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

3. SÖGET-BULAQ.

A. Ruined fortress.

When travelling from Korla to Shindi, in October 1928, I took the road via
Sai-cheke at Könche-darya through the narrow mountain valley Söget-bulaq. The
reason why I chose this route was that my guide Urayim (= Ibrahim) from Shine-
ga informed me that there was a "Kohna-shahr" in the Söget-bulaq valley. After
having proceeded 9.5 km. northwards (measured in a straight line) from the south-
ern foot of Quruq-tagh we also reached a ruined fortress on the western side of the
valley, where it forms a marked bend and is wider than elsewhere.

The structure is situated on the top of a small but very steep hill, the walls of the
fortress following the irregular shape of the hill, Fig. 39.¹ It measures roughly
50×30 m. The walls are built of slabs with mortar. As seen in Pl. XIXa parts of the
masonry have fallen down. The walls do not exceed 4 m. in height. The interior
makes more the impression of a platform than of an enclosure. There is only one
gate, situated in the southern part on a narrow promontory. Here the walls are
higher but also thinner. On the eastern side an inlet between two promontories has
been closed by a low wall thus forming a lower bastion.

Only a couple of undecorated potsherds were picked up inside the fortress. Below
the rampart we found the bronze pendant Pl. 15: 3, in the shape of a very stylized
animal representation, a ram, the horns forming the suspension loops. There are
pendants among the Ordos bronzes with similar conceptions of the animal.

These meagre finds do not furnish any definite chronological clue. Considering
the general situation of the fortress, it is evident that it was constructed to control
traffic from North to South or vice-versa, and it was most likely built to block
this mountain road from invasions from the north. When traffic on the Silk Road,
or more precisely The Road of the Centre, was flourishing it was certainly very
necessary to protect this east-westerly route from flank attacks, and in this part
especially from the north. The Silk Road here followed the line of watch-towers be-
tween Ying-p'an and Korla, a line that is easily reached from the Quruq-tagh
mountains. It is therefore reasonable to suggest that the Söget-bulaq fortress was
built at the time when the trade along the Silk Road was lively and when the
Chinese still feared inroads from the Hsiung-nu.

The Söget-bulaq fortress may also have been constructed to protect one of the
roads to the kingdom of Shan, a small state mentioned in the Former Han annals
and located in western Quruq-tagh. This explanation, however, is less probable as
this kingdom can hardly have been of much consequence. The name Mo-shan men-
tioned by Li Tao-yüan probably refers to the same territory.