アスターナ古墓群

The Astana Tombs (Asitanalao Gumuqun) are an ancient cemetery complex on the desert plain north of the ruined city of Gaochang, near Turpan, Xinjiang. In use roughly between the third and eighth centuries CE, the cemetery served Gaochang and the surrounding oasis and is one of the most important primary sources for the social, economic, and material history of the Silk Road in the eastern Tarim region.

The tombs are cut into the yellow earth of the basin floor and take the form of ramped descents leading to single or paired burial chambers. The dry, stable desert environment has preserved organic materials with exceptional completeness, and excavations here have recovered silk and cotton textiles, paper documents in Chinese, Sogdian, and other scripts, wooden artifacts, figurines, coins, and food offerings, together with the well-preserved mummified remains of the deceased. Many of the most significant finds are now held in the Turpan Museum and in major institutional collections elsewhere, where they are studied as a continuous archive of daily life on the Silk Road.

The most important group of documents recovered at Astana includes household registers, contracts, tax records, and private letters, which together allow historians to reconstruct the patterns of landholding, trade, family structure, and administration that organized life in the Gaochang oasis under successive Chinese, local, and Central Asian administrations. The manuscripts are an unusually rich primary source for the period and are cited widely in the international scholarship on Silk Road history.

At the site itself, a small number of tombs have been left open for viewing, with their original wall murals and representations of the deceased still in place. A modest on-site display explains the layout of the cemetery, the construction of the tombs, and the most significant categories of finds. The site is intimate in scale compared with the nearby ruined cities of Gaochang and Jiaohe, and its main interest is documentary rather than architectural.

A visit typically takes about an hour and is usually combined with Gaochang and the Bezeklik Caves on the eastern Turpan circuit. The tombs are essential for travelers with a serious interest in Silk Road archaeology and a useful addition for any visitor who has already spent time in the Turpan Museum, since the museum's display cases are largely populated by finds from this cemetery.