Ancient City of Gaochang

The Ancient City of Gaochang lies at the foot of the Flaming Mountain, about 45 kilometers southeast of the Turpan County seat, which has been a must passageway for communication between the East and the West since ancient times, and an important section of the ancient Silk Road.

The construction of the city of Gaochang started in the first century BC. First called Gaochangbi, it was a key point on the ancient Silk Road, but after many changes in fortune over a period of 1,300 years, and under the jurisdictions of the Gaochang Prefecture, the Gaochang Kingdom and Huozhou Prefecture, the city was burnt down in wars at the end of the 13th century.

The Ancient City of Gaochang consists of the outer city, the inner city, and the palace city. The walls of city, basically well preserved, divide the city into three parts: the inner city, the outer city, and the palace city.

The outer city is in a shape of rectangle with perimeter of about 5 kilometers, occupying an area of 2 million square meters. The walls were built of tamped (packed down) earth and the foundation is 11.5 meters high and 12 meters wide. There are outstanding battlements on the outside of the city walls. There are two gates on each side of the outer city: The two on the west side with defense enclosures outside the gates are the best preserved, from one of which, the small town outside the city gate can still be seen.

The southeast and southwest part of the outer city is the temple area. The bigger temple area lies on the southwest part of the city. The original of the ruins are the gate of temple, yard, main hall, and the pagoda basement of storied niches, and some remaining murals and figures of Buddha can still be vaguely seen in the niches. Some ruins of "workshops" and "fairs" still exist in the northeast and southeast outside the ancient city; perhaps the workshops were ruins of a small handcraft industry.

Two temple remains -- one in the southwest and the other in the northwest parts of the outer city -- are worth a visit.

The first one, 130 meters long from east to west and 85 meters wide from north to south, covers 10,000 square meters. It consists of an arched gate, courtyard, a lecture hall, a library of sutras, a main hall, and the monks' dormitory. It is said that Xuanzang, the renowned Buddhist monk of the Tang Dynasty(617-908), lectured here in 628 on his way to India.

The second one -- the northwest one -- is smaller but the mural remains are still impressive.

In the north central part of the inner city, there is a high terrace on which stands a square pagoda built of adobe called "Khan's Castle" which means "Imperial Palace." Somewhat to its west there is a half-underground, two-story structure that was probably the ruins of a palace.

The rectangular palace city is in the northern part of the city of Gaochang and it shares the north wall with the outer city and uses the north wall of the inner city as its south wall. There are still several 3- to 4-meter-high earthen platforms in the palace city where the court of the Huihu Gaochang Kingdom was seated.