Wushi Gorge Ruins

Wushi Gorge Ruins

The Wushi Gorge Ruins, locally known as the Ancient City of Wushi Gorge, are located near Wushi Gorge Village in Wushi Gorge Township, Ruoqiang County. The site includes 12 relatively concentrated ruins, 3 kiln sites, 2 burial areas, and 1 iron smelting site. The house ruins date back to the Tang to Song dynasties. Explorers such as Stein and Bergman, as well as some domestic and regional experts, have conducted surveys here. Artifacts unearthed include glassware, porcelain fragments, coins, production tools, ornaments, household utensils, and Chinese documents from the Yuan Dynasty. Folklore says that in the 1980s, someone digging around a Tamarix mound found a gold craft item—depicting a little girl holding an umbrella in one hand and carrying a flower basket in the other—before it was later swindled away by an antiquities thief. Given that the umbrella is a homophone for “Shanshan” (鄯善), and the flower basket for “Loulan” (楼兰), this piece is believed to have been a finely crafted tribute from Shanshan artisans intended for the inland court. Wushi Gorge was the economic hub of the ancient Loulan–Shanshan Kingdom. As early as before the Han Dynasty, local handicrafts had already reached a considerable scale. According to the “Book of Han: Records of the Western Regions,” Ruoqiang “has iron in the mountains, makes its own weapons—bows, spears, swords, daggers, and armor.” From the dozens of connected workshops and remnants of metal smelting kilns still preserved at the site, it is evident that the craftsmanship in Wushi Gorge had reached a very high level. Especially notable are the crude glass vessels, which provide valuable physical evidence for the study of the development of China’s ancient glass industry.