South ancient city of Lop Nor

South ancient city of Lop Nor

The ruins of the South ancient city of Lop Nur (i.e. the ancient cities of LK and ll named by Stein) are located in the southwest desert of Lop Nur, which are composed of LK, ll ancient cities and residential sites. Its distribution area is about 64 square kilometers. Taking LK ancient city as the center, ll ancient city is 3km to the northwest and residential house is 8km to the northwest. The city wall is built of rammed earth (red willow and Populus euphratica). The residential site is mainly a "wooden bone mud wall" type building with wooden column frame and red willow branches smeared with grass mud. Most of the sites are half buried in the desert. These two sites are famous city sites on Loulan Road on the Silk Road, which are of great significance to the study of the history and culture of Loulan and Shanshan areas in the Han and Jin Dynasties and their relationship with the Central Plains.

Introduction to the ancient city

LK is the main site of the South ancient city of Lop Nur. The plan of LK ancient city is rectangular. The east wall is 163 meters long, the south wall is 82 meters long, the west wall is 160 meters long, and the north wall is 87.5 meters long, covering an area of about 20000 square meters. Rammed earth building. The wall is damaged, with a general residual height of about 3-5.4 meters, a residual width of 1.5-6.5 meters at the top, and a wall base thickness of about 7 meters. The northern part of the east wall is built with soil blocks, with the size of 44 × 25 × 10 cm. The gate is opened at the south end of the east city wall. The width of the gate is 2.3 meters. There are wooden bases at the bottom of the walls on both sides of the gateway, on which there are 9 columns. On one side of the gate, there are two cross beams connected with the wooden bases to form the door frame. The door frame is composed of 27 × 20 cm square wood mortise and tenon. The square wood is processed flat and well preserved, but it is difficult to see the whole structure of the gate because of quicksand. The timber of the collapsed gate is scattered inside and outside the gate. In the weathered mound about 300 meters southwest of the ancient city, there is a building platform, which is about 20 meters long, 8-10 meters wide and 2 meters high. On the platform, there are many wood with tenon and mortise structure, such as intact column foundation and octagonal column. On the surface, there are pottery pieces, copper arrowheads and smelting slag. The northeast and Southeast corners and even the whole East wall have been covered by quicksand; under the south wall is a depression about 40 meters long, 20 meters wide and 2 meters deep. The buildings are mainly preserved in the southern half of the city, and most of them are covered by quicksand, but the houses are still indistinguishable. It is mainly a group of houses 46 meters long from east to west and 13.5 meters wide from north to south. In the north, there are two houses 7 meters long and 3.5 meters wide. In the south, close to the gate, there is a large room in the north, which is rectangular and 5.7 × 5.5 meters in size. The houses are made of wooden frames, with reed between them and grass mud on the outside. Most of the frames have collapsed, but there are still some columns which are connected with the beams at the bottom of the frame and stand up. In the meantime, well preserved column foundations and bucket arches are also found.

Discovery of ancient city

LK ancient city of Lop Nur is 48.3km southwest of Loulan ancient city. It is the second largest city in Lop Nur area after Loulan in Wei, Jin and southern and Northern Dynasties. The total area is about 20000 square meters. LK ancient city is another site concentration area in Lop Nur area. About 3 km northwest of LK ancient city, there is LL ancient city, and 4.8 km northwest of LK ancient city, there is LM residential group site. When Stein explored Lop Nor in 1914, he named it LK site.

LK ancient city was first discovered by Imam tokta, a Uighur guide in Stein in 1907. In 1910, when Japanese juruichao was exploring Lop Nur, he obtained Li Bo's calligraphy in this city. At that time, he mistook the city for Loulan. In the same year, when Wang Guowei, a Chinese scholar, translated Li Bo's writings, he found that both documents were marked with the word "Haitou". According to the photos of the location where Li Bo's writings were unearthed provided by juruichao, Mori luksan, a Japanese scholar, confirmed that this is not the ancient city of Loulan, but the site of LK. Later, people called the LK site of Lop Nor South ancient city "Haitou ancient city". After the 430's, Loulan city was abandoned, and the office of changshufu in the western regions was moved to the ancient city of Haitou.

In 1914, the LL site was discovered and named by Stein. The city is 3 kilometers to the west of LK. Standing on the north wall of LK city and looking northwest, the outline of LK city can be seen in the sand dunes and Yadan terrain. The plane of the ancient city is rectangular. Except for the incomplete entrance in the northwest corner and the north section of the east wall, the city wall is basically intact. After measurement and calculation according to the restoration line, the length of the east wall is 71.5m, and there is a residual gap of 31m in the north section; the length of the south wall is 61m; the length of the west wall is 76m, and there is a residual gap of 16.5m in the northwest corner; the length of the north wall is 49m, and there is a residual gap of 7m in the west end. The remnant height of the city wall is 3-4 meters, the top width is 1.2-5 meters, and the bottom width is more than 8 meters. The construction of the city wall is the same as that of LK. Because the southern half of the city has been covered by quicksand, it is difficult to determine the specific structure and layout of the houses. There is also a pile of sand under the north wall of the city, but the direction from the northwest corner to the east wall is not buried by quicksand due to wind erosion, and no building remains can be seen.

Address: Southwest desert of Lop Nor, Ruoqiang County, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region

Longitude: 84.453964233398

Latitude: 41.622207641602

Ticket information: no ticket required.