Treasures of the Great Silk Road

by Edgar Knobloch

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  NOTES ON CHAPTER X

  Full details of abbreviations and publications are in the Bibliography.

  1 Cohn-Wiener, Turan, p.22.

  2 Not to be confused with Ferghana the region.

  3 Belenitsky, Civilisation p.139.

  4 Belenitsky, Civilisation p.139.

  5 Barthold, Turkestan, p.165.

  6 Quoted by Barthold in Turkestan, p.171.

  7 Frumkin, CAR XIII, p.104.

  8 Rempel, Ornament, p.34.

  9 Belenitsky, Civilisation, p.47.

  10 Belenitsky, Civilisation, p.48.

  11 Frumkin, CAR XII, p.176.

  12 Rempel, Ornament, pp.62–64.

  XI

  KAZAKHSTAN AND KYRGYZSTAN

  North of Tashkent, on the territory of Kazakhstan and on the railway line linking Central Asia with European Russia, is the town of Turkestan, previously called Yassi. Timur built here, at the same time as the palace in Shahrisabz, a mosque above the grave of a local saint, Hazret Ahmad Yassevi, which is one of the most outstanding specimens of Timurid architecture. Built by a Persian architect, it has a monumental iwan flanked by towers. Behind it is the actual mosque with a stalactite vault, and further behind the tomb of the saint and auxiliary premises. Both the mosque and the tomb have fine domes – the ribbed dome over the tomb is the first of this kind – but on the outside the complex is heavily damaged. Only some of the mosaics in the rear and some large brick ornaments have been preserved. Inside, however, is a remarkable collection of handicrafts: implements of bronze, wonderfully carved doors etc., all most probably of Persian origin. The museum of Almaty (formerly Alma-Ata) houses a complete model of the building.

  Osh, which in Arab times had a citadel with a palace and a prison, an inner town and outer suburbs with three gates in the city walls, and a fine cathedral mosque, is now an insignificant provincial town of which the only interesting features are the nearby oilfields and the high mountain road that starts here and traverses the Alai and the Transalai to the Pamirs.

  Uzkend, on the other hand, although very small, has more character. The valley of the Kara Darya narrows considerably here, so that the road that passed through it could be easily controlled and tolls levied. This was most probably the reason for the town’s past importance. In the eleventh century it even became the seat of the Karakhanid dynasty, which ruled Transoxania for a while. From this time there remains a group of three mausoleums and a minaret dating from the twelfth century, which represent an important example of Islamic architecture of that period. They form a significant stage in the development of wall ornament and a step towards the superb monuments of the Timurid period, 200 years later. All three mausoleums had imposing porticoes; at that time this was a new feature for this type of building. The central mausoleum of Nasr ben Ali, who died in about 1012–13, dates from the eleventh century and is now in ruins. (See 39 and 40.) Discernible on the remains of the façade is a simple terracotta ornament – one of the earliest girikhs – and inside, a band of remarkably fine carved plaques with what are clearly pre-Islamic motifs. Of the dome, only one corner remains. Inside was a room 26 square feet, with a niche in each wall. Below the band of plaques some remains of an inscription frieze were still visible in the late 1950s. Cohn-Wiener described the buildings in the mid–1920s, when it was in a slightly better condition.

  The minaret of Uzkend dates most probably from the same period. It stands north of the mausoleums, near the present-day mosque. (See 41.) Its diameter at the bottom is 30ft, height only about 65ft, but the upper part is missing. The ornament is geometrical, composed of smaller and larger bricks alternating in sequence. The style is the same as that of the mausoleum mentioned above. This was most probably a model for the still existing monumental minarets in Bukhara and Vabkent, both built under Karakhanid rule.

