National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

The occurrence of this mirror of the later Han dynasty' in this place is of special importance, as it is one of the few datable objects known from here. As well as the coins and the silk found by STEIN it was imported from China proper. STEIN, however, discovered four Kharoshthi documents among the stupa ruins, documents written by some Indian, i. e. a foreigner. And in one of the graves he found a small glass tumbler with cut ovals, undoubtedly an importation from far off Syria (Ying III. 3. 06). This mixture of Chinese, Indian and Near Eastern objects makes Ying-p'an a typical representative of the Lou-lan culture.

The lacquered wooden vase Ying. III. 3. 07 (Stein 1928, Pl. CX), is of the same type as the one found by HEDIN outside the coffin in Grave 35 (Pl. 27: 6).

The geographical position of Ying-p'an predestinates it to be a station on the part of the Silk Road running between Lou-lan and Korla. The part lying east of Yingp'an has been abandoned, most likely, for 1600 years, the western part from Yingp'an to Korla was still used in the T'ang period. It is marked by a line of Han dynasty watch-towers, ten in all, traced by HEDIN in 1896 and 1900, and subsequently examined by STEIN. I have visited a few of them; in Pl. XIV b - c are seen Stein's towers Y. VI and Y. VII.2 When they were constructed Könchc-darya may have followed a slightly more northerly bed, water thus having been nearer to the towers than at present. On the other hand, some of the towers are situated so far from any present or old water-course that the necessary water supply has had to be drawn from wells in any case.

The present road from Turfan via Tikenliq to Charkhliq passes Ying-p'an. It may very well have existed at the time of the early settlement, but the traffic between North and South can hardly have been heavy at that time. In 1934. I discovered a hitherto unknown line of communication between Ying-p'an and Charkhliq following the Qum-köl and what I have called The Small River, and probably passing Merdek, cf. p. 100. But if any traffic coming from Turfan followed The Small River it did not touch Ying-p'an but followed a direct line between Toghraq-bulaq and Qum-köl.

STEIN has identified the Ying-p'an site with "the town of Chu-pin" of the Ch'ien Han-shu. HERRMANN has lately proposed its identity with I-wu, though earlier he located I-wu, as do all other authorities, at Hami. Chu-pin he places at Merdek instead. I have corresponded with Prof. HERRMANN regarding this problem, and in his last letter he informs me that he has now returned to his former standpoint and again places I-wu at Hami.

Long after the abandoning of the old Chinese "town of Chu-pin" with its circular fortress, its shrine and stupas, and its grave yards, the place was resettled by Mo-

1 KARLBECK, who is the last to have published a mirror chronology, places this type in the first century A. D. (Karlbeck 1938, E. 22).

2 The first of these towers STEIN calls Sanje. This is the Mongolian word for tower. It is generally pronounced tsonch or tsonchi, and goes back to the Tibetan dzong, fortress, watch-tower, etc.

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