The Ancient City of Hutianada

The Ancient City of Hutianada

The Ancient City of Hutianada is a cultural tourism attraction.

Introduction: The ancient city is located about 7 kilometers northeast of Kuqa, Xinjiang, on the Gobi plateau known as Mingtianda, situated between the Wuqia River and the Yisubashi River. The main extant ruins of the city date back to the Tang Dynasty and continued through the Uyghur period.

The city had both inner and outer sections. The inner city was rectangular, approximately 150 meters from east to west and 72 meters from north to south. The city walls were rammed earth. Within the inner city, two rammed earth platforms remain, and 17 more are scattered outside the southwestern section of the inner city wall. Some of these were likely the foundations of towers or temples. Only parts of the northern and eastern walls of the outer city remain; they were built with adobe bricks. The remaining northern wall is about 240 meters long, and the eastern wall about 1,825 meters. There are remnants of a gate in the northern wall. Additionally, along the inner sides of the northern and eastern walls of the outer city, there is one and seven adobe structures respectively, each measuring about 20 square meters. Excavated items within the city include fragments of Buddhist scriptures in Chinese, Chinese paper documents, paper fragments with Chinese text on the front and Uyghur text on the back, printed images of seated Buddhas and fragments of Buddha statues, as well as interlocking bricks, broken pottery, and fragmented wooden objects. The city may have been a garrison site for Tang Dynasty soldiers, used to defend the capital of Kucha and the Anxi Protectorate.　

Aksu City, Xinjiang