ISSN 2152-7237 (print) ISSN 2153-2060 (online) The Silk Road Volume 8 2010 Contents From the Editor’s Desktop ................................................................... 3 Images from Ancient Iran: Selected Treasures from the National Museum in Tehran. A Photographic Essay ............................................................... 4 Ancient Uighur Mausolea Discovered in Mongolia, by Ayudai Ochir, Tserendorj Odbaatar, Batsuuri Ankhbayar and Lhagwasüren Erdenebold .......................................................................................... 16 The Hydraulic Systems in Turfan (Xinjiang), by Arnaud Bertrand ................................................................................. 27 New Evidence about Composite Bows and Their Arrows in Inner Asia, by Michaela R. Reisinger .......................................................................... 42 An Experiment in Studying the Felt Carpet from Noyon uul by the Method of Polypolarization, by V. E. Kulikov, E. Iu. Mednikova, Iu. I. Elikhina and Sergei S. Miniaev .................... 63 The Old Curiosity Shop in Khotan, by Daniel C. Waugh and Ursula Sims-Williams ................................................. 69 Nomads and Settlement: New Perspectives in the Archaeology of Mongolia, by Daniel C. Waugh ................................................................................ 97 (continued) “The Bridge between Eastern and Western Cultures” Book notices (except as noted, by Daniel C. Waugh) The University of Bonn’s Contributions to Asian Archaeology ................................ 125 John E. Hill. Through the Jade Gate to Rome .................................................. 127 Elfriede Regina Knauer. Coats, Queens, and Cormorants .................................... 128 Yuka Kadoi. Islamic Chinoiserie. The Art of Mongol Iran .................................... 130 Susan Whitfield, ed.La Route de la Soie ....................................................... 132 Johan Elverskog. Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road ..................................... 133 Khotan is Hot: Journal of Inner Asian Art and Archaeology 3 (2008); Bulletin of the Asia Institute 19 (2005 [2009]) .................................................................... 135 John Becker, in collaboration with Donald B. Wagner. Pattern and Loom (reviewed by Sandra Whitman) ............................................................ 137 Cover photo: Vaiśravana, detail of plaque acquired in Khotan by Clarmont Skrine in 1922. British Museum 1925,619.35. Reproduced with permission of the Trustees of the British Museum. Photo copyright © 2010 Daniel C. Waugh. The complete plaque is reproduced in Susan Whitfield and Ursula Sims-Williams, eds., The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith. Chicago: Serindia, 2004, p. 160, no. 60, but misnumbered as 1925,619.25. The Silk Road is an annual publication of the Silkroad Foundation supplied in a limited print run to librar- ies. We cannot accept individual subscriptions. Each issue can be viewed and downloaded free of charge at: <http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/toc/newsletter.html>. The print version contains black and white illus- trations; the online version uses color. Otherwise the content is identical. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or contributions. Information regarding contributions and how to format them may be found on the website at <http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/vol8/SilkRoadinstructionsforauthors.pdf>. The Silkroad Foundation Editor: Daniel C. Waugh 14510 Big Basin Way # 269 [email protected] Saratoga, CA 95070 © 2010 Silkroad Foundation © 2010 by authors of individual articles and holders of copyright, as specified, to individual images. 2 From the editor’s desktop This volume inaugurates the appearance of The Silk Road as an annual publication, instead of semi-annually as previously. Most of our contributors are appearing in the journal for the first time. Some are well published scholars; others at the beginning of what one may hope will be long and fruitful academic careers. As always, I learned a great deal from working with our authors. If it may seen that the editor is exercising undue privilege in contributing more than one piece this time, that indulgence has been undertaken in one instance as a collaborative venture with a lead- ing specialist and in the other only after having received substantial input from scholars who read the article in advance and encouraged its publication. I have as well decided to inaugurate here a photo essay series featuring important objects of ma- terial culture and art displayed in museums along the “Silk Roads” which I have been privileged to visit, some of them off the map of most tourist itineraries. In many cases these days, of