renowned for its library, its art, and its craft, as well as its might in war. Lecoq, in the course of archœological investigations of which the results have not yet been published, found manuscripts on paper, leather, and wood, in ten different languages. Most of the manuscripts date from the early days of Kara-Khoja. An examination of the languages shows how, when favorable climatic conditions caused Turfan to become capable of supporting a dense population, people poured in from every quarter. Speakers of Nagari and of two dialects of Brahmi came from India on the southwest ; Tibetans and Tanguts brought their language from the southeast; Chinese from the east; Uigurs and Turks from the northeast, north, and northwest; while from the west came people who were probably Nestorian Christians, and who brought the Syriac and Manicharean tongues and an unknown language allied to Syriac. The presence of Tibetan manuscripts in Turfan is especially interesting because at the end of the eighth century there was a great incursion of Tibetans into Chinese Turkestan. The underlying cause of this is not known with certainty; but apparently, during the preceding dry, warm epoch, Tibet had become relatively habitable, while now, when the climate became colder, the Tibetans found difficulty in raising crops or in maintaining flocks upon their high plateau, and so sought new homes.
The mediæval period of dense population and great prosperity in Turfan was followed by a time of almost complete depopulation two centuries, more or less, ago. This too appears to have been closely related to a change of climate, for at this time Central Asia was apparently growing more
IIIF Color HighRes
