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Turpan () or Turfan (s=吐鲁番) is a prefecture-level city located in the east of the autonomous region of Xinjiang, China. It has an area of and a population of 693,988 (2020). The historical center of the prefectural area has shifted a number of times, from Jiaohe ruins (Jiaohe, to the west of modern Turpan) to Qocho (Gaochang, to the southeast of Turpan) and to Turpan itself.
Along with city-states such as Loulan Kingdom (Loulan) and Kucha, Turpan was inhabited by people speaking the Indo-European Tocharian languages up to at least the 8th century AD. Manuscripts from the 5th to the 8th century AD shows that the Tocharian A (Turfanian, Agnean, or East Tocharian; natively ārśi) of Qarašähär (ancient Agni, Chinese Yanqi and Sanskrit Agni) and Turpan (ancient Turfan and Xočo) was used in the region for administration and religious texts.
The Jushi Kingdom ruled the area in the 1st millennium BC, until it was conquered by the Chinese Han dynasty in 107 BC.Hill (2009), p. 109. It was subdivided into two kingdoms in 60 BC, between the Han and its enemy the Xiongnu Empire. The city changed hands several times between the Xiongnu and the Han, interspersed with short periods of independence.Hill (2009), p. 442. Nearer Jushi has been linked to the Turpan Oasis, while Further Jushi to the north of the mountains near modern Jimsar.
After the fall of the Han dynasty in 220, the region was virtually independent but tributary to various dynasties. Until the 5th century AD, the capital of this kingdom was Jiaohe ruins (modern Yarghul west of Turpan).
Many Han Chinese along with settled in Turfan during the post Han dynasty era. The Chinese character dominated Turfan in the eyes of the Sogdians. Kuchean speakers made up the original inhabitants before the Chinese and Sogdian influx. The oldest evidence of the use of Chinese characters was found in Turfan in a document dated to 273 AD.
In 327, the Gaochang Commandery ( jùn) was created in the Turfan area by the Former Liang under Zhang Jun. The Chinese set up a military colony/garrison and organized the land into multiple divisions. Han Chinese colonists from the Hexi region and the central plains also settled in the region. Gaochang was successively ruled by the Former Liang, Former Qin and Northern Liang.
In 439, remnants of the Northern Liang, led by Juqu Wuhui and Juqu Anzhou, fled to Gaochang where they would hold onto power until 460 when they were conquered by the Rouran Khaganate.
At this time the Gaoche was rising to challenge power of the Rouran in the Tarim Basin. The Gaoche king Afuzhiluo killed King Kan Shougui, who was the nephew of Kan Bozhou.East Asia Studies Institute of International Studies University of California CHINESE DYNASTIC HISTORIES TRANSLATIONS No. 6 and appointed a Han from Dunhuang, named Zhang Mengming (張孟明), as his own vassal King of Gaochang. Gaochang thus passed under Gaoche rule.
Later, Zhang Mengming was killed in an uprising by the people of Gaochang and replaced by Ma Ru (). In 501, Ma Ru himself was overthrown and killed, and the people of Gaochang appointed Qu Jia () from Jincheng Commandery as their king. Qu Jia at first pledged allegiance to the Rouran, but the Rouran khaghan was soon killed by the Gaoche and he had to submit to Gaoche overlordship. Later, when the Göktürks emerged as the supreme power in the region, the Qu dynasty of Gaochang became vassals of the Göktürks.
While the material civilization of Kucha to its west in this period remained chiefly Indo-Iranian in character, in Gaochang it gradually merged into the Tang dynasty aesthetics. Qu Wentai, King of Gaochang, was a main patron of the Tang pilgrim and traveller Xuanzang.
In Astana Cemetery, a contract written in Sogdian detailing the sale of a Sogdian girl to a Chinese man was discovered dated to 639 AD. Individual slaves were common among silk route houses; early documents recorded an increase in the selling of slaves in Turpan.Wu Zhen 2000 (p. 154 is a Chinese-language rendering based on Yoshida's Japanese translation of the Sogdian contract of 639). Twenty-one 7th-century marriage contracts were found that showed, where one Sogdian spouse was present, for 18 of them their partner was a Sogdian. The only Sogdian men who married Chinese women were highly eminent officials.Rong Xinjiang, 2001, pp. 132–135. Of the 21 epitaphs, 12 are from Quan Tangwen buyi (supplement to the complete writings of the Tang), five from Tangdai muzhi huibian (Collected epitaphs of the Tang), three were excavated at Guyuan, Ningxia, and one is from another site. Several commercial interactions were recorded, for example a camel was sold priced at 14 silk bolts in 673, Yan is a common ending for Sogdian first names meaning 'for the benefit of' a certain deity. For other examples, see Cai Hongsheng, 1998, p. 40.Ikeda contract 29. and a Chang'an native bought a girl age 11 for 40 silk bolts in 731 from a Sogdian merchant.Ikeda contract 31. Yoshida Yutaka and Arakawa Masaharu saw this document, which was clearly a copy of the original with space left for the places where the seals appeared. Five men swore that the girl was never free before enslavement, since the Tang Code forbade commoners to be sold as slaves.
