Dandan Oilik
 Ruins of Buddhist shrine in Dandan-Uiliq | |
  Shown within China | |
| Location |  China |
|---|---|
| Region | northern Qira County, Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang |
| Coordinates | 37°46′28″N 81°4′23″E / 37.77444°N 81.07306°E |
Dandan Oilik (
Dandan Oilik was rediscovered and partially excavated by a succession of foreign explorers starting in 1896, and has yielded rich finds including manuscripts, stucco reliefs, painted wooden panels, and murals. A detailed survey was conducted in 2006 although much of the site remains unexcavated. Dandan Oilik is currently off-limits to the public.[3][4]
Rediscovery
After over a millennium of abandonment to the shifting sands, Dandan Oilik was rediscovered in 1896 by Swedish explorer Sven Hedin. Leaving his baggage in Khotan, Hedin set out on 14 January 1896 with a retinue of four men, three camels, and two donkeys, along with enough provisions to last fifty days. After five days the party left the White Jade River, heading east between the dunes, which gradually increased to a height of fifty feet. Steering through the davans or "passes" between the dunes, with live tamarisk or poplar indicating sources of water, ten days after departing Khotan Hedin rode his camel bareback to the "Buried City of Taklamakan".[5][6]
There he found traces of hundreds of wooden houses; a "Temple of Buddha", with walls constructed of bundles of reeds fixed to stakes, and covered in earthen plaster and wall paintings – of kneeling females, moustachioed males in Persian clothing, animals, and boats rocking in the waves; fragments of paper with indecipherable characters; a life-size gypsum foot; and a series of Buddha images. Most of the ruins, extending over an area two to two and a half miles across, were buried under high dunes. Hedin found that excavation was "desperate work", with the sand immediately filling whatever was dug, necessitating the removal of entire dunes; furthermore, and despite their antiquity, the camels and donkeys still "consumed with relish" the reeds once used in construction.[5] Although unable to recover the overall plan of the city, Hedin found traces of gardens, rows of poplars indicating ancient avenues, and remains of ancient apricot and plum trees, concluding that "the walls of this God-accursed city, this second Sodom in the desert, had thus in ancient times been washed by a powerful stream – the Keriya-daria".[5]
Who could have imagined, that in the interior of the dread Desert of Gobi ... actual cities slumbered under the sand ... and yet there stood I amid the wreck and devastation of an ancient people, within whose dwellings none had ever entered save the sandstorm in its days of maddest revelry; there stood I like the prince in the enchanted wood, having awakened to new life the city which had slumbered for a thousand years, or at any rate rescued the memory of its existence from oblivion.[5]
Aurel Stein
In December 1900, alerted in Khotan by a "reliable 'treasure-seeker'" who brought fragments of wall painting with
Among the documents discovered, written in a variety of scripts on paper, wooden tablets, and sticks, were Buddhist texts; a petition for the recovery of a donkey after the failure of its two purchasers to pay even ten months later; a petition for exemption from requisitions of grain and forced labour after visitation by bandits; a request for the military of skins for drums and quail feathers for arrows; records of loans; and an important early Judeo-Persian document edited and dated to 718 by David Samuel Margoliouth seemingly concerned predominantly with the sale of sheep, complaints of unfair treatment, and the teaching of a girl.[7][9] Aurel Stein translated the document into English.[10]
Later expeditions
In 1905 geographer
Gallery
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Ancient Khotan BLER2 AKV1 FP246 FIG28 -
Ancient Khotan BLER2 AKV1 FP246 FIG29 -
Ancient Khotan BLER2 AKV1 FP246 FIG31 -
Ancient Khotan BLER4 AKV2 PLII PHOT -
Ancient Khotan BLER4 AKV2 PLIII PHOTB -
Judeo-Persian letter BLI7 OR8212166R1 1
See also
- Kingdom of Khotan
- Loulan Kingdom
- Niya
- Xiaohe Tomb complex
- Major national historical and cultural sites (Xinjiang)
- List of archaeological sites of the Taklamakan and Lop Desert
References
- ISBN 9781932476132 – via Google Books.(The map on this page gives the location of Dandan Oilik.)
- ISBN 962-217-721-2.
- ISBN 978-962-217-790-1.
- ^ "Painted wooden panel showing riders with bowls". British Museum. Retrieved 24 October 2012.
- ^ a b c d Hedin, Sven (1898). Through Asia. Methuen. pp. 798–802.
- ^ Onishi Makiko; Kitamoto Asanobu. "Following in the Footsteps of Xuanzang: Aurel Stein and Dandān-Uiliq". Digital Silk Road Project. Retrieved 25 October 2012.
- ^ a b c Stein, M. Aurel (1907). Ancient Khotan: detailed report of archaeological explorations in Chinese Turkestan. Oxford University Press. pp. 236–303, 521–536, 571–574, 577, 590.
- ISBN 0-226-53177-5.
- ISBN 978-90-04-28529-3.
- ^ Mark Aurel Stein; Sir Aurel Stein (1907). Ancient Khotan: Detailed Report of Archaeological Explorations in Chinese Turkestan. Clarendon Press. pp. 572–.
- ^ ISBN 978-2-503-52804-5.
- S2CID 131070715.
- ^ Baumer, Christoph (2003). Southern Silk Road: in the Footsteps of Sir Aurel Stein and Sven Hedin. Bangkok: Orchid Press. pp. 71–90.
- State Administration of Cultural Heritage. Archived from the originalon 20 October 2012. Retrieved 23 October 2012.
Further reading
- Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology; The Academic Research Organization for the Niya Ruins of Bukkyo University, eds. (2009). 丹丹乌里克遗址-中日共同考察研究报告 [Dandan Oilik Site - Report of the Sino-Japanese Joint Expedition] (in Chinese). Beijing: Cultural Relics Press. p. 335. ISBN 978-7-5010-2864-1.
External links
| Authority control databases: National |
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