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53-888: The Altun Shan Reserve is an elongated triangular area on the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert , just south of the Tarim Basin. The reserve occupies the V-shaped region between the southern slopes of the Altun Shan range on the north and the northern slopes of the Kulun mountain range on the south. The eastern third of the reserve is the Komkul Basin, an arid plateau at an altitude of 4,500 meters. The reserve measures about 800 km west–east, and 200 km north–south. There are no permanent towns or roads in

106-584: A Turkic language – settled in the region and founded the Kingdom of Qocho that ruled the Tarim Basin. The peoples of the Tarim city-states intermixed with the Uyghurs, whose Old Uyghur language spread through the region. The Tocharian languages are believed to have become extinct during the 9th century. Around the beginning of the 20th century, archaeologists recovered a number of manuscripts from oases in

159-515: A Uyghur borrowing of the Persian tark , "to leave alone/out/behind, relinquish, abandon" + makan . “Taklā” also means “bald” in Hindi/Urdu , so it translates to “bald land” meaning land with no vegetation. Another plausible explanation suggests it is derived from Turki taqlar makan , describing "the place of ruins". Chinese scholars Wang Guowei and Huang Wenbi linked the name to

212-665: A derivation meaning "borderers, marchers". One of the Tocharian A texts have ārśi-käntwā as a name for their own language, so that ārśi may have meant "Agnean", though "monk" is also possible. Tocharian kings apparently gave themselves the title Ñäktemts soy (in Tocharian B), an equivalent of the title Devaputra ("Son of God") of the Kushans . The Tocharian languages are known from around 7600 documents dating from about 400 to 1200 AD, found at 30 sites in

265-681: A loanword etymologically connected to the Turkic sun goddess Gun Ana . Besides this, they might have also worshipped a lunar deity ( meñ- ) and an earth one ( keṃ- ). The murals found in the Tarim Basin , especially those of the Kizil Caves , mostly depict Jataka stories, avadanas , and legends of the Buddha, and are an artistic representation in the tradition of the Hinayana school of

318-489: A result of desertification . "When I woke up one morning, I found I couldn't open the door because of the weight of sand that had accumulated overnight. My crops were buried too, so I had no choice but to move" -Memet Simay, Qira County resident The Golmud-Korla Railway crosses the Taklamakan as well. Named areas in the desert include Ha-la-ma, A-lang-ha and Mai-k'o-tsa-k'o. The Mazartag mountains are located in

371-449: A specific class of mineral found in the dust, known as K-feldspar , triggers ice formation particularly well. K-feldspar is particularly susceptible to corrosion by acidic atmospheric pollution, such as nitrates and phosphates; exposure to these constituents reduces the ability of the dust to trigger water droplet formation. In May 2023, China announced that it would drill a hole to around 11 kilometres (36,000 ft) depth to investigate

424-485: A variety of Tocharian, dubbed Tocharian C or Kroränian, which may have been spoken by at least some of the local populace. Burrow's theory is widely accepted, but the evidence is meagre and inconclusive, and some scholars favour alternative explanations. Most of the Tocharian inscriptions are based on Buddhist monastic texts, which suggests that the Tocharians largely embraced Buddhism . The pre-Buddhist beliefs of

477-773: Is a desert in northwest China 's Xinjiang region . Located inside the Tarim Basin in Southern Xinjiang , it is bounded by the Kunlun Mountains to the south, the Pamir Mountains to the west, the Tian Shan range to the north, and the Gobi Desert to the east. While most researchers agree on makan being the Persian word for "place", etymology of Takla is less clear. The word may be

530-491: Is also an important habitat for the endangered Kozlov's Pika , and the relatively common Ladak pika . There are also small populations of dholes (Wild Asiatic dogs). Wolves, Snow leopards and Tibetan blue bears also live in this area. Access is restricted, and high permit fees are required to enter. The soil is fragile and there are no permanent roads. Taklamakan Desert The Taklamakan Desert ( / ˌ t æ k l ə m ə ˈ k æ n / TAK-lə-mə-KAN )