  The northern mausoleum, Jalal ad-Din al Husayn, built in 1152, is one of the best surviving specimens of early Islamic art. (See 35 and 38.) Here, perhaps for the first time, the façade of the building is accentuated. Hitherto, all Islamic buildings were oriented towards the inside and tended to neglect the outer appearance. The portico is beautifully decorated with incised terracotta ornaments, on the flanking columns, inside the portico, and on the soffit of the arch. A band of inscriptions on the arch is in the flowery Naskhi script, while above the entrance a plaited Kufic has been used. The southern mausoleum, built in 1186, is even more decorative than the northern one. (See 36 and 37.) The elements on the inner side of the iwan, which were later used on the famous Shah-i Zinda in Samarkand, can be characterised as follows: the corner column, an inscription band, a concave segment also filled with inscriptions, and an outer column with inscriptions and geometrical ornaments. They are separated from each other by brick bands and incised ornamented terracotta plaques. Interwoven islimi (floral motifs) dominate the ornament completely. This was not the case with the older building, however.

  North of Uzkend, in the midst of the Ferghana range and in an almost inaccessible spot, lies the site of Saimaly-Tash, almost 10,000ft above sea level. Here, well over 100,000 rock engravings were found, presenting a unique panorama of wild animals, hunting scenes, domestic animals, vehicles and ploughs, as well as human beings. The chronology is difficult to ascertain and, according to some authorities (Bernshtam for one), they date from the Bronze Age period up to about the third to the eighth century AD. The site was discovered in 1903, but was partly explored by Zima only in 1948. A more thorough exploration by Bernshtam followed in 1950.1

  Ak-Tepe near Tashkent is the site of a typical Soghdian kushk – a square building without any windows, with a corridor all round and a large number of rooms facing into it. The outer corners were reinforced with round towers and the decoration consisted of terracotta plaques in the form of tents and discs.

  Buddhist remains were discovered in several places in the Chu valley, both east and west of Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. The most important of these is Ak-Beshim, east of Bishkek, which has already been described (p.152). Other sites are Dzhul, west of Bishkek, Saryg, and Suyab, east of the city. In other areas, the sites are confined mostly to kurgans, or tombs of the nomad tribes, ranging from the Bronze Age to the Turkic tribes of the fifth to seventh century AD.

  Many of these kurgans are scattered in the steppe between Almaty and the Alatau mountains. Some have been excavated. The finds included, among other things, gold jewels and statuettes, one of them highly elaborate. Most of them are in the Almaty Museum.

  Some 50 miles west of Almaty, the rock carvings of Tamgaly Tash date from the Saka period (seventh to fifth century BC) to the Turkish period (sixth to eighth century AD). (See colour plate 14.) They are mainly zoomorphic, but there is a curious humanoid figure with an aura probably representing a solar deity.

  In this connection a brief mention should be made of the Turkish balbals, or stone sculptures, found either in some kurgans or free-standing in the steppe. They are more or less schematic human figures ranging from flat engravings to reliefs believed to represent enemies killed in battle, who, after death, are supposed to serve the man who killed them. They usually have a big head, tiny arms with the right one folded at the waist, sometimes with a cup in the right hand and the left arm resting on a sword. (See 70 and 71.) They were characteristic of western Turks and were found all over southern Siberia, but not in Transoxania.2

  Note: Remnants of a medieval town were discovered recently in the shallow waters of Lake Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan. Pottery fragments and several coins from the Karakhanid period (twelfth century) were found. (As yet unpublished.)

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  NOTES ON CHAPTER XI

  Full details of abbreviations and publications are in the Bibliography

  1 Frumkin, CAR XII, pp.21–25.

  2 Balbals can be seen in the museums of Almaty and Tashkent.

  62 Friday Mosque, Herat (detail)

  63 Monastery Kyzyl Kara (general view)

  64 Bamiyan

&nbs
p; 65 Gazurgah, Herat (detail)

  PART III

  XINJIANG OR

  EASTERN TURKESTAN

  Fig. 26 Xinjiang

  XII

  HISTORY

  Xinjiang, or the Uighur Autonomous Republic of China, consists of the Tarim Basin, which is mostly desert with a belt of oases in the north and south, and of the valley of the Ili and the region of Dzungaria west of Urumchi and north of the mountain range of Tien Shan. The Dzungarian Gate as well as the Ferghana Gate west of Kashgar were the favourite passages, from time immemorial, for the nomadic incursions from the Siberian and Mongolian plains into the settled areas of Turan and Iran.

