The Ancient City Gaochang

In 1115, Gaochang-Uigurian Kingdom was ruled by the Western Liao Dynasty. In the early 13th century, Mongolia sprang up. The King Baershuaerchen of Gaochang was willing to submit himself to the rule of Genghiskhan, and he was given preferential treatment by Mongolian Genghiskhan. In the whole ruling time of Mongolia, the social life of Gaochang had not changed too much.

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the field of the former Gaochang-Uigurian Kingdom was divided into 3 parts: Liucheng, Huozhou, and Turpan. In the 13th year (A.D.1448) during the ruling of the Emperor Zheng Tong of the Ming Dynasty, Turpan annexed Liucheng, Huozhou, and founded Turpan Kingdom, the king was called Shu Tan and the capital was Anlecheng (today’s the eastern suburbs of Turpan). At the end of the Ming Dynasty and at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the Junggar troop of the Western Mongoli sprang up, and Turpan Basin submitted to the authority of it. In the 24th year (1758) during the ruling of the Emperor Qian Long, the Qing Dynasty put down Junggar and established the Pizhan Shiwu Dacheng (today’s Shanshan County) to rule this place. And in the 46th year (A.D. 1781) during the ruling of the emperor Qian Long, it established Turpan Ting, which was subordinate to Anxidao of Gansu Province. After the Chinese Revolution of 1911, Turpan was changed from Ting to county. Before liberation, the explorers of the Tzarist Russia, Germany, England, Japan and some other countries were furtive to come here to dig and they stole a lot of precious historical relics, and after liberation, the Chinese people found some silver coins of the Dynasty Shashan of Persia, Yuan Long Quan Kiln Gallets and they also collected some images of Buddha, big pottery jars and so on, especially discovered the Slave Contract for Sell in Huihu language and Chinese together in Yuan Dynasty which has great historical value for exposing the situation of the owner of the temple exploiting the slaves.

The total area of the present site of the ancient city Gaochang is 2,00,000 square meters, and most of the city wall built by rammed earth survived, which shows a square shape. Its perimeter is about 5 kilometers, and you can look into the distance from the city, had Buttresses, the Earthen of West City Gate is still existed, and soil-building trace of some city gates has been kept completely. The whole city is divided into three parts, outer city, inner city and palace city, whose overall arrange is slightly similar to that of Chang’an City of the Tang Dynasty. There is a site of a temple in the southwest of the outer city, whose area is about 10,000 square meters. And its temple gate, square, palace hall, the high pagoda and the Buddha niche are kept intact. A.Regel, the explorer from Russia, reached the ancient city Gaochang in 1879. And he felt very surprised when he saw the high wall, magnificent arch city gate and the building with round roof. So he wrote in his investigation notes, “Those sites make you can’t help connecting, in your minds, the brilliant achievements on architectural art made by Greek and Roman in the ancient times.” (By A.Rgegl, a Russian. See 10th volume of the series in 1879, the Traveling Reports of Turpan, the Gotha Version). At the foot of the outer city’s wall, people can see the sites of city moat left by the ancients, which is a little lower than the ground nearby. There were battlements, also called Buttresses very near the outer fringe of the wall, which were established for defending the enemies’ attacks. From the plane figure of Gaochang drawn by a German explorer named A.Grunwedel in 1902, we can see that there were more than 70 battlements of this kind (Figure 2 of the Working Report about Engaging in Archaeological Studies Near Yi Du Outer City from 1902 to the Winter of 1903 drawn by A.Grunwedel. 1906 Germany Munich Version), but in 1963, the archaeologists of historical relics of Xinjiang found according to their actual exploration that the total amount of the remaining battlements was less than 15. The temples in the southwest part was numbered No.B of the monks room by A.Grunwedel. What he called “Temple of God” was the hall of Buddha in the temple and that high column was so-called ”Column of Buddha”. There still remain many layers of small niches near the south side, which can be provided for enjoying. From the style of pictures, we can know that Banbo’s frescoes must have belonged to the works of his later period. There are many sites around the temple. And maybe there are many workshops of handicraft and places of commerce, but it is a pity that they have been seriously destroyed.

