Some 180 scholars from 15 countries and regions converged in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, from Saturday to Sunday for an international academic symposium on the research, preservation, and utilization of Qiuci heritage.
Qiuci, also known as Kucha, served as a military and political center through which the central governments of the Han (206 BC-AD 220) and Tang (618-907) dynasties administered the Xiyu (Western Regions). It encompasses a collection of present-day prefectures and counties in Xinjiang. Its position along the Silk Road turned it into a hub of interculturalism.
The symposium discussed how technological innovation can empower archaeology and heritage preservation; the historical, artistic, and scientific value of Qiuci heritage; and ways to build up Qiuci studies as an academic field and enhance its international influence. It also called for integrated, contiguous protection and systematic research and interpretation of remains around the Tarim Basin.
At the opening ceremony, 84-year-old Yasutaka Kojima, a Japanese heritage advocate and cultural adviser to the Xinjiang regional government, recalled more than four decades of work preserving Xinjiang's heritage.
After visiting the Kizil Cave-Temple Complex in 1986, Kojima donated 100,000 yuan (roughly $27,000 at the official exchange rate of the time) toward its restoration, becoming the first foreign national to donate toward cultural relic preservation in Xinjiang.
The following year, he founded an association in Japan to raise funds that eventually channeled more than 100 million yen (about $760,000 at the time) into a restoration program that launched in 1988.
He also participated in and partly sponsored the Sino-Japanese joint archaeological program at the Niya ruins in Minfeng county, Hotan prefecture. There, the "Five Stars Rise in the East, Benefiting China" brocade armguard, which dates to the 2nd to 3rd centuries, was excavated from a couple's joint burial tomb in 1995.
Zheng Binglin, director of the Institute of Dunhuang Studies at Lanzhou University in Gansu province, noted that Qiuci was among the first places in China to receive and transform Buddhism on a large scale before it spread further to the Central Plains, whereas Dunhuang was characterized by re-creation after Central Plains culture had become dominant.
"Only when the two are taken together do they constitute a complete chain of civilizational exchange. Those working on Qiuci heritage must read Dunhuang manuscripts, and those studying Dunhuang must visit cave-temple complexes of Qiuci—this is what a healthy academic ecosystem looks like," he said.
Zheng called for the sharing of historical materials and image archives, joint research programs, and strengthened systematic compilation and publication of documents unearthed at Qiuci sites.
