Chapter 28 Section 8 Niya Ruins in Xinjiang

The Niya site is located in the Taklimakan Desert at the northern end of the Niya River in Minfeng County, Xinjiang.It is located at the southern hub of the "Silk Road" and is the former site of the Jingjue Kingdom, one of the Western Regions in the Han Dynasty.The site is divided into two parts, the north and the south, about five kilometers apart.The southern area is smaller, with dozens of residential sites.The northern area is larger, with hundreds of settlements, including spacious halls and monastery buildings.The address of the residence is well preserved, and unearthed wooden furniture, silk and wool fabrics, utensils, tools, grain, and bamboo slips in Chinese and Lu scripts, etc.

As early as the beginning of this century, Stein and other foreign explorers set foot in the Niya site and seized a large number of precious cultural relics.After the founding of New China, Xinjiang's cultural relics units went to this place many times for investigation and excavation.Amazingly, in the autumn of 1995, eight burials were excavated in a cemetery two kilometers north of the site.These eight tombs can be divided into two types: one is a single burial, a single wooden coffin hollowed out from a huge Poplar euphratica tree trunk;The corpses were all mummified, and the funerary objects were well preserved.

The male and female tomb owners in these tombs are covered with colorful brocade quilts, and wear brocade robes, brocade trousers, silk short jackets, silk clothes, and embroidered shoes.The hostess wears a silk hood with a geometric ribbon tied on the hat.There are also bronze mirrors with dragon patterns. On a clay pot, there is the word "Wang" written in ink in Chinese.Most of the brocades are new varieties that have never been seen before.Some brocades are embroidered with patterns of auspicious beasts and clouds. In the No. 8 male tomb, a colorful brocade bag has the words "five stars come out of the east and benefit China" on the texture.The bow, cylindrical quiver, and painted arrow shaft of the owner of the tomb have local characteristics.In the burial wooden tray, there are lamb legs, knives, rice cakes, grapes, etc., recreating the life at that time.

In some of the tombs, there are colorful smudged wool fabrics, floral patterns on woolen shoes, and dragonfly eye beads for accessories, showing information from West Asia.This important discovery is a precious material for studying the transportation, economic and cultural exchanges between China and the West along the southern route of the "Silk Road" during the Han and Jin Dynasties.