www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

USEUROPEAFRICAASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
Travel
Home / Travel / Top travel

A lost people

By Erik Nilsson | China Daily | Updated: 2013-01-24 10:37
A lost people

Western Xia Tombs, acclaimed as "Oriental Pyramids", are the prime attraction in Yinchuan, Ningxia Hui autonomous region. Liu Xuezhong / For China Daily

Genghis Khan obliterated most of the Dangxiang ethnicity for refusing to join his invasion of the Khwarezmian Empire. Now archaeologists are trying to dig deeper to find out more about the race. Erik Nilsson joins the search.

Archaeologists are digging for - and unearthing - answers about the Dangxiang ethnicity, whose saga was buried with them when they virtually vanished in a mass slaughter.

They're mining the Western Xia (1038-1227) Tombs for narrative nuggets to resurrect the stories of the people who perished in Genghis Khan's final battle.

A lost people

Little is known about the Dang-xiang, also called the Tangut. Most of what has been determined has been gleaned from the Western Xia's nine imperial mausoleums and 250 royal family tombs that stud the desert outside of Yin-chuan, capital of today's Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

Genghis Khan essentially obli-terated the Dangxiang for refusing to join his invasion of the Khwarezmian Empire.

So these tombs' ruins commemorate not only the ethnicity's rulers but also their tribes' last stand.

But only one of these structures - the No 3 mausoleum, believed to belong to the Western Xia's first emperor - has been fully excavated.

Like Dangxiang history, the tombs remain relatively obscure in public consciousness.

They're skeletons of their previous physiques, stripped by decay of the tiled flesh that made them the first fusion of traditional ethnic Han mausoleum design and Tibetan Buddhist temple architecture.

The tombs may have served as a metaphor for the ethnic group's exterminated tribes. Most of the sepulchers' structures have worn away, like the saga of the people their inhabitants ruled.

The sands of time have ground the structures from octagonal towers into conical earthen mounds - nubs of their former selves. They look like huge loess dollops, or colossal termite mounds, although their initial splendor is believed to have rivaled that of Beijing's iconic Ming Tombs.

But the burial chambers' current shapes have endowed them with marketing magnetism. The "Oriental Pyramids" are by far the city's principal attraction.

Their contours resemble the Helan Mountains that serve as their backdrop. Helan's peaks are crowned by the Great Wall's terminus, constructed to keep out the Mongolian invaders, who ultimately breached the bulwark to extinguish the Western Xia.

But while most tribes were wiped out, some Dangxiang outlasted their empire. One excavator is believed to be the last emperor's 23rd-generation descendant.

The main tombs were discovered during the construction of a military air base in 1972. The unearthing of ancient bricks and pottery offered the first hints that the soil encrusted something special.

That led the military to bring in archaeologists, who discovered coins, sculptures and tablets engraved with the Western Xia's unique characters.

This enticed them to dig deeper, whereupon they exposed the mausoleums.

Only nine of the empire's 12 kings' final resting places have been found.

Previous 1 2 3 Next

Related Stories
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US
主站蜘蛛池模板: 国产精品午夜性视频 | 亚洲精品一区二区在线观看 | 日本韩经典三级在线播放 | 中文日韩字幕一区在线观看 | 国产亚洲一区二区三区在线观看 | 欧美另类videosgrstv变态 欧美另类高清xxxxx | 毛片网站在线看 | 国产午夜精品久久理论片 | 亚洲国产激情 | 91精品国产一区二区三区四区 | 欧美视频亚洲视频 | 国产精彩视频在线观看 | 欧美性色黄在线视 | 成人欧美一区在线视频在线观看 | 国产中文字幕视频在线观看 | 欧美激情免费a视频 | 国产成人精品福利网站人 | 欧美日韩一二区 | 欧美人一级淫片a免费播放 欧美人与z0z0xxxx | 国产在线拍揄自揄视精品不卡 | 欧美亚洲综合视频 | 欧美日韩一区二区三区免费不卡 | 男人和女人的做刺激性视频 | 国产午夜精品久久久久小说 | 日本特黄特色大片免费看 | 91成年人 | 久久免费资源 | 多人伦精品一区二区三区视频 | 欧美一级做 | 加勒比一本一道在线 | 午夜a毛片 | 国内精品久久久久久久星辰影视 | 香蕉久久高清国产精品免费 | 欧美视频免费一区二区三区 | 欧美国产三级 | 国产精品爱久久久久久久9999 | 特级毛片aaa免费版 特级毛片a级毛免费播放 | 欧美成人免费全网站大片 | 黄色三级在线 | 日本最色视频 | 亚洲一区二区三区在线播放 |