Exquisite Ancient City in Ghost Blowing Lights —— The Mystery of Niya in Xinjiang

Ghost Blowing Lights, an adventure novel with fantastic colors, is sought after by readers, and its imaginative and thrilling storyline makes readers want to stop. Many readers will be curious after reading it Do ancient creatures really think of the magical places inside? In particular, there is a mysterious ancient city-Jingjue Ancient City, which aroused everyone's curiosity.

Niya site is located in the deep desert of Minfeng County 130 km in Hotan area, Xinjiang. In the distant Tang Dynasty, when Xuanzang went to India to learn Buddhist scriptures, it was still an oasis where people and animals flourished. How many years has this once very prosperous land existed? How high has its civilization developed? When did it sink into the vast sand sea? What caused this? This magical place has attracted the attention of people all over the world. Who can solve these interlocking mysteries, who can understand the mystery of the rise and fall of the western regions through the ages.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the British explorer Stein went deep into Nia many times and stole as many as 12 boxes of cultural relics, such as Lu Mujian's documents and Chinese documents. Western scholars were shocked when these cultural relics were brought back to Britain. The splendid ancient culture immediately caused Niya to stir up the world overnight and became the focus of world explorers, archaeologists and ecologists.

Some people think that the Niya site is one of the 36 countries in the Western Region recorded in China's historical records. The most favorable literature in the middle period is that there are many sand dunes and ridges in the desert at the end of Niya River. There are temples, government offices, plantations and residential areas between sand dunes and hills. At the center of the ruins of the ancient city is a stupa. In this way, Stein came to the ruins of the ancient city of Niya and took away a lot of cultural relics. Only a few of these cultural relics belong to the Han dynasty, and one group of letters is particularly eye-catching.

There is a place name in this book-"Guo Jing", which records one thing: on a certain day in a certain year, an official in charge of western affairs issued an order to the king of Guo Jing, a vassal state. ...

It can be seen that the ancient country of Niya is a delicate country among the 36 countries in the Western Region. This ancient city, located in the Mingtiegai Gorge in the south of Tashkurgan, is called Niya country by locals and exquisite country by Han people.

Niya is located on the Silk Road where 36 countries in the ancient Western Regions were located. Buddhism and Islam were introduced to China in the East from here. It is even more mysterious than the ancient Loulan. This huge and well-preserved site of ancient civilization is comparable to the famous ancient city of Pompeii in ancient Rome. In a vast area with a width of about seven kilometers from east to west and a length of about twenty-six kilometers from north to south, there are more than seventy residential relics and several tombs centered on the stupa, as well as many natural and cultural relics such as barns, courtyards, city walls, ancient rivers, lakes and ponds, waterlogged dams, farmland, channels and dead trees.

When the Niya site was discovered, it was really shocking. Looking from a distance, it is surrounded by continuous sand dunes, and pieces of wooden stakes are exposed on the ground. The wooden stakes were the frames and doorframes of the house in those days, and some of them were supported by beams. Half the buildings are buried by sand. Broken bones can be seen everywhere in the yellow sand, and many broken red and black rough pottery pieces are scattered on the ground. After a big sandstorm, colorful decorations such as glass beads will be found near the site, as well as relatively complete pots, altars, wooden covers and other utensils on the ground. There are often exposed wooden coffins, mummies, silk, cotton and linen and other clothing and fabric fragments in the cemetery. Even if it is a barren ruin, people can feel its highly developed economic level and living standard.

One of the main features of the architecture of the Niya site is that when it was abandoned in the past, it maintained a complete appearance. From the outline of the house, where are the aisles, hallways and bedrooms, and where are the kitchen, storage room and stables? Some doors are half open, and there are exquisite fireplaces in the room. A thousand years ago, there was still a thick layer of sheep dung and camel dung in the stable. This situation seems that the owner has just left, causing endless reverie.

