, as well as museums in the UK, Russia, Japan, Korea and the US.

In late August, a 1,500 square-meter Qiuci Music and Dance Experience Center was opened to showcase the beauty and mystery of Qiuci Grottoes by leveraging up-to-date technologies such as 3D scanning and digital reconstruction. Visitors are able to savor the profound connotations of 107 murals and 86 caves up close, by taking advantage of various experience modes, including panoramic walking theater, interactive imaging, and digital canvas.

With these new initiatives, the once thriving hub at the juncture of the ancient Silk Road is on the way to being revitalized, with its many outstanding legacies reflecting the commercial interactions, cultural influences, as well as the transmission of religion across Eurasia.

Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Ni Wei, translator Yang Guang, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.