583-642: Is quite distinct from the Tocharian languages. Nevertheless, "Tocharian" remained the standard term for the languages of the Tarim Basin manuscripts and for the people who produced them. A few scholars argue that the Yuezhi were originally speakers of Tocharian who later adopted the Bactrian language. The name of Kucha in Tocharian B was Kuśi , with adjectival form kuśiññe . The word may be derived from Proto-Indo-European *keuk "shining, white". The Tocharian B word akeññe may have referred to people of Agni, with

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636-402: Is said to mean "Place of No Return" or "get in and you'll never get out". The Taklamakan Desert has an area of 337,000 km (130,000 sq mi), making it slightly smaller than Germany. The desert is part of the Tarim Basin , which is 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) long and 400 kilometres (250 mi) wide. It is crossed at its northern and at its southern edge by two branches of

689-466: Is the southernmost. Because of its high altitude (over 4,500 meters above sea level) and arid location thousands of kilometers from any ocean and in the rain shadow of the Himalayas and other mountain, the climate of the reserve is " Cold desert climate " ( Köppen climate classification "BWk" ). This climate is characterized by hot, dry summers, and very cold, dry winters. At the highest elevations,

742-632: The Little Vehicle of the school of the Sarvāstivādas (zhuyiqieyoubu). Their doctrine (teaching of Sūtras) and their rules of discipline (principles of the Vinaya) are like those of India, and those who read them use the same (originals)." The route by which speakers of Indo-European languages reached the Tarim Basin is uncertain. A leading contender is the Afanasievo culture , who occupied

795-559: The Sarvastivadas . When the Chinese Monk Xuanzang visited Kucha in 630 AD, he received the favours of the Tocharian king Suvarnadeva, the son and successor of Suvarnapushpa , whom he described as a believer of Hinayana Buddhism. In the account of his travel to Kucha (屈支国) he stated that "There are about one hundred convents (saṅghārāmas) in this country, with five thousand and more disciples. These belong to

848-578: The Shirenzigou site on the eastern edge of Dzungaria 20–80% Yamnaya-like ancestry, lending support to the hypothesis of a migration from Afanasievo into Dzungaria, which is just north of the Tarim Basin. According to archaeologist Alexey Kovalev, the Chemurchek culture (2750-1900 BCE), an Altaic culture with many similarities with cultures of Western Europe and especially Southern France in burial and statuary styles, may have been associated with

901-698: The Silk Road would stop for relief at the thriving oasis towns. It was in close proximity to many of the ancient civilizations—to the Northwest is the Amu Darya basin, to the southwest the Afghanistan mountain passes lead to Iran and India, to the east is China, and even to the north ancient towns such as Almaty can be found. The key oasis towns, watered by rainfall from the mountains, were Kashgar , Miran , Niya , Yarkand , and Khotan (Hetian) to

954-413: The Silk Road , by which travellers sought to avoid the arid wasteland. It is the world's second-largest shifting sand desert, with about 85% made up of shifting sand dunes, ranking 16th in size in a ranking of the world's largest deserts . Dunes range in height from 60 feet (18 m) up to as much as 300 feet (91 m). The few breaks in this sea of sand are small patches of alluvial clay. Generally,

1007-543: The Tocharian languages , Indo-European languages known from around 7,600 documents from around AD 400 to 1200, found on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (modern-day Xinjiang , China ). The name "Tocharian" was given to these languages in the early 20th century by scholars who identified their speakers with a people known in ancient Greek sources as the Tókharoi ( Latin : Tochari ), who inhabited Bactria from

1060-552: The Tocharians , a historical people of the Tarim Basin, making the meaning of "Taklamakan" similar to "Tocharistan". According to Uyghur researcher Turdi Mettursun Kara, the name Taklamakan comes from the expression Terk-i Mekan. The name is first mentioned as Terk-i Makan (ترك مكان / trk mkan) in the book called Tevarih-i Muskiyun, which was written in 1867 in the Hotan Prefecture of Xinjiang. In folk etymology , it

1113-483: The 1st millennium BC. Common Indo-European vocabulary retained in Tocharian includes words for herding, cattle, sheep, pigs, dogs, horses, textiles, farming, wheat, gold, silver, and wheeled vehicles. Prakrit documents from 3rd century Krorän , Andir and Niya on the southeast edge of the Tarim Basin contain around 100 loanwords and 1000 proper names that cannot be traced to an Indic or Iranian source. Thomas Burrow suggested that they come from