  The oases of the Tarim Basin form a semicircular belt, the northern part of which consists of Turfan, Karashahr, Kucha, Aksu and Kashgar. The southern belt includes Lou-lan, Miran, Niya, Keriya, Khotan and Yarkend to name just the important ones. It thus stretches north of the Kuen-lun Range all the way from Tun-huang in the east to Kashgar in the west. From Khargalik, near Khotan, a caravan route linked Xinjiang with Ladakh and India.

  The Chinese first captured eastern Turkestan from the nomadic Huns in the first century BC, and thus established their control over the Silk Road. In those times most of the country was inhabited by Indo-Europeans of Iranian origin in the south-west (the Asian Scythians, or Saka) and of ‘Tokharian’ origin in the north and north-east (the so-called Yue-che). The Huns pushed these Yue-che westwards and started a big migration movement that finally brought the Saka to southern Afghanistan, to the province of Sistan (Saka-stan) and the Yue-che to Bactria, which in some sources is called Tokharistan. This movement marked the end of the Graeco-Bactrian Empire. Strabo mentions the Tokharoi and the Sakaraulai among the tribes who defeated the Greek king Heliocles between 140 and 130 BC. The Kushan dynasty was probably of Yue-che origin and their empire began as a federation of Yue-che tribes. When this empire reached the peak of its power, it clashed with the Chinese on the western frontier of Xinjiang, at the end of the first century AD. By this time, in the later Han period, the dominance of the Tarim was again disputed between the Chinese and the Huns. The famous general Pan-Chao re-established Chinese control over the area. When some oases like Kucha applied for help to the Kushans, their ethnic relatives, Pan-Chao was able to isolate the Kuchan expeditionary force, which perished in the deserts of Kashgaria. In AD 97, Pan-Chao dispatched a detachment across the Parthian Empire to meet the Romans. The Chinese, frightened by the hostile reception they got from the Parthians, soon decided to return home, but their venture probably gave grounds to the otherwise unconfirmed legend that Pan-Chao’s army pushed as far west as the Aral Sea in pursuit of the Kushans. (Some sources even mention the Caspian Sea.)

  Under the Han dynasty, when the Silk Road was firmly in Chinese hands, Buddhist religion, Indian literature and Hellenistic art could take root in the Tarim oases. Indian missionaries followed this route when travelling to China to preach Buddhism. Graeco-Roman art came quite naturally with trade and religion. The southern road was probably used more frequently. Sir Aurel Stein found there, among other things, Roman coins of the Emperor Valens, Graeco-Buddhist bas-reliefs in the purest Gandhara style, Roman caskets, intaglios and Indo-Scythian coins.

  The civilisation of Inner Asia at that time may be divided into two distinct longitudinal zones: in the north we encounter the art of the steppe, nomad art par excellence, characterised by bronze buckles and parts of harness in animal style, with purely ornamental tendencies; in the south, along the Silk Road, across the double belt of oases around the Tarim Basin, we find the art of sedentary peoples, paintings and sculptures directly inspired by Greek, Persian and Indian art, which was brought in and united by the Buddhist religion.

  South of Tarim there is the same mixture of Persian and Buddhist elements, particularly in the paintings on wooden panels found at Dandan-Uilik, north-east of Khotan. Female nudes reminiscent of Ajanta, horsemen and camel riders entirely Persian in appearance, and a bearded bodhisattva dressed more like a Persian nobleman all indicate both Persian and Buddhist influence. We may therefore conclude that before the conquest of the country by the Turkic tribes in the second half of the eighth century, the Indo-European oases both north and south of the Tarim derived their culture from the great civilisations of India and Persia, and owed nothing, or very little, to the civilisation of the steppes.1 (See also p.171.)

  While Kucha was mostly influenced by Persia, Turfan was more exposed to currents from China. Here the Indo-Iranian elements gradually disappeared and merged with the cultural trends of the Tang dynasty. After all, Turfan was ruled by a Chinese dynasty from the beginning of the sixth century, but when the locals rebelled against the suzerainty of the Tang, a Chinese army occupied and annexed the oasis in AD 640. The Tang expansion westwards continued, Karashahr and Kucha were defeated in turn, and the Indo-Iranian civilisation was thus destroyed. Kashgar, Khotan and Yarkend also recognised the supremacy of the Tang, and the whole of Xinjiang was once again under Chinese rule. Karashahr, Kucha, Kashgar and Khotan formed a Chinese defence line called the ‘Four Garrisons’, but after the defeat by the Arabs in 751 the whole of Inner Asia was lost to the empire.2