Niya is located on the Silk Road, which is the only way for Buddhism and Islam to be introduced into China. Therefore, the pagoda became the symbol and central building of the Niya site. The remaining stupa is a three-story building, the lower two floors are square and the upper one is barrel-shaped. The whole tower body is made of adobe and mud, and the outside is covered with mud. The entire southern part of the tower has collapsed, and the adobe laid by pressure joints is still exposed. Niya's stupa is very different from many pagodas in Chinese mainland. It is an inverted bowl-shaped pagoda, which is consistent with Indian pagodas. Traditionally, there should be a large number of temple buildings around, but so far no more supporting architectural remains have been found near the stupa here. Why? Perhaps this is the most difficult mystery to solve among many ancient fans of Niya.

In the archaeological excavation of Niya, the most important thing is to collect a large number of pieces of wooden slips of Qilu Wen, and also find mummies buried in the sand and funerary objects of ancient houses. Speaking of Qilu Wen, it is of great archaeological value. Cheruwen, which originated in the 4th century BC, is the full name of the text in the period of Asoka, the peacock dynasty of India in the 3rd century BC in northwest India. Later, it was used by Guishuang Empire. From the second century to the fourth century BC, it was popular in Hotan, Ruoqiang and Loulan in Xinjiang. There are no spaces between words, no punctuation marks, and the font is curved. It has been extinct for 1600 years, and only a few researchers in China, Germany and Britain can read it. The above text shows that its content is mostly various commands. So where is the palace that gave the order? How to determine its specific age? This is another very important mystery in the sea of mysteries through the ages.

"Five Stars Going Out of the East and Benefiting China" is a national first-class cultural relic, and the first batch of cultural relics forbidden to go abroad for exhibition in China. Known as one of the great discoveries of China archaeology in the 20th century.

1995 10, the tapestry was found in an ancient tomb at the Niya site in China and Japan. Collected in Xinjiang Museum. This brocade is a rounded rectangle with a length of 18.5 and a width of 12.5. Made of "Oriental Yihua Five-Star Brocade", with white silk at the edge. Three white ribbons with a length of about 2 1 cm and a width of about 1.5 cm were sewn on the two long sides, and three of them were broken. There are only eight characters in seal script: "Five stars come from the East, which is beneficial to China".

Through the study of the "five-star party", scientists have calculated that there will be a rare astronomical spectacle of the five-star party on September 9, 2040.

Mummies are often found in the ancient tombs of the Niya site, which has become a major feature of the Niya site. In ancient times, when science was underdeveloped, people thought that the human soul was attached to the human body. If the soul left the body, it would mean the coming of death. The former emperor ate a panacea and dreamed of immortality; If you can't live forever, you will try your best to preserve your body. They believe that as long as the body does not rot, the soul can live forever and continue to rule the ghosts of the underworld. Mercury and cinnabar can sometimes be found in the excavation of tombs in Liao Dynasty, which may be related to the preservation of corpses. However, the mummies found at the Niya site are different. The body has not undergone any antiseptic treatment, and it is completely formed under natural conditions.

1993 during a visit to niya, three "wooden coffins" were found in the cemetery in the north of Baota camp, and the bodies in the coffins were all mummified to varying degrees. In the arched "wooden coffin", there is a young girl lying on her side. Her dress is clearly visible, with a silk shirt inside and a red wool skirt outside. Most of her body was intact and was called "the girl in red" by the expedition.

Mummies were also found in another cemetery east of the stupa. Among them, a female corpse is well preserved. She is a young woman in her twenties, with black hair and shawl, delicate facial features and slender arch eyebrows. The facial muscles don't change much and look elastic. Another male corpse, which has rotted from the chest down, is a middle-aged man with a well-preserved head, thick eyebrows, beard and black hair.

