Dunhuang

Introduction 1. What is Studies? 2. The Current State of Affairs in Dunhuang Studies 3. Objectives and Difficulties in Dunhuang Studies: The Case of the History of the Guiyijun 4. Summary of This Book Lecture 1 Dunhuang in Chinese History 1. Dunhuang during the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties 2. Dunhuang during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties 3. Dunhuang during the Sui and Tang Periods 4. Dunhuang during the Tibetan Period 5. Dunhuang during the Guiyijun Period 6. Dunhuang during the Xixia, Yuan, Ming and Qing Periods Lecture 2 Dunhuang and the Silk Road 1. Zhang Qian's Journey to the West and the Beginnings of the Silk Road 2. Cultural Prosperity and Cave Building at Mogao 3. The Sui-Tang Prosperity and a Cosmopolitan City 4. Buddhist Dominance and the Significance of the Tibetan and Guiyijun Periods 5. Shift in the Course of the Silk Road and Dunhuang's Decline Lecture 3 The Discovery of the Dunhuang Cave Library and its Early Dispersal 1. Abbot Wang 2. The Discovery of the Cave Library 3. The Early Dispersal of the Original Collection 4. The Fate of the Dunhuang Collection and the End of Abbot Wang's story Lecture 4 The Nature of the Dunhuang Library Cave and the Reasons for its Sealing 1. The Original Collection 2. Monastic Collections in Dunhuang during the Guiyijun Period 3. The Types of Materials in the Cave Library 4. The Reasons for the Sealing Lecture 5 Major Collections of Dunhuang Manuscripts 1. The Stein Collection 2. The Pelliot Collection 3. The Oldenburg Collection 4. Chinese Collections 5. Japanese Collections 6. Other Collections Lecture 6 Scramble for the Treasures of Khotan, Kucha, Loulan and Gaochang 1. Prelude to the Scramble for the Antiquities of Central Asia 2. Archaeological Exploration of Central Asia at the Beginning of the 20th Century 3. The Archaeology of Central Asia Lecture 7 Dunhuang Studies and Oriental Studies in the West 1. Russia 2. Britain 3. France 4. Germany 5. Other Countries Lecture 8 Dunhuang Studies in China and Japan 1. China 2. Japan Lecture 9 The Political and Economic History of the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties in Light of Dunhuang Studies 1. The System of Official Correspondence 2. Administrative and Legal Institutions 3. Military System 4. The Institutions of Juntian and Corvee Labor 5. Political History Lecture 10 Dunhuang Studies and the Social History of the Medieval Period 1. Population and Family 2. Aristocratic Clans and Grassroots Society 3. Buddhist Communities and the Life of the Clergy 4. Folklore Material among the Dunhuang Manuscripts Lecture 11 The History of Central Asian Peoples and China's Contacts with Her Neighbors in Light of Dunhuang Studies 1. The Tibetans 2. Dunhuang under Tibetan Rule 3. The Spread of Chan Teachings to Tibet and Sino-Tibetan Cultural Contacts 4. The Ganzhou and Xizhou Uighurs 5. The Kingdom of Khotan 6. Sogdian Colonies 7. The Three Foreign Religions 8. Records of Buddhist Pilgrims Lecture 12 The Significance of the Buddhist and Daoist Manuscripts from Dunhuang 1. Overview of Buddhist Texts from Dunhuang 2. The Value of Buddhist Texts from Dunhuang 3. Daoist Texts from Dunhuang Lecture 13 Dunhuang Copies of Traditional Chinese Texts and Medieval Intellectual History 1. The Classics (jing) 2. The Histories (shi) 3. The Philosophers (zi) 4. The Belles-Lettres (ji) Lecture 14 Language and Literature in Light of Dunhuang Studies 1. Chinese Language 2. Central Asian Languages 3. Popular Literature Lecture 15 Dunhuang Studies and the History of Science and Technology 1. Astronomy 2. Mathematics 3. Medicine 4. Paper Making and Printing Technology Lecture 16 Dunhuang in Light of Art and Archaeology 1. Types of Caves and their Artistic Style 2. Sculpture 3. Dunhuang Murals 4. Decorative Patterns in the Caves 5. Other Cave Complexes besides the Mogao Caves Lecture 17 Dunhuang and Manuscript Studies 1. Paper and Layout 2. Dating Based on Calligraphy 3. Relationship between the Manuscripts' Recto and Verso Lecture 18 Forgeries and the Authentication of Dunhuang Manuscripts 1. A New Theory of Forgeries 2. The Authentication of Dunhuang Manuscripts Epilogue

