Yingpan

Find site description

Situated to the north of where the Taklamakan and Lop deserts meet, on the northern arm of the Silk Road (Innermost Asia map no. 25, B. 3), Yingpan was a station en route between Loulan and Korla, and visited by Stein in 1915. The site consists of ruins of Buddhist shrines, with stupa remains, and also of ‘an ancient circumvallation’ (Stein 1928 p. 407) dating to early centuries AD. Dating evidence comes among other things from a wu-shu coin found in a site of ruined Stupas North East of Yingpan, and a Kharosthi manuscript found in a nearby rubbish heap. Finds from the burials included the silk shrouds, wooden food trays above each head containing head and leg bones of a lamb, and various other containers including a bronze bowl, ceramic jug, wooden cup filled with food remains. Stein comments that these burials were not typical of those dating from the Han period in other areas such as Loulan and thus the original occupiers of the site may have been native to the area and not Chinese (Stein 1928 p. 757). The circumvallation was exactly circular and measured 118 metres in diameter. The structure’s original context had been disturbed but a silver pendent and five glass jewels were recovered from the centre of the circumvallation. Yingpan was part of a fortified Chinese station occupied contemporary to Loulan (Stein 1928 p. 420). A line of ten massive watchtowers stretches from the Yingpan North West in the direction of Korla (dating from the Han). Stein considers Yingpan to be Li Tao-Yüan’s ‘town of Chu-pin’ and suggests that in the Han the existence of the Kuruk-darya delta meant that the ‘Dry River’ still carried water to Yingpan at this time (Stein 1928 p. 407). Thirty-three graves dating from the Muslim period, North West of the circumvallation suggest that there was a second, later period of occupation of Yingpan ‘which could scarcely date back more than a century or two’ (Stein 1928 p. 753).

Short description : Yingpan: A fortified station with burial sites.