Mummies are often found in Niya, and locals are used to it, but experts and scholars from other places attach great importance to it. Why there are so many mummies in Niya and why mummies are preserved well and badly are all important topics in scientific research. The decay of corpses, like the decay of food, is the result of the action of bacteria and microorganisms. The existence and activity of bacteria and microorganisms must have a certain temperature, humidity and air. At room temperature, bacteria and microorganisms can survive, but in particularly dry places, where there is no air, it is difficult for bacteria and microorganisms to survive. The female corpse in Mawangdui Western Han Tomb in Changsha, Hunan Province is a wet corpse. The reason why 2 100 years has not rotted is because the tomb is deep and tightly closed, which is isolated from the air. The existence of ancient mummies in Niya was caused by the dry climate in Taklimakan Desert.

The mummy in Niya's tomb is a part of the body, and some bodies have completely rotted, leaving only bones and black hair. Why are they all so different in Nia? This is the Taklimakan desert, which is deeper on the right. Generally speaking, the climate is very dry and there is little rainfall. However, the annual rainfall in the south is not completely consistent, some have more rainfall and some have little rainfall. According to modern gas experts. The survey shows that the average annual rainfall in Taklimakan Desert is only 25mm, but in some years, the daily rainfall reaches 25.2mm and sometimes 73.5mm.. In years with little rainfall, buried bodies are easy to become mummified bodies; In years with heavy rainfall, buried bodies are prone to decay. In a year, whether it is dry season burial or rainy season burial, for the preservation of the remains; It also has different effects.

From the ruins of Niya and archaeological excavations, it can be seen that two thousand years of desert dust can't cover up the glory of the ancient city. At least it can be said that two thousand years ago, the delta in the hinterland of the desert in the lower reaches of the Niya River was once an oasis with lush trees. There are many waterways in the delta, where the Luobu people and the Niya people live by water. When did Niya disappear from the earth?

It is inferred that 1500 years ago, human activities caused great damage to the ecological environment, the increasing population destroyed vegetation and water resources, ethnic and religious wars broke out frequently, and the production methods were extensive and backward, especially the depletion of water resources, which made Niya swallowed up by yellow sand and finally slept in the desert, leaving a pile of ruins. Since then, Niya has been covered with a thick layer of mystery, leaving endless suspense and eternal mystery for future generations.

Many pottery fragments and other cultural relics were found on the ancient river 40 kilometers north of the Niya site, which was earlier than the Niya site. In the south of Niya, between Damaza and Kabak, the nearest villages in the hinterland of the desert, many ancient sites have been discovered intermittently. This shows that with the deterioration of the environment and the change of the water system, the life of human beings changes from north to south along the river, and the south road of the "Silk Road" is constantly moving south. However, from Damaza in Kabak Village to Minfeng Oasis, the architectural features and living habits of folk houses are similar to those of known Gunia. It seems that they are indeed descendants of the Niya people. Perhaps the deterioration of the environment has forced people to abandon their original homes and battlements and find a place suitable for their lives.

The rise and fall of Niya is most closely related to water. According to scientists' investigation, there was a big water lake period in southern Xinjiang. The Yarkant River, Hotan River, Keriya River and Niya River flowing down from Kunlun Mountain are all very large, and they can flow into Tarim River through the desert. The water source of Niya is mainly provided by Niya River. The flow of Niya River and the change of water system determine the survival and migration of Niya people. The diffusion of water system has created the downstream delta, developed into an oasis and inhabited by Niya people. However, the deterioration of the environment, the expansion of desertification and the lack of water resources eventually led to the final demise of Niya, which was about the fourth century A.D., equivalent to the historical period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Another factor that can't be ignored is the uplift of the terrain, which leads to the change of atmospheric circulation, while Niya is located on the windward slope in the northeast, so it has suffered great wind erosion and accumulation.

Niya's death makes people think. If human beings do not pay attention to protecting the ecological environment on which they live, even the greatest and most brilliant civilization will inevitably be destroyed and become an embarrassing ruin.