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Source: People's Republic of China in Russian – People's Republic of China in Russian –
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Source: People's Republic of China – State Council News
Ürümqi, October 21 (Xinhua) — Nearly a century ago, numerous cultural relics from Turpan, an important hub on the ancient Silk Road, were brought abroad through expeditions and excavations. Today, the historic city fosters international dialogue and cooperation through Turpan studies, which connects civilizations.
Located in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (northwest China), Turpan has long been a confluence of agricultural, nomadic, and oasis cultures in the heart of Eurasia. The arid climate has preserved numerous documents in many languages, cave frescoes, and relics.
From October 18 to 20, nearly 200 experts and scholars from more than 70 universities and research institutes from 16 countries and regions, including Germany, the UK, the US, and Japan, gathered in Turpan to participate in the 7th International Conference on Turpan Studies, which covered topics ranging from the latest advances in Turpan research to the preservation of heritage and cultural development along the Silk Road.
"Turpan is a wonderful example of the fusion of different ethnic groups and religions in the past, and it remains so today," said Erica Hunter, a scholar at the University of Cambridge in the UK who specialises in relics and Syriac manuscripts found in excavations in Turpan.
“Only through meetings and dialogue can we achieve mutual understanding,” she added.
Turfan studies emerged as an international scientific field in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when researchers and archaeologists from Russia, Germany, Britain, and Japan excavated and began studying the region's ancient tombs, ruins, and artifacts.
Peter Ziehme, a professor at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Germany, conducted a philological study of a fragment of the Turpan manuscript, currently housed in Berlin. The fragment, which contains texts in both Old Uyghur and Chinese, demonstrates how Uyghur monks, scholars, poets, and writers of the period made independent and significant contributions to Buddhist thought.
“Turpan has always been at the crossroads of civilizations,” he said, emphasizing that an in-depth study of artifacts from Turpan is crucial for understanding the history of exchange between human civilizations.
Over the past century, experts and scholars from around the world, specializing in classical philology, archaeology, history, linguistics, paleontology, and other sciences, have contributed to Turfan studies.
In recent years, new excavations and discoveries at relic sites such as the Nestorian monastery of Sipan and the Tuyugou cave complex have given new impetus to global research. Meanwhile, a growing number of Chinese scholars are leaving their mark on this field, deciphering the languages once spoken by merchants and travelers along the ancient Silk Road.
Drawing on manuscripts discovered in Turpan, Lin Lijuan, Associate Professor of History at Peking University, shared her research findings on how Christian texts in Syriac were translated, circulated locally, and perhaps even reached Beijing and southern China.
“Through Turpan, a key hub of cultural exchange, Western religious culture penetrated into other parts of China,” she noted.
According to Zhang Yong, secretary of the Party Group of the Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage Protection, targeted research and cooperation between Chinese and international scholars have transformed scattered fragments of written records into solid scientific achievements.
"Turpan studies are a treasure both for China and the world," said Zhang Yong. "Civilizational exchanges in Turpan continue, as Turpan studies remains a common language for scholars around the world."
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