The history of cultural exchange in prehistoric Eurasia (CEPE) has been widely investigated. Based on archaeological evidence, this process is thought to date back to at least the early Bronze Age, although details about timings and routes remain unclear. It is likely that CEPE promoted the spread and exchange of crops that originated in different parts of Eurasia; since these remains can be definitely identified and directly dated, they provide ideal research materials to explore the history of CEPE. In this paper, we review the available archaeobotanical evidence and direct radiocarbon dates for crop remains, alongside carbon isotopic data from human bones unearthed from prehistoric sites in Eurasia, in order to investigate the history of the spread of millet crops, and wheat and barley, that were first domesticated in the eastern and western parts of Eurasia during prehistoric times. In combination with other archaeological evidences, we discuss the history of CEPE. Our results suggest that wheat and barley were domesticated in western Asia around 10500 a BP, spread into Europe and western Central Asia before 8000 a BP, and reaching eastern Central Asia and northwestern China between 4500 and 4000 a BP. Data show that both broomcorn and foxtail millet were domesticated in eastern Asia before 7700 a BP, spread into eastern Central Asia between 4500 and 4000 a BP, and into western Asia and Europe prior to 3500 a BP. Wheat, barley, and millet crops were first utilized together in eastern Kazakhstan within Central Asia around 4400 a BP, the region where earliest CEPE is likely to have taken place. These crops were mixedly used mainly in eastern central Asia and northwest China between 4500 and 3500 a BP, and then across the Eurasia before 2200 a BP. The results of this study suggest that transcontinental CEPE might have been initiated during the fifth millennium, before intensifying during the Bronze Age to lay the foundations for the creation of the ancient Silk Road during the Han Dynasty (between 202BC and 220AD).

This chapter discusses aspects of the transmission to China of visual knowledge through the Silk Road during the Han dynasty (206 BCE?220 CE). The Han dynasty covered two periods: the Western or Former Han dynasty (206 BCE?25 CE), and the Eastern or Later Han dynasty (25?220 CE). It is mostly for the Later Han that we have visual evidence of relations between China and Central Asia. Before addressing the question of the transmission of visual knowledge along the Silk Road into Han China, the chapter presents a few words about textual evidence because the Han people left texts on the area, unlike most ancient communities living along the Silk Road. The traces of Buddhism in Chinese art raise problems of dating, attribution, and interpretation. To illustrate these difficulties, the chapter examines a couple of Han-dynasty representations that relate to Buddhism. Keywords: Buddhism; Central Asia; Chinese art; Han dynasty; Silk Road; textual evidence; visual knowledge

This article concerns the centrality of musical stereotypes in minority representation in modern China, with examples from the post-1950s concert tradition of the rawap , a Central Asian long-necked plucked lute used extensively today in traditional and modern music of the Uyghur, Turkic Muslims in northwest China. An icon of the official version of minority modernity, the rawap has been recreated to constitute a stereotypical portrayal of minorities as joyful merrymakers while also to embody the discourses of progress and enlightenment. Minority musicians have selectively co-opted certain stereotyped representations as aesthetic resources for subaltern performances.

Hui Muslims, the second largest Muslim ethnic group in China primarily concentrated in Northwest and Southwest China, have increasingly participated in internal migration to eastern cities. Consequently, it is crucial to investigate the continuities and changes in their religious practices after their relocation to predominantly non-Muslim regions. This study investigates the modes of religious adaptation among Hui internal migrants in Yiwu, a global market town in Southeast China that particularly serves as a trading hub between China and the Middle East and North Africa. Based on 40 in-depth interviews with Hui migrants from Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Gansu Province in Northwest China, the findings reveal diverse trajectories of religious adaptation influenced by Yiwu’s socio-political environment, interactions with both Muslim and non-Muslim communities, and individual factors such as the migrants’ initial religiosity and age at the time of migration. Hui migrants demonstrate a pattern of selective adherence, highlighting their agency and subjectivity as they navigate their ethno-religious identity in the multicultural and economically dynamic context.