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1166-507: The 2nd century BC. This identification is now generally considered erroneous, but the name "Tocharian" remains the most common term for the languages and their speakers. Their actual ethnic name is unknown, although they may have referred to themselves as the Agni , Kuči , and Krorän or as the Agniya and Kuchiya known from Sanskrit texts. Agricultural communities first appeared in

1219-900: The Altai region to the north between 3300 and 2500 BC. The Afanasievo culture resulted from an eastern offshoot of the Yamnaya culture , originally based in the Pontic steppe north of the Caucasus Mountains . The Afanasevo culture (c. 3500–2500 BC) displays cultural and genetic connections with the Indo-European-associated cultures of the Central Asian steppe yet predates the specifically Indo-Iranian -associated Andronovo culture (c. 2000–900 BC). J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair argued that

1272-550: The Chemurchek/Proto-Tokharians may have originated from the same general location in Western Europe, as did their burial and statuary styles. The Taklamakan Desert is roughly oval in shape, about 1,000 km long and 400 km wide, surrounded on three sides by high mountains. The main part of the desert is sandy, surrounded by a belt of gravel desert. The desert is completely barren, but in

1325-525: The Proto-Tokharians. According to glotto-chronological data, proto-Tokharians must have migrated to the east around the same period, and their Western Indo-European language is closest to proto-Germanic and proto-Italic, corresponding to the broad geographical area encompassing southern France where the style most similar to those of the Chemurchek culture have been identified. The language of

1378-522: The Taklamakan was reported to be covered, for the first time in its recorded history, entirely with a thin layer of snow reaching 4 centimetres (1.6 in), with a temperature of −26.1 °C (−15 °F) in some observatories. Its extreme inland position, virtually in the very heartland of Asia and thousands of kilometres from any open body of water, accounts for the somewhat wide diurnal temperature variation . The Taklamakan Desert has very little water making it hazardous to cross. Merchant caravans on

1431-550: The Tarim Basin was first settled by Proto-Tocharian -speakers from an eastern offshoot of the Afanasievo culture, who migrated to the south and occupied the northern and eastern edges of the basin. The early eastward expansion of the Yamnaya culture circa 3300 BC is enough to account for the isolation of the Tocharian languages from Indo-Iranian linguistic innovations like satemization . Michaël Peyrot argues that several of

1484-424: The Tarim Basin written in two closely related but previously unknown Indo-European languages , which were easy to read because they used a close variation of the already deciphered Indian Middle-Brahmi script . These languages were designated in similar fashion by their geographical neighbours: Friedrich W. K. Müller was the first to propose a characterization for the newly discovered languages. Müller called

1537-581: The Tocharians are largely unknown, but several Chinese goddesses are similar to the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European sun goddess and the dawn goddess , which implies that the Chinese were influenced by the pre-Buddhist beliefs of the Tocharians when they traveled on trade routes which were located in Tocharian territories. Tocharian B has a noun swāñco derived from the name of the Proto-Indo-European sun goddess, while Tocharian A has koṃ ,

1590-607: The Tomb is mostly spent in this desert as they are searching for the ancient city of Jinjue (see Niya (Tarim Basin) ). The issue No. 39 'Soft Places' of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman takes place in the desert, when Marco Polo gets lost in the desert. A portion of the Korean quasi-historical TV drama series Queen Seondeok takes place in the Taklamakan Desert. Sohwa escapes from Silla with baby Deokman and raises her in

1643-452: The area. There are three large lakes in the Kumkol basin of the reserve: Lake Ayakum , Lake Aqqikkal, and Lake Jingyu. All are saline ("salt lakes"). The northernmost, Lake Ayakum, is at an altitude of 12,685 feet and has an area of 283 sqmi. Its depth reaches 74 feet. To the west of Lake Ayakum is Lake Aqqikkal, at an altitude of 13,940 ft, and which is 16 miles across. Lake Jingyu

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1696-541: The climate is a Polar climate (Koppen "ET") with cooler summers but still cold and dry in the winter. Most of the reserve is in the " North Tibetan Plateau-Kunlun Mountains alpine desert " ecoregion, an area characterized by extreme aridity, high winds, and very cold winters. The northeast of the reserve around Lake Ayakum is in the Qaidam Basin semi-desert ecoregion. Qaidam is the Mongolian word for 'salt', and