According to the record of a German named Lecog in 1905, where was numbered “T” by A.Grunwedel near the eastern gate was a temple of Jing Jiao. The temple was composed of three connected houses. On one part of the picture, there was a scene of some believers whose facial characteristics belong to Uighur. They were dressed in faded waterproof garments with palm branches in their hands, standing there devoutly to meet Jesus’s entry into Jarusalem. There also was something like iron cross the branch of axe shape in some pictures. The European researchers consider those are the typical characteristics of Jing Jiao in the Mid-Asia.

The inner city is in the middle of the outer city and some books call it the inner city. There is a high stage, on which there is a building with the height of 15 meters that is commonly called “Khan Castle”. Observing the photo of the building taken by the European explorers in the early 20th century, we can know that the building is a two-layer pagoda and there is a Buddha niche on it, but we cannot distinguish its true features now. “There is a platform with 2 steps in the west of the fort, on which there are some rooms with vault. Its walls are very thick and there remains fresco whose contents show us the living scenes in the palace.” And “This is the rare example of large secular living scene that is extant in Turpan regions.” (A.Regel)

To the northwest corner of “Khan Castle”, there was a fortlike high building which was piled up with earth block and whose plane was like a hilt across a ditch. And this building might be the site of Buddhism. One exploring term of Germany found temple sites of Manicheism at the south of Khan Castle. In China, Manicheism was called Ming Jiao, Mingzun Jiao, which was founded by Mani of the Susan Kingdom in the third century B.C and whose creed assimilated the ideas of Christianity and Buddhism on the basis of absorbing the dualism of good and evil of Parseeism. This architectural complex was on a small high stage, which was a 75-metre-square courtyard and there were four architectural complexes: there were some palace halls with round roofs in the north, and there were small rooms with vaults on each side of the palace hall; There were some collapsed rooms in the east, one of which was round roof and people unearthed many Buddhist scripture rolls in this room; There was a 6-metre-square house with a big round roof in the west. In the south, there stood three rooms in a vertical line, which covered an area of 15-metre-square and whose vertical length was about 30 meters. All the buildings were decorated with beautiful frescoes, some were paved with gold leaf and some were paved with white plaster on the ground. The scripture books of Dunhuang recorded, “Temple is divided into five parts: one for Buddhist scripture rolls; one for prepare; one for sermon; one for sick bay, one for living room. Don’t permit building the private room or others by self.” Lecog said, “There is a big fresco in the hall of prepare whose key character is Mani, and he is drawn to be much taller that those surrounding holy disciples chosen by the God. He is dressed in a white robe with a broad brim and collar circle, but it is a pity that it has no body and only a head and a shoulder are preserved; he is wearing the bishop crown of a big neckline upward on his head. And there are gold-plated leaf-like decorations on the crown, which are tied to the jaw with a red belt. And there are many halo-like “Holy Disciple” books, tier upon tier, around him, and he is facing toward the God. The facial shape of the crowd around him is Huihu-Turks’, their long hair drapes over their shoulders, whiskers are short, eyes are wide and oblique, mouths are small and red. They are dressed in the white robe, on which there are pleats…” So we can know that it wasn’t Buddhism, but this site was destroyed and didn’t exist at present.

The palace city lies in the very north of the whole city, and it has comparatively many sites for living that cannot be determined at present. Yan Wenru came here to explore in 1961 and he made the following records, “From the remaining sites of the base which is comparatively about 3.5 to 4 meters high, we can tell that there is a site of the base about 4-story-hall high on the axis which is opposite to the towering buildings in the castle. There are sites of city gates in the slight east of the city wall at the back of the sites of the base. In the east of the sites of the base are 7 comparatively good sites and in the west 4. The layer of the rammed earth with the thickness of about 35 to 48 centimeters of those sites is roughly the same as that of the latest city wall of Taidu of Yuan and the ancient city Kuqa. So we can infer that the base of the palace city might be built in middle or later period of the Gaochang-Uigurian. (the Site of Gaochang of Turpan by Mr. Yan Wenru from the Cultural Relic, combined issue of the 7th and 8th, 1962).

About the reason why Gaochang City was discarded, some people think that maybe it is because Haidu, the grandson of a Mongolia noble Wokuotaikhan, and Duwa, the grandson of Chahetaikhan, were unsatisfied which was Kublai enthroning the throne of Khan, so they invaded all over the Tianshan Mountains time and again and attacked Gaochang some times, so it waned in continuous flames of war. And there are also some people thinking that maybe it is because of the struggle of force between Mohammedanism and Buddhism, which made this ancient city discarded.