Staging the Silk Road Journey Abroad: The Case of Dunhuang Performative Arts

The trajectory and influencing factors for changes to ancient human livelihoods in the Hexi Corridor of northwest China have been intensively discussed. The Hexi Corridor is a key crossroads for trans-Eurasian exchange in both the prehistoric and historical periods. Although most studies have focused on the reconstruction of human paleodiet and plant subsistence, the diachronic change of animal utilization strategies spanning the prehistoric and historical periods remains unclear, due to the absence of zooarchaeological and isotopic studies, especially in Han Dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE). Here we report new zooarchaeological, stable isotope, and radiocarbon dating data from the Heishuiguo Cemetery of the Han Dynasty in the Hexi Corridor, indicating that humans mainly used domestic chickens, pigs and sheep as funerary objects, with other buried livestock including cattle, horses and dogs. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data suggest humans might have fed chickens, pigs and dogs more C4 foods (likely millets or their byproducts) than herbivorous livestock in the Heishuiguo during the Han Dynasty. Compared to other prehistoric zooarchaeological and isotopic studies in the Hexi Corridor, we detected an increasing significance of herbivorous livestock in animal utilization strategies compared with omnivorous livestock, and a basic declining weight of C4 foods in fodders from ∼2,300 to 200 BCE, which was probably induced by long-distance exchange and climate fluctuation. However, the trend was reversed during the Han Dynasty in the Hexi Corridor, primarily due to the control of the area by the Han Empire and the subsequent massive immigration from the Yellow River valley of north China.

The article focuses on a very particular episode of the eastern Alexander legend, i.e. the building of an extraordinary “metal army” employed by Alexander in his war against the Indian King Porus, which is present in at least three Persian accounts written between the tenth and fourteenth centuries CE: the “Book of Kings” (Shāh-nāmeh) by Ferdowsi, the “Book of Dārāb” (Dārāb-nāmeh), attributed to Tarsusi, and an “Alexander-book” (Eskandar-nāmeh) in prose copied by ʿAbd al-Kāfi ibn Abu al-Barakāt. Compared to the most remote source, the text of Pseudo-Callisthenes, and to the closest ones (the Armenian version of the fifth century, the Syriac text of the sixth‒seventh centuries, and the Hebrew version of the tenth‒eleventh centuries), it is argued that the Persian authors have not passively received the inherited materials; on the contrary, they have been able to liven up the scene of Alexander’s battle against the Indian King Porus by bringing onto the battlefield a fiery and phantasmagorical army of metal, giving us one of the more amazing episodes in the eastern legend of the great Macedonian.

In the first study to incorporate majority Han and minority Uyghur perspectives on ethnic relations in Xinjiang following mass violence during July 2009, David Tobin analyses how official policy shapes identity and security dynamics on China's northwest frontier. He explores how the 2009 violence unfolded and how the party-state responded to ask how official identity narratives and security policies shape practices on the ground. Combining ethnographic methodology with discourse analysis and participant-observation with in-depth interviews, Tobin examines how Han and Uyghurs interpret and reinterpret Chinese nation-building. He concludes that by treating Chinese identity as a security matter, the party-state exacerbates cycles of violence between Han and Uyghurs who increasingly understand each other as threats.

Central Asia is one of the regions that suffer the most prominent transboundary water and energy problems in the world. Effective transboundary water-energy resource management and cooperation are closely related with socioeconomic development and stability in the entire Central Asia. Similar to Central Asia, Northwest China has an arid climate and is experiencing a water shortage. It is now facing imbalanced supply—demand relations of water and energy resources. These issues in Northwest China and Central Asia pose severe challenges in the implementation of the Silk Road Economic Belt strategy. Based on the analysis of water and energy distribution characteristics in Central Asia as well as demand characteristics of different countries, the complexity of local transboundary water problems was explored by reviewing corresponding historical problems of involved countries, correlated energy issues, and the evolution of inter-country water-energy cooperation. With references to experiences and lessons of five countries, contradictions, opportunities, challenges and strategies for transboundary water-energy cooperation between China and Central Asia were discussed under the promotion of the Silk Road Economic Belt construction based on current cooperation conditions.

