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A 2200+ years old city was rediscovered i

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    Posted: 31-May-2006 at 18:26
The sands of time


Shanghai Daily
2006-05-31

A once-prosperous city, unseen for 2,200 years and buried beneath the shifting sands of the Taklimakan Desert, has been discovered in Northwest China by a team of archeologists.

Chinese and French archeologists claim to have discovered the ruins of an ancient city which disappeared in the desert in Northwest China more than 2,200 years ago.

The ancient city, shaped like a peach, is located in the center of the Taklimakan Desert, the second-largest shifting desert in the world, covering a total area of 337,600 square kilometers, in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The perimeter of the city walls is 995 meters long, with the height ranging from three to 11 meters. Archeologists have found traces of city gates and passages at the southern and eastern walls.

The city walls were built from branches of poplar trees and branches of Chinese tamarisk (a kind of willow). A protective slope was created outside the city walls and filled with branches, reeds, silt and the dung of domesticated animals.

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regional Archeological Research Institute and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique of France jointly launched an archeological program in 1993. They aimed to explore the Keriya River Valley area, a river that originates in the glaciers on the northern slopes of the Kunlun Mountains and flows more than 860 kilometers before disappearing in the sand in the Taklimakan Desert.

"Our biggest success was the discovery of the ancient city in 1994," says Idris Abdurrasul, a research fellow with the Xinjiang archeological research institute.

Chinese and French archeologists made five excavations at the site of the ancient city from 1993 to the end of 2005. Both sides began studying their findings at the beginning of this year and have made progress in their research, according to Abdurrasul.

Carbon dating by French archeologists shows that the city wall dates back some 2,200 years.

"We think the city had disappeared before the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-25 AD) as we did not discover any relics of the Western Han Dynasty or from the historical periods after the period," says Abdurrasul, adding this was the oldest city ever discovered in Xinjiang.

In the late 19th century, ruins of a Tang Dynasty (618 AD-907) town were found in an area about 200 kilometers south of this ancient city, and the ruins of a town from the period between the Han Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty (265 AD-420) were discovered in an area 43 kilometers south of this ancient city.

The Uyghurs of Keriya (Chinese: Yutian) County, 300 kilometers south of the ancient city, call the area where the ancient city was found, Yomulakkum, meaning "round sand," leading the archeologists to name the ancient city "The Old City of Round Sand." But unlike the other ancient cities discovered in the area, the Round Sand City can not be found in any historical documents.

Archeologists discovered more than 20 tombs in the area around the city, only three of which remained intact. In one of the tombs, the bodies of two males, sporting pigtails and wigs, were found facing each other. In two others, a man and a woman were found in each.

French archeologists says the corpses dated back 2,100 years, and the four people belonged to the Caucasoid group of the Caucasian race. However, they could not explain where the people were from.

Generally speaking, the Caucasoid group mainly lived in Europe, West Asia and Northern Africa.

The people wore woolen fabric and leather clothes. They also had ornaments on their clothes, which were made of wolf hide and some of them had ornaments on hats and waistbands. One woman was wearing a red agate ornament around her neck and leather gloves and ornaments made of shells.

The findings show that these people were skilled with textiles, and they used wool from sheep and camels to make clothes, says Corinne Debaine Francfort, a French scholar who participated in the excavation.

The people could dye wool into bright red, yellow, blue, purple, black, white and coffee by using dyestuff from plants, minerals and even from insects, says Francfort.

The Round Sand City could have been a place where goods from the West and East were traded, according to Francfort, saying "Agate ornaments could have come from the West and shell ornaments from the East."

Archeologists also found skeletons of many animals which, according to them, show that animal husbandry, fishery and hunting were very important parts of the lives of the people.

Irrigation ditches were also found in the areas around the city ruins, which show Round Sand people had developed irrigated farming, says French archeologist Henri Paul Francfort, adding that traces of wheat and millet were also discovered, with many different-sized saddle-shaped millstones and numerous caches for storing grain inside the city.

The residential areas were located in the northern part of the Round Sand City.

"Almost all the things in the city were made from poplar trees, including the city walls, city gates, houses and tombs, and also the daily necessities such as wooden barrels, bowls and combs," says Abdurrasul. "They also used poplar tree branches to cook meals and produce heating during winter. However, not a single poplar tree can be found in the area today."

Archeologists did not find any trace of written materials, symbols or anything that could tell the history of the ancient city.

Based on analysis of satellite pictures and on-the-spot investigations, archeologists found that the Round Sand area used to be covered by many rivers and thick forest, a home to 98 kinds of wild vertebrate, says Ma Ming, a research fellow with the Xinjiang Ecological and Geological Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

As for the reason behind the city's disappearance, Abdurensule explains that the Keriya River had retreated gradually due to the expansion of the desert and the local environment had deteriorated due to the excessive felling of trees. The people had to move to other places to survive.

The result is that the city was not recorded and today's people can't know its religion, language and origin, Abdurrasul says. The final report on the discovery of the Round Sand City is expected to come out next year.

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