The Tang dynasty became weakened considerably due to the An Lushan Rebellion, and the Tibetan Empire took the opportunity to expand into Gansu and the Western Regions. The Tibetans took control of Turfan in 792.
Clothing for corpses was made out of discarded, used paper in Turfan which is why the Astana graveyard is a source of a plethora of texts.
Seventh or 8th century Jiaozi and were found in Turfan.
Artifacts of Manichaean and Buddhist provenance were also found in Turfan. During World War II, many of these artifacts were destroyed or looted.From the Introduction by Peter Hopkirk in the 1985 edition of Von Le Coq's Buried Treasures of Chinese Turkestan, p. ix–x.
All these are known as the Turfan fragments. They comprise a collection of over 40,000 manuscripts and manuscript fragments in 16 different languages and 26 different typefaces in different book forms. They are in the custody of the Berlin State Library where their study continues.
These writings deal with Buddhist as well as Christian-Nestorian, Manichaean and secular contents. The approximately 8,000 Old Turkic Buddhist texts make up the largest part of this.
A whole series of Sogdian language Buddhist scriptures were found in Turpan (and also in Dunhuang), but these date from the Tang dynasty (618–907) and are translations from Chinese. Earlier Sogdian Buddhist texts could not be found.
Christian texts exist mainly in Syriac and Sogdian, but also as Syriac-Sogdian bilinguals (bilingual texts), as well as some Turkish-Nestorian fragments. They include fragments of Sogdian translations of works by Isaac the Syrian.Pirtea, Adrian (2019). "Isaac of Nineveh, Gnostic Chapters," in Nicholas Sims-Williams, From Liturgy to Pharmacology: Christian Sogdian Texts from the Turfan Collection. Berliner Turfantexte 45. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 117–44. (K4.39 mid to 46 beginning; parts of ch. 1.84–85, K1.16, 19)Sims-Williams, Nicholas (2017). An Ascetic Miscellany: The Christian Sogdian Manuscript E28. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 19–43.
Manichaean texts survive in Middle Persian, Parthian, Sogdian and Uyghur; the Sogdian and Uyghur documents show a notable adaptation to Buddhism, but there is also evidence of a reverse influence.
Important parts of the Gospel of Mani were found here, for example. Also, parts of the Arzhang (Book of Pictures), one of the holy books of Manichaeism were discovered.
Most of the Buddhist texts survive in only fragmentary form. There are several Indian Sanskrit texts from various schools of Mahayana and Hinayana, Uyghur texts that are mostly translations from Sanskrit, Tocharian and, starting in the 9th century, increasingly from the Chinese.
Many of the Uyghur documents and fragments of Buddhist scriptures edited to date include didactic texts (sutras) and philosophical works (the abhidharma). In contrast to the other Buddhist contents, the monastic discipline texts (the vinaya) did not seem to be translated, but rather taught and studied in Sanskrit. Turfan expeditions iranicaonline.org
After being converted, the descendants of the previously Buddhist Uyghurs in Turfan failed to retain memory of their ancestral legacy and falsely believed that the "infidel Kalmuks" (Dzungar people) were the ones who built Buddhist monuments in their area.
As late as 1420, the Timurid dynasty envoy Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh, who passed through Turpan on the way from Herat to Beijing, reported that many of the city's residents were "Kafir". He visited a "very large and beautiful" temple with a statue of Shakyamuni; in one of the versions of his account it was also claimed that many Turpanians "worshipped the cross".. Christianity is mentioned in the Turkic translation of Ghiyāth al-dīn's account published by Bellér-Hann, but not in the earlier Persian versions of his story.
The Moghul ruler of Turpan Yunus Khan, also known as Ḥājjī 'Ali (ruled 1462–1478), unified Moghulistan (roughly corresponding to today's Eastern Xinjiang) under his authority in 1472. Around that time, a conflict with the Ming dynasty started over the issues of tribute trade: Turpanians benefited from sending "tribute missions" to China, which allowed them to receive valuable gifts from the Ming emperors and to do plenty of trading on the side; the Chinese, however, felt that receiving and entertaining these missions was just too expensive. (Muslim envoys to the early Ming China were impressed by the lavish reception offered to them along their route through China, from Suzhou District to Beijing, such as described by Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh in 1420–1421.)