  Turkish domination followed in Xinjiang. The Uighurs, originally a Turkic tribe from western Mongolia, appeared on the scene. They intervened in the Chinese Civil War, helping the Emperor Su-tsong, and were able to carve a vast empire of their own on the western fringes of China proper. Manichaeism, an amalgam of Persian Mazdeism and Nestorian Christianity, became their state religion, no doubt imported from Persia when the followers of this sect were persecuted there by the Arabs. Nestorians came to Xinjiang most probably at the same time, and their colonies were the source of the medieval legends of Prester John.

  In the ninth and at the beginning of the tenth century, the Uighurs were squeezed out of Mongolia and came in great numbers to Xinjiang, where they still represent the main element of the population. With a Manichaean religion the Uighurs also took over the Soghdian alphabet, derived from Syriac, and developed it into the famous Uighur script. This replaced the Turkish runic script of the Orkhon and was subsequently used by the Mongols of Chingiz-Khan and by Timur, 500 years later. Gradually, the influence of the Manichaeans and Nestorians faded and the penetration of Islam began. In the twelfth century the population was already predominantly Muslim by religion and Turkic by ethnic origin, and it has remained so up to the present day.

  In the eighteenth century, under the Qing dynasty, the Tarim basin became Chinese once more and the penetration of the Han settlers began. This provoked local discontent, which culminated in an uprising in 1864 when Xinjiang Muslims rebelled against the Manchu dynasty. An officer from Kokand, Yakub Beg, came to Kashgar in 1866, and within months became ruler of a state that was duly recognised by Britain, Russia and Turkey. However, in 1877 he was defeated by the Chinese commander and died shortly afrerwards. The centre of his short-lived empire was the oasis of Turfan.

  When European explorers and geographers had almost completed the survey of Inner Asia, in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, they heard rumours that somewhere in the deserts of Chinese Turkestan scores of fragmented remains of ancient civilisations had been found preserved, apparently, as well as those in the deserts of Egypt. Following this, numerous archaeological expeditions made for Xinjiang, and in 1907 their efforts were crowned by Sir Aurel Stein’s discovery of the ‘caves of a thousand Buddhas’ near the village of Tun-huang.3

  Shortly before and after the First World War, several French, German, Russian, Japanese and, of course, British expeditions worked on the Xinjiang sites, but unfortunately their time ran short. In the early 1920s Xinjiang became a contested area between Russia and China, and the Chinese authorities were extremely reluctant to let foreigners in. After a brief spell of fame, Xinjiang fell again into obscurity.

  Nevertheless, since the nineteenth-century Great Game, Britain and Russia were in competition in Xinjiang. Both powers opened consulates in Kashgar and there wa
s also a British representation in Urumchi. The Russians, however, gained an advantage when they extended their railway as far as Andizhan in the Ferghana valley, and even more when, under the Soviets, the Turksib (TurkestanSiberian) line was built, bringing the Russian communication network within easy reach of the Xinjiang border. The trade with India declined sharply and the Russian influence both commercial and strategic, increased. Xinjiang gradually became a virtual Russian protectorate and remained so until the Chinese Communist victory in 1949. This is how Peter Fleming described the situation in the mid–1930s: ‘the only powers in the land are the Russian civil and military advisers. Every department, every regiment, is in effect directed by a Soviet agent occupying a key position; the Province is run from Moscow.’4

  When the Communists seized power in China, the Russians had to leave, and Xinjiang became more inaccessible than ever. After the Sino-Soviet split in 1960 thousands of nomads crossed the border into the USSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the traffic between Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and also with Russia became much livelier. New communications were opened such as, for example, the rail link between Urumchi and Semipalatinsk, planned since the 1930s, a rail and road link with Almaty in Kazakhstan etc. Tribal, personal and commercial contacts between the Turkic nations were gradually resumed, and these, in turn, provoked anti-Chinese tensions in Xinjiang resulting, from time to time, in armed clashes and riots of which only sporadic news penetrated abroad.