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| Astana-Karakhoja Ancient tombs |
 Astana-Karakhoja
Ancient tombs Known as “the Underground Museum” and widely
valued by Chinese and foreign archaeologists and historians, this
group of ancient tombs is forty kilometers southeast of turpan city
proper and six kilometers from the ancient city of gaochang. Astana
means “capital” in Uygur and Karakhoja is the name of
a legendary hero of the ancient Uygur Kingdom who removed the evils
from the people by killing a vicious dragon. they are now the names
of two local villages.buried in these tombs are nobles, officials
and others from the period beginning in the Western jin and ending
in the middle of the tang Dynasty. Curiously, the tomb of King gaochang
is found nowhere in the group of tombs, but the renowned general zhang
Xiong of the Qushi gaochang Kingdom was buried here with his wife
and son zhang Huaiji. Almost all of the corpses in the more than five
hundred tombs have not rotted; instead they have become dried-up bodies,
a phenomenon more unusual than the mummies found in the pyramids of
Egypt. Most of the dried-up bodies are complete and intact. thanks
to the dry and hot climate, many paintings, earthen figurines and
thousands of other unearthed cultural relics are well-preserved and
as colorful as new ones. the unearthed boiled dumplings of the tang
Dynasty are the same shape as those of today and the stuffing of the
dumplings is still fresh. Furthermore, on a bail of horse fodder are
written the words “judge Cen” and “Minister Feng.”
judge cen is the famous frontier poet cen shen of the tang Dynasty
and Minister Feng is Feng Changqing, the governor of beiting Prefecture
of the tang Dynasty. Most of those buried here were people of the
Han nationality, but also some minority nationalities, such as the
Cheshi, Hun, Di, Xianbei, gaoche, and zhaowujiuxing.Now three tombs
have been opened to visitors. besides dried-up corpses, there are
murals depicting figures, birds and flowers on display in the three
tombs.It was classified as an important cultural unit protected by
the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region in 1957. |
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