We are in a completely different country now. We arrived in the very early morning in Turpan, met by our Uighur guide, ALiMu. Our first adventure was riding in a donkey cart around the perimeter of the ruins of the ancient desert city of Gaochang. I felt like Amelia Peabody Emerson. Founded at least in the 2nd century BC, the city had flourishing Nestorian churches, Manichean churches and Buddhist temples. The site is very much destroyed now, from a number of causes: 2000 years of desert weather, of course. But foreign devils have been at work as well. British, German, Americans and others hauled away murals, mosaisc, statues, manuscripts by the ton. ALiMu says if we want to learn about Uighur history, we should go to Harvard, not come here. Much of the material taken to Germany was destroyed in the Allied bombing of World War II. In addition, local people over the years scratched out the faces, especially the eyes, of any human or animal figures, believing that such figures are an affront to Islam and out of a fear that the figures would come out at night and do mischief. And, finally, troops during the Cultural Revolution tore down half the city and planted crops over the rubble. It is a spooky and desolate place, with mounds that only occasionally bring buildings to mind.
We also visited a set o tombs of the upper classes from Gaochang in the Tang Dynasty, 7th and 8th enturies AD. There were simple and graceful murals in two tombs that were open for viewing, with birds and plants and symbolic figures. The third tomb had two mummies, a man in his sixties and a woman in her thirties, who was buried alive. When I say mummies, I mean desicated skeletons with scraps of cloth, dried by the heat and the dry environment. These skeletons were not prepared to be mummies, as in Egypt.
We visited a site called Thousand Buddhist Caves, a beautiful ridge overlooking a small valley. There are some cave paintings; all that we saw are not in good shape. There is a sad collection of framed photos of murals that now live in a museum in Berlin. More foreign devils, local destruction, Cultural Revolution damage at work here. We also visited the ancient city of Jiaohe, a Tang dynasty fortress city with the feel of a Puebloan City of the American Southwest. The homes, government buildings and temples have high walls, with the entrances apparently from the roof. Streets and courtyards are below the surface of the ground. The city was destroyed in wars during the 12th and 13th centuries. And of course, mmore foreign devils, more local destrution, more Cultural Revolution damage.
Our guide is quite clear about the politics of history. 'You can bend it like a plastic toy -- first one way, then another; but it doesn't break the truth underneath.' At every spot, the answer to the question, 'when was this built' is: the government says 2000 years ago (under Chinese control); others think at least 3000 years ago (by Central Asians), so who knows? These Uighur people feel a unity of language, religion, history and culture from the Urals to the eatern edge of the Gobi desert, from Russia to Tibet and India. Chinese is a second language to Uighur for many, and all signs are in both, with the Uighur language using an Arabic script. At bottom, ALiMu expresses enormous pride in the history of a talented and cultured people who have not fared well in recent dynastic struggles but who might have a new chapter with the breakup of the Soviet Union in parts of this Eurasian steppe and desert country
We also visited a sample of the karetz water system, and saw signs of it everywhere surrounding Turpan. More than 2000 years ago, people began digging underground channels from the nearby mountains, tapping the underground water table and leading it by gravity to fields and villages. Today there are nearly 500 systems with channels totaling more than 1500 kilometers. These channels were the lifeblood of oasis communities. They are drying up now due to diminishing mountain glaciers and a falling water table. The karetz system is a massive infrastructure projet, on a scale similar to the Great Wall.
Dinner in Turpan was lamb and noodles, outdoors by an urban lake, watching children feed the ducks and the carp, feeling the evening breeze as the sun goes down on this second lowest place on the planet.
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