Gaochang Ancient City

Feel the ground first. It is fine, pale dust, almost like flour, and it lifts around your shoes with every step. The air is dry enough to tighten your lips. Around you, walls of packed earth rise and fall in broken shapes, the colour of baked bread. There is very little sound here. Perhaps the wind, perhaps a cart wheel in the distance. This is Gaochang, a city that people built from the earth beneath it, and which has slowly been returning to that earth for centuries.

You are standing in the Turpan Basin, in the east of Xinjiang, in far western China. This basin is one of the lowest places on land anywhere on Earth. Parts of it lie below sea level. It is also one of the hottest and driest. That harsh climate is the reason so much of Gaochang still stands. Rain is rare here, so walls of mud and rammed earth can survive for many centuries. In a wetter land, a city like this would have melted away long ago.

The story begins with soldiers. Around the first century before the common era, China's Han dynasty set up a military garrison at this spot. The Han court wanted to control the trade routes that crossed Central Asia — the network that we now call the Silk Road. Turpan was a natural stopping point. It had water from the mountains and fertile soil, and caravans needed rest before or after the deserts. A small fort grew, over generations, into a walled city.

In the centuries that followed, Gaochang became the capital of its own kingdom. For a long period, a ruling family called the Qu governed it. Their court mixed Chinese writing and administration with the languages and customs of the many peoples who passed through. Merchants from Sogdiana, a region of old Central Asia around modern Samarkand, traded here. So did Persians, Turks and travellers from India. The city stood between worlds, and it lived from that position.

Here is a story that many visitors know. In the year 630, a young Chinese Buddhist monk named Xuanzang arrived at Gaochang. He was travelling west to India to find Buddhist scriptures. The king of Gaochang welcomed him warmly and asked him to stay. Xuanzang refused, because he wanted to continue his journey. In the end, the king let him go with supplies and letters of introduction. Xuanzang later wrote about his travels, and his account became famous across East Asia.

That friendship did not save the kingdom. In 640, armies of the Tang dynasty conquered Gaochang and brought it under direct Chinese rule. The city remained important as an administrative centre. Then, in the ninth century, a new chapter began. The Uyghur empire on the steppes to the north collapsed around 840. Groups of Uyghurs moved south and west, and some of them made this city their capital. In the Uyghur language, the city became known as Qocho, which some people also write as Karakhoja.

The Uyghur kingdom of Qocho lasted for several centuries. And here is something that surprises many visitors. This city was a home for many faiths at once. Buddhism was strong here. There were also communities of Christians from the Church of the East. And Qocho was one of the last great centres of Manichaeism — a religion founded in Persia that taught a struggle between light and darkness. Manichaeism almost disappeared elsewhere, but texts and paintings of the faith survived in the dry soil of this city.

Now look at the layout around you. Gaochang has three layers. There is an outer city wall, an inner city, and a palace area. The outer wall once ran for several kilometres around the whole settlement. Parts of it still stand, thick at the base and narrowing toward the top. If you look closely at a broken section, you can see the horizontal bands in the earth. Each band shows one layer of soil that workers pressed down hard inside a wooden frame.

In the southwest part of the city stand the remains of a large Buddhist monastery. This is usually the area that visitors reach first. Look for the tall, square base of a stupa — a Buddhist monument that holds sacred relics. Look also for a round, domed structure nearby. Local tradition says it was a lecture hall, and some guides say Xuanzang preached in it. Treat that as a tradition, not a proven fact. Still, standing in that space, the idea feels close.

Gaochang slowly declined after the thirteenth century. Wars between powers in Central Asia damaged the region. Over time, people left, and the city was abandoned. Local farmers later took the rich, old soil from the ruins to use as fertiliser for their fields. That is one reason why so many walls have gaps and why so many rooms have no clear shape today. The city did not fall in one day. It wore away, year after year.

In the early twentieth century, foreign expeditions came here. German teams, led by scholars such as Albert Grünwedel and Albert von Le Coq, explored Turpan in the years before the First World War. They removed manuscripts, sculptures and wall paintings and shipped them to Berlin. Some of those pieces are still in museums there. Others were destroyed in the bombing of Berlin during the Second World War. So part of Gaochang now lives far away, and part of it is lost forever.

In 2014, Gaochang became part of a UNESCO World Heritage site. The listing covers a long stretch of the Silk Road, from the old Chinese capital region through the Tianshan corridor of Central Asia. Today, a paved path and small carts help visitors cross the large site, because walking all of it in the heat is hard work. Away from the main path, you can still find quiet corners. There, the only signs of people are the walls and your own footprints.

Before you leave, stop for a moment. Look north toward the red hills that rise beyond the plain. These are the Flaming Mountains, and in the afternoon light their ridges glow like embers. Then look back at the walls around you. Monks, merchants, soldiers and kings all walked on this same dust. As you return to the gate, notice how the sun changes the colour of the earth — gold, then rose, then grey. The city is still changing, slowly, in front of you.