Northwest China is much more sensitive to climate warming, and the climate has varied rapidly from warm and drought to warm and humid conditions. In addition, due to the complex terrain of Northwest China, the methods and parameterization schemes of different CMIP6 models, these models are mostly applied to arid areas in Northwest China or Central Asia, lacking climate data for plateau areas and eastern Lanzhou, specifically in filtering CMIP6 models and evaluating applicable models. In this paper, 34 CMIP6 climate models are used to evaluate and forecast future trends in Northwest China under the SSP126, SSP245 and SSP585 scenarios in the short, medium and long term. CMIP6 models of temperature and precipitation are identified by applying the interannual variability skill score (IVS) between CN05.1 datasets and historical CMIP6 models, which are suitable for Northwest China. Then, we assess the characteristics, warming and wetting deviations, and uncertainties in the prediction of climatic change according to CMIP6 models over Northwest China. The results show that CMIP6 models in precipitation and temperature applicable to Northwest China are AWI‐CM‐1‐1‐MR, BCC‐CSM2‐MR, FGOALS‐g3, INM‐CM4‐8, INM‐CM5‐0 and MRI‐ESM2‐0. The multi‐model ensemble mean (MMEM) has better capability than individual CMIP6 models in precipitation and temperature prediction. Spatiotemporal climatic change over Northwest China shows overall warming and wetting trends. The IVS provides the ability to estimate CMIP6 model simulation performance both temporally and spatially. The temperature simulation is quite good in the Tarim Basin and Hexi Corridor region, and the precipitation simulation is quite good in the plateau region, Altai Mountains, Tianshan Mountains and Hexi Corridor region. Cold and wet deviations occur in Northwest China due to the topography and few stations, which are common reasons. The main sources of uncertainties in temperature prediction during this century are model uncertainty (before the 2090s) and scenario variability (after the 2090s), and model uncertainty in precipitation for CMIP6 becomes the main source of uncertainty.

This article analyzes the characteristics and historical development of the communication and interaction between China and Central Asia. The communication and interaction between China and Central Asia are in line with the historical trend of development, with mutual interaction promoting the progress of human civilization.

As we all know, the Silk Road, as a famous ancient transportation route, was a trade line cross-Eurasian continent in history. Its name was from the delivery of silk. However, no Chinese ancient documents mentioned the name of “Silk Road”. German F. V. Richthofen (1933-1905) firstly used the term “Silk Road” in his book China, published in 1877. Afterwards, the name of “Silk Road” has been accepted universally and used by the world widely. The Silk Road was an ancient business channel, acrossing the middle of China and countries in Central Asia, gradually forming after Qian Zhang visited Western Regions twice, two thousand and one hundred years ago. The north-west land Silk Road started from Chinese ancient Capital Chang’an (now Xi’an), acrossing Central Asia, and reaching ancient Rome in Europe. It was a bridge for communication of politics, economy, and culture between ancient China and the Western. Before 11 Century, the Sino-Western silk trade mainly depended on the land transportation. During Han Dynasty, it was a competition between the Huns and the Hans for occupy the Silk road. The silk as a kind of material culture was a sort of intermediary for making people to know how to get along together.This article attempts to describe the Sino-Western silk trade conditions before and after the two missions of Qian Zhang to Western Regions (Xiyu), including archaeological evidences, kinds of silk and trade scale, transportation routes, trade participants, and so on.

Currently, there is a lack of studies on microplastic pollution in mountain terrains and foothills areas in Northwest China and Central Asia. Here, we collected monthly dusts samples for one year and we studied the distribution, pollution levels, and sources of microplastics in atmospheric dust fall in the Ebinur Lake Basin in Northwest China. Results showed that the average content of dust microplastic on construction land was 28.61 ± 1.13mg/kg, followed by farmland (20.25 ± 1.56mg/kg), forest (19.52 ± 1.06mg/kg), and deserts (8.08 ± 0.56mg/kg). Regarding different land use types, atmospheric dust reduction dominated on farmland (58.64%), followed by urban area (26.65%), forest (9.76%), and desert (4.95%). Regarding the shape of microplastics, the order of occurrence in dust was film (46.85%) > fiber (35.15%) > foam(12.35%) > fragment (5.65%). In this study, four colors of microplastics were found in dust, and white accounted for the largest proportion (52.15%), followed by transparent (18.65%), black (19.45%), and green (9.75%). The main components of film microplastics in atmospheric dustfall in the Ebinur Lake Basin were PE and PP, and their sources were mainly plastic products in daily life, plastic industrial packaging materials from urban enterprises, broken plastic woven bags, and PET mostly from fabric fragment emissions. The abundance of microplastics in dust was correlated with atmospheric dust pH, EC, and total salt content. The contents of seven heavy metals (Cu, Ni, Cd, Pb, Cr, Mn, and Co) adsorbed by microplastics were also correlated with pH, EC, and total salt content. Our results represent a reference for microplastics pollution prevention in mountain terrains and foothills areas in northwest China and Central Asia.

