Kingdom of Charklik
Charklik or Charkhlik, the Uighur name, official now called by its modern Chinese name Ruoqiang, was an ancient kingdom located in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China.
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[edit] History
Charklik was the name for an ancient kingdom that was located in modern Ruoqiang County in Xinjiang. It was part of the Kingdom of Loulan from at least the 1st century BCE, although the name was subsequently changed to Shanshan in 77 CE.
During the latter part of the Former Han and throughout the Later Han the capital of the kingdom of Shanshan was known as Yüni 扜泥, which was located near the present town of Ruoqiang.[1]
The famous explorer and archaeologist, Aurel Stein visited the small oasis of Charklik in 1906, where he found a little village that was the official headquarters of a very large district, almost all desert, and including the salt lake known as Lop Nor. The district, however, only contained about five hundred households, even including the semi-nomadic herders and fishermen called 'Lopliks'. Stein says there is "conclusive evidence" that it was already the chief centre of the region when the Buddhist monk Xuanzang passed through on his way home to China in 645 CE. Marco Polo also passed through here in the 13th century - and referred to the region as "Lop".[2][3]
[edit] Description
Charklik was the last stop before Dunhuang on the difficult Southern Silk Route from Khotan before crossing the much-feared salt pans of Lop Nor between them. An alternate route from modern Charklik heads south through the Qaidam Desert which then turns northeast to Dunhuang, or south to Lhasa. There is also an ancient route leading north across the Taklamakan Desert to Korla. Northeast of the town of Ruoqiang is the importaqnt archaeological site of Miran.[4]
The modern town of Ruoqiang is described as "small, busy place" with only very basic accommodation available. It is a convenient jumping-off place to visit the ruins of Miran.[5]
South of Charklik are the imposing Altun Mountains which contain a large nature reserve where the wild horse, Przewalski's Horse, Equus przewalski, now extinct in the wild, is being reintroduced from stocks bred in zoos.[4]
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] References
- Bonavia, Judy (2004). The Silk Road: From Xi'an to Kashgar. Judy Bonavia, revised by Christoph Baumer. Odyssey Publications. Hong Kong. ISBN 962-217-741-7.
- Hill, John E. (2009). Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. BookSurge, Charleston, South Carolina. ISBN 978-1-4392-2134-1.
- Leffman, David, Simon Lewis and Jeremy Atiyah. (2005). The Rough Guide to China. Fourth edition. Rough Guides, New York, London, Delhi. ISBN 978-1-84353-479-2.
- Stein, M. Aurel (1932). On Ancient Central Asian Tracks: Brief Narrative of Three Expeditions in Innermost Asia and Northwestern China. Aurel Stein. Reprinted with Introduction by Jeannette Mirsky. Book Faith India, Delhi. 1999.
[edit] External links
- A tourism Guide to Charklik. [1]
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