Agriculture irriguée et art bouddhique ancien au cœur du Taklamakan (Karadong, Xinjiang, IIe-IVe siècles) [Premiers résultats de l'expédition franco-chinoise de la Keriya

Abstract

The Sino-French Archaeological Expedition in Keriya has been settled in the frame of an official program of field cooperation signed between the UPR n° 315 in CNRS (France) and the Institute of Archaeology in Xinjiang. In a first stage, the program is focussed on the exploration of the Keriya valley in Southern Xinjiang (Khotan region). The aim is to find remains of an ancient human occupation along the ancient dry courses and deltas of the river, to date this occupation, and to study it in relation with the moves of the river in an environment turning into a desert. A first survey has been conducted in 1991. New sites has been discovered which are the vestiges of an ancient oasis approximatively dated between the 2nd and the 4th centuries A.D., with Karadong as the center of it. In 1993, a joint excavation has been carried out at Karadong (the first joint excavation undertaken in China since 1949). New archaeological remains has been discovered, including houses, craft areas, irrigation canals, traces of fields and orchards, ceramics showing contacts with the Kushan world and Central Asia, objects in metal, wood and glass, fragments of fabrics, etc. We also excavated a small square Buddhist temple with many fragments of wall paintings of an original style, one of the most ancient ever discovered in Xinjiang.