Yunus Khan was irritated by the restrictions on the frequency and size of Turpanian missions (no more than one mission in 5 years, with no more than 10 members) imposed by the Ming government in 1465 and by the Ming's refusal to bestow sufficiently luxurious gifts on his envoys (1469). Accordingly, in 1473 he went to war against China, and succeeded in capturing Hami in 1473 from the Oirat Mongol Henshen and holding it for a while, until Ali was repulsed by the Ming dynasty into Turfan. He reoccupied Hami after Ming left. Henshen's Mongols recaptured Hami twice in 1482 and 1483, but the son of Ali, Ahmad Alaq, who ruled Eastern Moghulistan or Turpan Khanate, reconquered it in 1493 and captured the Hami leader and the resident of China in Hami (Hami was a vassal state to Ming). In response, the Ming dynasty imposed an economic blockade on Turfan and kicked out all the Uyghurs from Gansu. It became so harsh for Turfan that Ahmed left. Ahmed's son Mansur succeeded him and took over Hami in 1517. These conflicts were called the Ming–Turpan conflict.
Several times, after occupying Hami, Mansur tried to attack China in 1524 with 20,000 men, but was beaten by Chinese forces. The Turpan kingdom under Mansur, in alliance with Oirats, tried to raid Suzhou in Gansu in 1528, but were severely defeated by Ming Chinese forces and suffered heavy casualties. The Chinese refused to lift the economic blockade and restrictions that had led to the battles and continued restricting Turpan's tribute and trade with China. Turfan also annexed Hami.
Francis Younghusband visited Turpan in 1887 on his overland journey from Beijing to India. He said it consisted of two walled towns, a Chinese one with a population of no more than 5,000 and, about a mile (1.6 km) to the west, a Turk town of "probably" 12,000 to 15,000 inhabitants. The town (presumably the "Turk town") had four gateways, one for each of the cardinal directions, of solid brickwork and massive wooden doors plated with iron and covered by a semicircular bastion. The well-kept walls were of mud and about 35 ft (10.7 m) tall and 20 to 30 feet (6 to 9 m) thick, with loopholes at the top. There was a level space about 15 yards (14 m) wide outside the main walls surrounded by a musketry wall about 8 ft (2.4 m) high, with a ditch around it some 12 ft (3.7 m) deep and 20 ft (6 m) wide. There were drumtowers over the gateways, small square towers at the corners and two small square bastions between the corners and the gateways, "two to each front". Wheat, cotton, poppies, melons and grapes were grown in the surrounding fields.Younghusband, Francis E. (1896). The Heart of a Continent, pp. 139–140. John Murray, London. Facsimile reprint: (2005) Elbiron Classics. (pbk); (hardcover).
Turpan grapes impressed other travelers to the region as well. The 19th-century Russian explorer Grigory Grum-Grshimailo, thought the local raisins may be "the best in the world" and noted the buildings of a "perfectly peculiar design" used for drying them called chunche.Grigory Grum-Grshimailo (Г. Грум-Гржимайло), East Turkestan (Восточный Туркестан), in Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary. (The original quote: «Турфан же славится и своим изюмом, который можно считать лучшим в мире (высушивается в совершенно своеобразного типа сушильнях))», i.e. "Turfan is also famous for its raisins, which may be deemed the best in the world. They are dried in drying houses of a completely peculiar type".
Mongols, Chinese and Chantos all lived in Turfan during this period.
On 19 August 1981, Deng Xiaoping conducted an inspection in Turpan Prefecture.
On 31 March 1995, Turpan and Dunhuang became sister cities.
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| 1 | Gaochang District | 高昌区 | Gāochāng Qū | Qarahoja Rayoni | 317,443 | 13,651 | 23.25 | |
| 2 | Shanshan County | 鄯善县 | Shànshàn Xiàn | Pichan Nahiyisi | 242,310 | 39,547 | 6.13 | |
| 3 | Toksun County | 托克逊县 | Tuōkèxùn Xiàn | Toqsun Nahiyisi | 134,235 | 16,561 | 8.11 | |
Turpan is located about southeast of Ürümqi, Xinjiang's capital, in a mountain basin, on the northern side of the Turpan Depression, at an elevation of above sea level. Outside of Turpan is a small volcanic cone, the Turfan volcano, that is said to have erupted in 1120 as described in the Song dynasty. In June 1995, a book of standard names for local geography was published.
Extremes have ranged from to with Sanbao to its east having recorded a national all-time record high for China at , although a reading of in July 1975 is regarded as dubious. However, the high heat and dryness of the summer, when combined with the area's ancient system of irrigation, allows the countryside around Turpan to produce great quantities of high-quality fruit.
China National Highway 312 passes through Turpan.
The Tulufan Jiaohe Airport is close to Turpan North Railway Station.
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