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The ancient State of Loulan
was a small state  established
in the Western Regions in ancient times. It was in the
western bank of Lop Nur, an only route by which to pass
the Ancient Silk Road. In those days, around Loulan
City there were criss-cross networks of waterways, shades
of green tress, row upon row of houses, crowds of merchants
and travelers doing brisk trades. But what makes people
at a loss to account for is that such a city once with
a population of thousands, its business economy fully
developed, suddenly disappeared from the history after
several prosperous centuries. The rise and fall of the
ancient State of Loulan has all along presented a baffling
mystery to us. The ancient State of Loulan was completely
submerged by the desert. It was in the early part of
this century that Sven Anders Hedin, a Swedish explorer,
had found this ancient city of Loulan during his desert
exploration to Lop Nur in Xinjiang. Immediately after
the news was spread out, the world academic circles
were greatly surprised and so people could see the historical
relics of the ancient Loulan for the first time. At
the beginning of 80's in this century, the archaeological
team of China formally carried on archaeological investigations
and unearthing work at the ancient city of Loulan. They
found a great number of historical relics in the ancient
city of Loulan and also some historical remains of ancient
waterways, farmlands, Buddhist pagodas and graves. The
culture of the ancient Loulan has reappeared in the
world.
The ancient Loulan city on
the western bank of Lop Nur is located at 40° 9'
5'' north and 89° 5' 2'' east. This city is about
300 square meters, covering the space of 108,240 square
meters. Now from the surface of the ground you can still
see the remains of the city walls clearly, and especially
the city wall on the south has been better preserved.
Inside the city, all the buildings are collapsed, the
roofs and wood posts of the buildings fallen apart on
the ruins with one up on the other. On the ground there
are broken potsherds, wood plates and wooden bowls everywhere.
You can also find a number of the ancient "Wuzhu"
coins of the Han Dynasty here.
The distribution of construction
inside the ancient city is like this: the central part
of the city composes the main buildings in the city.
In the center of the ruins of many large-sized buildings,
there are still kept several rows of the "three-roomed
houses" which were built by adobe, and on both
sides of them there are two larger foundation sites
of the houses which are shaped. On these ruins there
are piles of large-sized timber, among which there are
thick round woods, round plinths and some spiral-shaped
wood rails. Some pieces of timber are five or six meters
long. From the foundations of the houses we can still
see the traces of red paint on the square wood, this
is probably the rulers' yaman. At the eastern part of
the ancient city, there is a Buddhist pagoda more than
ten meters in height. In the western and southern parts
of the city are the residential quarters of the common
people. All these houses were coated with straw and
mud, a special method which was often used in the Central
Asian arid areas. The walls of the houses were made
in the form of wattle walls by using reeds or Hongliu
tree branches in criss-cross lines, then reinforced
with straw or leather ropes, and then plastered with
straw and mud outside. The roofs of the houses were
also made of tree branches and reeds, coated with straw
and mud on them. Beside these, the door frames of the
houses were made of wood. As compared with the buildings
in the center of the city, these houses looked apparently
more simple and crude. The discovery of the ancient
Loulan city confirmed that the ancient State of Loulan
once had a historical period of flourishing and development,
but later it became a desert.
A large number of exquisite
silk and woolen fabrics are found from the ancient graves
in the city and in the suburbs. Using natural silk to
be woven into superb silk clothes was a great invention
of ancient China. These silk clothes discovered in the
Loulan area all belonged to the products of the inland
provinces during the Eastern Han Dynasty in China, and
it shows that the silk fabrics made in China had been
the staple commodity on the ancient Silk Road in the
very early years.
Among the large number of
historical relics of the ancient Loulan, some have very
high academic value. There are a great number of inscribed
wooden slips and documents with words on them. From
the beginning of this century to the 80's, people have
one after another discovered inscribed wooden slips
and documents written in words for four times. Among
these slips there are two kinds of words written on
them. One kind is written in Kharosthi scripts, and
another in Han characters. The time of them may be traced
back to approximately the third or fourth century.
According to the records
of historical documents, in 77 B.C., because of creating
another new king, the ancient State of Loulan had once
changed its state's name into Shanshan. Those inscribed
wooden slips written in Kharosthi scripts discovered
in the ancient Loulan-Shanshan State look like the government
official documents, the contents of which include the
king's edict, various kinds of contracts, account books
and records, documents, official letters and private
letters, some regional official documents, religious
books in the temples. These script materials have great
academic value in studying and finding out the aspects
of society, politics, economy and culture, etc. in the
ancient Loulan-Shanshan State.
Although the ancient
Loulan city became the historical relics, the discovery
of its historical culture provides new magnificence
to the history, and it will be kept in the people's
mind forever.
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