course, museums themselves have developed extensive websites and are putting their collections on-line. Others have yet to do so. These photo essays (best viewed in color in the pdf version of the jour- nal) are but a sampling of a much more extensive collection of photographs which is incrementally being posted to “Silk Road Seattle” (http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/) as part of its effort to make the arts of the Silk Road more readily available for teaching and study purposes. As in several previous instances, this volume of the journal happens to have a fairly heavy con- centration of material about Mongolia. Readers should keep in mind though that our perspective remains a broad one both geographically and chronologically. To date Western Asia has been under-represented here, something that we may hope to remedy in the future. As one who has recently returned from a month in Iran and is expecting to spend additional time in the Middle East this year, I am developing an ever greater appreciation for the idea that the Silk Roads are much more than the routes of exchange affecting East and Central Asia. The only way the journal can continue to be a success and maintain a broad perspective is by receiving good submissions for future issues. While our target audience is still a general one, the journal welcomes a range of contributions. We expect to continue to publish work by established specialists, but also welcome work by others who can contribute carefully crafted articles of gener- al interest. New discoveries, of course, are most welcome, but good summaries of existing knowl- edge may have their place too. As I write these lines, next year’s volume of the journal is still wide open for contributions, which should be in my hands no later than the beginning of summer 2011. We can offer the advantage of a generally short turn-around time between submission and pub- lication, unlike the case of academic journals and edited volumes where a year or two (or even much longer) is the norm. I am happy to help authors for whom writing in English is a challenge, although I will not translate articles (Russian being an exception) which have been written in other languages. If you have questions about submissions, send them to the editor; also look at the new guidelines which have been posted to the Silkroad Foundation’s website at the URL listed on the previous page. — Daniel C. Waugh [email protected] 3 Featured museum Images from Ancient Iran: Selected Treasures from the National Museum in Tehran Audience hall scene depicting Darius I or Xerxes I, Treasury Palace, Persepolis. 5th century BCE A photographic essay All photographs copyright © 2010 Daniel C. Waugh 4 Footed pottery vessel. Shahr- e Soukhteh - Sistan. Late 3rd millennium BCE Ceramic charioteer. Amarlu - Gilan. 1st millennium BCE 5 Bronze quiver. Sorkh dom - Luristan. 800-700 BCE 6 Gold goblet with winged bulls. Marlik - Gilan. Early 1st millennium BCE 7 Lapis lazuli vessel encrusted with gold. Hasanlu - West Azerbaijan. Early 1st millennium BCE. Gold earrings. Pasargad - Fars. Achaemenid period. 8 Statue of Darius I, with inscription on base in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Found at Susa. 6th-5th century BCE. 9 Silver foundation tablet of Darius I with inscription in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian cuneiform. Persepolis - Fars. 10 Gold rhyton. Hamedan. Achaemenid period. 11 The upper part of a stone capital from Persepolis. 5th century BCE. 12 Bronze statue of Parthian prince. Shami - (Izeh) Khuzistan. Zeus. Nahavand - Hamedan. Seleucid period. 13 Floor mosaic (fragment). Shapur’s palace, Bishapur - Fars. 3rd (?) century CE. 14 Stucco bust. Hajiabad - Fars. Sasanian. Silver bowl (detail). Klardasht - Mazandaran. Sasanian. 15 Ancient UighUr MAUsoleA DiscovereD in MongoliA Ayudai Ochir Tserendorj Odbaatar Batsuuri Ankhbayar Lhagwasüren Erdenebold Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia he modern nation of Mongolia, located between Russian Siberia and China, is T mostly wide-open steppes — an area where animal husbandry, hunting, and a no- Fig. 1. Location of durvuljin. madic lifestyle have been optimal for thousands of years. Dynamic competition for pasture and 3000 km in Mongolia and visited hundreds of conquests by different groups led to the es- archaeological sites in order to introduce them tablishment of many powerful steppe empires: to the Chinese scholars and select the ones to the Xiongnu (3rd century BCE – 1st century CE), investigate for the next five years. This survey Turkish (552 – 745 CE), Uighur (744 – 840), of sites from all periods is now published in Mon- Khitan (Liao, 9th – 11th centuries CE) and Mongol golian and Chinese (Enkhtuvshin et al. 2008a). Empires (12th – 14th centuries) succeeded one After the survey, we chose to investigate sites