Yumen Pass

Coordinates: 40°21′12.6″N 93°51′50.5″E / 40.353500°N 93.864028°E / 40.353500; 93.864028
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Yumen Pass
The ruin of the Small Fangpan Castle at Yumen Pass
Location80 km NW of Dunhuang, Gansu, China
Coordinates40°21′12.6″N 93°51′50.5″E / 40.353500°N 93.864028°E / 40.353500; 93.864028
Yumen Pass is located in China
Yumen Pass
Yumen Pass
Hanyu Pinyin
Yùmén Guān
Map over Yumen Pass
The Small Fangpan Castle at Yumenguan – entrance from the north
The Great Wall from Han dynasty at Yumen Pass

Yumen Pass (

World Heritage List as the Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor World Heritage Site.[1]
The pass is at an elevation of 1400 meters.

Etymology

Although the Chinese guan is usually translated simply as "pass", its more specific meaning is a "frontier pass" to distinguish it from an ordinary pass through the mountains. Yumen guan 玉門關 and Yang guan 陽關 are derived from: yu 玉 = 'jade' + men 門 = 'gate', 'door'; and yang 陽 = 'sunny side', 'south side of a hill', 'north side of a river,' and guan 關 = ‘frontier-passes’.

It is not to be confused with the city Yumen (玉門, literally Jade Gate) in Gansu, China. Although both are within the same Jiuquan "prefecture-level city" (a multi-county administrative unit) of Gansu province, Yumen Pass is located some 400 km to the west of its namesake city.

History

Yumen Pass was one of the most famous passes leading to the north and west from Chinese territory.[2] During the Early Han, "a defensive line was established from Jiuquan ('Wine Springs') in the Gansu Corridor west to the Jade Gate Pass at its end."[3]

Travellers to 'The Western Regions' (西域, Xiyu) left China through the famous Yumenguan 玉門關, or 'Jade Gate Frontier-post,' named for the many jade caravans that passed through it. The original Jade Gate was erected by Emperor Wudi (Emperor Wu of Han) soon after 121 BCE and its ruins may still be seen about 80 kilometres (50 mi) to the northwest of Dunhuang which was, until the 6th century, the final outpost of Chinese territory for caravans on their long caravan journeys to India, Parthia, and the Roman Empire.[4]

The remains of these two important

Hami, the pass was abandoned. In 1907, Sir Aurel Stein found bamboo slips naming the site as Yumenguan, and in 1944 Chinese archaeologists discovered relics that confirmed this. With its 10-metre-high (32 foot) mud walls pierced by four gateways, the square enclosure covered more than 600 square metres (718 square yards) in the midst of unbounded desolation. Yanguan lies 75 kilometres (47 mi) southwest of Dunhuang but consists of only the ruins of a high beacon tower.

— Bonavia & Baumer (2004), pp. 176, 178. Quoted in Hill (2009)
, p. 138.

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Retrieved 17 Apr 2021.
  2. ^ Hill (2015), p. 140
  3. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), p. 60
  4. ^ Hill (2009), p. vi

References