Revealed: a city that time forgot
Print Edition
RUINS of city walls have been found in northwest China’s Lop Nur Desert, the site of a former capital of Loulan, a prosperous settlement built around 2,000 years ago to serve traders traveling the Silk Road.
Loulan, often called the Oriental Pompeii, was an important stop on the ancient trade route linking China and Central Asia. It thrived based around an oasis in a part of the desert known as “No man’s land.”
The archeological institute of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region said excavations had unearthed a circular wall, with a diameter of 300 meters. The base of the wall is 2.2-2.7 meters wide and the highest remaining part 2.5 meters tall.
Hu Xingjun, a research fellow with the institute, said red willow branches and reeds found among the ruins had been carbon dated, and the results suggested the structure dates back to the late Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220).
The archeologists believe the city was one of the capitals established by the Kingdom of Loulan, which was moved several times due to water resources, natural disasters, widespread disease and war. It had disappeared completely by the Tang Dynasty (618-907).
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