 The
Ancient City of Gaochang is located near the seat of the “Flaming
Mountains” Township forty-six kilometers southeast of the city
of Turpan. The city walls are high and the crisscrossing streets and
the city moat are still visible. The city walls, which are basically
intact, divide the city into three parts: the inner city, the outercity
and the palace city. The 5.4 kilometer-long wall of the square outer
city is 11.5 meters high and 12 meters thick. The wall is built of
tamped earth, with some section repaired with adobe. There are two
gates on each side of the outer city and the two on the west side
with defense enclosures outside the gates are the best preserved.
The inner city, which is located in the center of the outer city,
has a three-kilometer long wall, most of the west and the east sections
of which are well preserved.
The rectangular palace city is in the northern part of the city
of Gaochang and it shares the north wall with the outer city and
uses the north wall of the inner city as its south wall. There are
still several three to four-meter-high earthen platforms in the
palace city where the court of Huigu Gaochang Kingdom was seated.
In the north-central part of the inner city, there is a high terrace
on which stands a square pagoda built of adobe called “Khan’s
castle” which means “Imperial Palace.” Somewhat
to its west there is a half-underground, two-story structure which
was probably the ruins of a palace.
In the southwestern part of the outer city there is a temple which
is 130 meters long from east to west, 85 meters wide from south
to north and covers an area of 10,000 square meters. The temple
consists of an arched gate, courtyard, a lecture hall, a library
of sutras, a main hall and the monks’ dormitory. Murals remaining
in the main hall are still visible. The renowned Buddkhist monk
Xuan Zang of the Tang Dynasty is said to have lectured in the temple
for more than one month in the year 628 on his way to India to obtain
Buddhist scriptures. In the vicinity of the temple there are also
ruins of workshops and market sites. In the southeastern part of
the outer city there is a smaller than those in the main hall.
The construction of the city of Gaochang started in the first century
B C. First called Gaochangbi, it was a key point on the ancient
Silk Road, but after many changes in fortune over a period of 1,300
years, and under the jurisdictions of the Gaochang Prefecture, the
Gaochang Kingdom, the Xizhou Prefecture, Huigu Gaochang Kingdom
and Huozhou Prefecture, the city was burnt down in wars in the fourteenth
century.
It was classified as an important cultural unit protected by the
state in 1961. |