Reviewed by: Son of Heaven and Heavenly Qaghan: Sui-Tang China and Its Neighbors Victor Cunrui Xiong (bio) Pan Yihong . Son of Heaven and Heavenly Qaghan: Sui-Tang China and Its Neighbors. Bellingham, Washington: Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 1997. xviii, 428 pp. Paperback $35.00, ISBN 0-914584-20-0. Like the Xiongnu in Han times and the Jurchen in Southern Song times, the Tujue (Turks) in the sixth to the eighth centuries dominated Sino-foreign relations. Emerging from relative obscurity in the mid-sixth century, the Tujue rose on the vast Eurasian steppes to become the mightiest military force between the Aral Sea and Manchuria. The belligerent Chinese regimes of Northern Qi and Northern Zhou vied against each other to curry favor with the Tujue, supplying their qaghan with Chinese royal brides and generous tribute. The tributary relations finally came to an end with the advent of a unifying power in China proper, the Sui dynasty, and a new era of Sino-foreign relations was ushered in. That new era is the central theme of Pan Yihong's study. It examines Sino-foreign relations in Early Imperial China with a focus on the Tujue during the Sui and Tang dynasties (581-907). The groundwork for the studies of early Sino Turkish relations was laid at the turn of the twentieth century with the publication of the now-classic seminal work by Edouard Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-kiue [Turcs] occidentaux (Paris: A. Maisonneuve, 1903), which was later translated into Chinese by Feng Chengjun as Xi Tujue shiliao. Inspired by Feng's translation, Cen Zhongmian , a great twentieth-century scholar of Sui-Tang China, published his Tujue jishi (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju), in two volumes in 1958, which deals not only with the Western Tujue but also the Eastern (Northern) Tujue. In the same year, Liu Mau-tsai published his Die Chinesischen Nachrichten zur Geschichte der Ost-Türken (T'u-küe) (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz), also in two volumes, on the Eastern Tujue. These earlier studies, published in three different languages, are similar in their approach: They are essentially collections of primary source materials accompanied by detailed annotations. This approach is still valid today, especially in a field [End Page 511] as demanding and poorly understood as Sino-Turkish relations. What distinguishes Pan's volume is the endeavor to make sense of these oftentimes confusing but always fascinating relations in a synthetic monographic study. Although Pan devotes most of her attention to Sui-Tang China's interactions with the Tujue, she extends her research to include China's relations with other powers. Son of Heaven and Heavenly Qaghan opens with a wide-ranging survey of China's foreign policy before the Sui, from antiquity to the end of the Northern Dynasties. Both the Qin and the Han dynasties were challenged by the nomadic people to the north, especially the Xiongnu. As China descended into the chaotic period of the Six Dynasties, more and more nomadic ethnic groups appeared on the northern frontier: the Wuhuan , Xianbei , Rouran , and eventually the Tujue themselves. Over time, the successive Chinese governments developed a whole array of strategies in dealing with them, from territorial aggrandizement, building up frontier defenses, Heiratspolitik, and appeasement to the resettlement of "barbarians" within Chinese areas. With the rise of the Sui dynasty in 581, its founder Wendi abandoned the customary appeasement frontier policy under the last of the Northern Dynasties in favor of a much more confrontational stand toward the Tujue. Under the advisement of seasoned court officials such as Zhangsun Sheng , Wendi managed to keep the Tujue at bay by fostering rivalry between the Eastern and Western Tujue, and by supporting the pro-Sui Tujue leader, Qimin qaghan . Influenced by the Metternichian strategist Pei Ju , Wendi's successor Yangdi pursued a much more expansionist policy toward his neighbors, subjugating the Tuyuhun and inadvertently alienating the Tujue. Yangdi's three Liaodong campaigns against Koguryo set off a series of rebellions that finally brought down the Sui empire. Amidst the end-of-dynasty chaos, Li Yuan (Tang Gaozu), an ex-Sui high court official, emerged as the winner with the founding of the Tang dynasty in 618...