1749-465: The desert. As a teenager, Deokman returns to Silla and uses the knowledge and experience gained from life among international traders in the Taklamakan trading centers to gain the throne of Silla. The desert is showcased in the Japanese animation Mobile Suit Gundam 00 , set in the year 2307. On the series, the Taklamakan Desert is the setting of a large-scale military joint operation performed by all

1802-621: The gravel deserts of the Turpan Depression to the east of the Taklamakan. From around 2000 BC, these oases supported Bronze Age settled agricultural communities of steadily increasing sophistication. The necessary irrigation technology was first developed during the 3rd millennium BC in the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) to the west of the Pamir mountains , but it

1855-706: The languages " Tocharian " (German Tocharisch ), linking this toxrï (Tωγry, "Togari") with the ethnonym Tókharoi ( Ancient Greek : Τόχαροι ) applied by Strabo to one of the " Scythian " tribes "from the country on the other side of the Iaxartes " that overran the Greco-Bactrian kingdom (present day Afghanistan ) in the second half of the 2nd century BC. This term also appears in Indo-Iranian languages ( Sanskrit Tushara / Tukhāra , Old Persian tuxāri- , Khotanese ttahvāra ), and became

1908-414: The late spring the melting snows of the surrounding mountains feed streams, which have been altered by human activity to create oases with mild microclimates and supporting intensive agriculture. On the northern edge of the basin, these oases occur in small valleys before the gravels. On the southern edge, they occur in alluvial fans on the edge of the sand zone. Isolated alluvial fan oases also occur in

1961-612: The layers of crust in that area. It will not be as deep as the Kola Superdeep Borehole (12,262 metres (40,230 ft). The Taklamakan Desert is surrounded by the Taklimakan Desert railway loop. The Southern Xinjiang Railway branches from the Lanxin Railway near Turpan, follows the north side of the basin to Kashgar, and curves southeast to Khotan, while Hotan–Ruoqiang railway loops around

2014-654: The manuscripts, but it may be that the surviving documents are unrepresentative. Tocharian B (Kuchean or West Tocharian) was found at all the Tocharian ;A sites and also in several sites further west, including Kuchi (later Kucha). It appears to have still been in use in daily life at that time. Over 3200 manuscripts have been studied in detail. The languages had significant differences in phonology, morphology and vocabulary, making them mutually unintelligible "at least as much as modern Germanic or Romance languages". Tocharian A shows innovations in

2067-545: The most striking typological peculiarities of Tocharian are rooted in a prolonged contact of Proto-Tocharian-speaking Afanasievans with speakers of an early stage of Proto-Samoyedic in South Siberia. Among others, this might explain the merger of all three-stop series (e.g., *t, *d, *dʰ > *t), which must have led to a huge amount of homonyms , as well as the development of an agglutinative case system. Chao Ning et al. (2019) found in burials from around 200 BC at

2120-678: The north and Chinese empires to the east. These cities, the largest of which was Kucha , also served as way stations on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert . For several centuries, the Tarim basin was ruled by the Xiongnu , the Han dynasty , the Tibetan Empire , and the Tang dynasty . From the 8th century AD, the Uyghurs – speakers of

2173-471: The northeast Tarim area. The manuscripts are written in two distinct, but closely related, Indo-European languages , conventionally known as Tocharian A and Tocharian B. According to glotto-chronological data, Tocharian languages are closest to Western Indo-European languages such as proto-Germanic or proto-Italian, and being devoid of satemization predate the evolution of eastern Indo-European languages. Tocharian A (Agnean or East Tocharian)

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2226-519: The oases of the northern Tarim circa 2000 BC. Some scholars have linked these communities to the Afanasievo culture found earlier (c. 3500–2500 BC) in Siberia, north of the Tarim or Central Asian BMAC culture. The earliest Tarim mummies date from c. 1800 BC, but it is unclear whether they are connected to the Tocharians of two millennia later. By the 2nd century BC, these settlements had developed into city-states , overshadowed by nomadic peoples to

2279-716: The region is one of gravelly desert and some saline meadows and salt lakes. Temperatures reach an average high of 56.5 °F (13.6 °C) in August, and average lows of −18.6 °F (−28.1 °C) in January. There is little to no precipitation in most years, but some frost cover. The reserve provides space outside of human development for some of the largest herds of hoofed in Asia: the vulnerable Tibetan wild yak ( Bos mutus ) (an estimated 10,000), wild ass (30,000), and Tibetan antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii) (up to 75,000). The area

2332-463: The region. Later, the Taklamakan was inhabited by Turkic peoples . Starting with the Han dynasty , the Chinese sporadically extended their control to the oasis cities of the Taklamakan Desert to control the important silk route trade across Central Asia. Periods of Chinese rule were interspersed with rule by Turkic, Mongol and Tibetan peoples. The present population consists largely of Turkic Uyghur people and ethnic Han people . This desert

2385-629: The source of the term " Tokharistan " usually referring to 1st millennium Bactria , as well as the Takhar province of Afghanistan . The Tókharoi are often identified by modern scholars with the Yuezhi of Chinese historical accounts, who founded the Kushan Empire . Müller's identification became a minority position among scholars when it turned out that the people of Tokharistan ( Bactria ) spoke Bactrian , an Eastern Iranian language , which

2438-568: The south and west side of the Traim. In total, the Taklimakan Desert railway loop contains four different railway lines, including the sections of the Golmud–Korla railway , Hotan–Ruoqiang railway , Kashgar–Hotan railway , and Southern Xinjiang railway . Roads and highways are also available in the desert. The desert is the main setting for Chinese film series Painted Skin and Painted Skin: The Resurrection . The Chinese TV series Candle in

2491-699: The south, Kuqa and Turpan in the north, and Loulan and Dunhuang in the east. Now, many, such as Miran and Gaochang , are ruined cities in sparsely inhabited areas in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China . The archaeological treasures found in its sand-buried ruins point to Tocharian , early Hellenistic , Indian , and Buddhist influences. Its treasures and dangers have been vividly described by Aurel Stein , Sven Hedin , Albert von Le Coq , and Paul Pelliot . Mummies , some 4000 years old, have been found in

2544-486: The steeper sides of the dunes face away from the prevailing winds. The People's Republic of China has constructed two cross-desert highways. The Tarim Desert Highway links the cities of Hotan (on the southern edge) and Luntai (on the northern edge) and the Bayingol to Ruoqiang road crosses the desert to the east. In recent years, the desert has expanded in some areas, its sands enveloping farms and villages as

2597-433: The vowels and nominal inflection, whereas Tocharian B has changes in the consonants and verbal inflection. Many of the differences in vocabulary between the languages concern Buddhist concepts, which may suggest that they were associated with different Buddhist traditions. The differences indicate that they diverged from a common ancestor between 500 and 1000 years before the earliest documents, that is, sometime in

2650-526: The western part of the desert. Because it lies in the rain shadow of the Himalayas, Taklamakan has a cold desert climate . Given its relative proximity with the cold to frigid air masses in Siberia , extreme temperatures are recorded in wintertime, sometimes well below −20 °C (−4 °F), while in summer they can rise up to 40 °C (104 °F). During the 2008 Chinese winter storms episode,

2703-749: The world's blocks of power, and interdicted by the paramilitary organization Celestial Being. Tocharians Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Tocharians or Tokharians ( US : / t oʊ ˈ k ɛər i ə n ˌ - ˈ k ɑːr -/ toh- KAIR -ee-ən, -⁠ KAR - ; UK : / t ɒ ˈ k ɑːr i ə n / to- KAR -ee-ən ) were speakers of

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2756-575: Was explored by several scholars, including Xuanzang , a 7th-century Buddhist monk, and, in the 20th century, the archaeologist Aurel Stein . Atmospheric studies have shown that dust originating from the Taklamakan is blown over the Pacific, where it contributes to cloud formation over the Western United States. Further, the traveling dust redistributes minerals from the Taklamakan to the western U.S. via rainfall. Studies have shown that

2809-410: Was found in the northeastern oases known to the Tocharians as Ārśi , later Agni (i.e. Chinese Yanqi; modern Karasahr) and Turpan (including Khocho or Qočo; known in Chinese as Gaochang). Some 500 manuscripts have been studied in detail, mostly coming from Buddhist monasteries. Many authors take this to imply that Tocharian A had become a purely literary and liturgical language by the time of

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