Mazar Tagh

China / Xinjiang / Hetian /
 ruins, archaeological site, fortification
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Permit Y200-300 per person, available from Cultural Relics Bureau director at Hotan Museum, or permit can be also be arranged by CITS or any travel agency, which can also arrange transport.
160 km north of Hotan. 38°27'03"N, 80°51'45"E.
Still at a distance from the new Hotan / Aksu Highway (opened October 2007), so a 4WD vehicle is still required to reach the site.

The ruins of the Mazar Tagh fort, 180 km north of Hotan, Xinjiang, China. (Distance source: A Grand View of Xinjiang's Cultural Relics and Historic Sites) The Hotan River used to cross the entire Taklamakan, reaching the Tarim River in the north. Thus it was a used as an ancient trade route since the Bronze Age, even before the Silk Road. With the new second cross-desert highway completed in October 2007, this site is much more accessible to the visitor, though a more basic roadway along this route has long been in use.

The ruins are located on a bluff at the southeastern terminus of the Mazar Tagh (Holy Mountains) range, overlooking the Hotan River. Deep in the Taklamakan Desert, it was a strategic site for controlling north-south Silk Road trade. (Mazar means shrine or holy-place in the native Uyghur language, and is thus a common part of place names in Xinjiang. Tagh is the Uyghur word for mountain.)

What remains primarily is a Chinese / Tibetan hill fort with a 6 m tower as shown in the image on this page:
www.upf.edu/materials/huma/central/historia/rutaseda/im...

Christoph Baumer writes in "Southern Silk Road," "About 180 km north of Hotan, a [200-m high] mountain range with a reddish hue rises up from the desert plain. ... On a rocky ledge about 150 m high, the well-preserved Mazar Tagh fort proudly looks down on the [Hotan] River and watches over the former trade route. The position of the fort was almost impregnable. ... Within the wall and at 60 cm intervals a layer of tamarisk and poplar wood separated the rough clay courses from one another, lending additional stability to the construction in an extremely dry climate. ... Below the fort thin poplar poles project from the sand. ... Here was the Buddhist temple. ... The tower is certainly the most ancient structure and could date from the third or fourth century [C.E.] ... The Tibetan conquest of Mazar Tagh must have occurred in 790 or 791. ... The Tibetans reconstructed the fort and extended it. ... [Mazar Tagh was abandoned] when [the Tibetans] lost control of the Tarim Basin around 850."

You might want to pick up Baumer's book if you are headed here since the guides in the region are not usually versed on its complex history. Even though the book has but four pages (two of pictures / plans, and two of text) about this site, it also provides excellent environmental and human history for the southern region.

Some tour companies offer a six-day camel trek in the Taklamakan Desert. The tour starts by vehicle in Hotan or Keriya / Yutian. The trekking starts at Tongguzbasti, north of Keriya / Yutian, at the delta where the Keriya River dissipates into the sand, visiting the Karadong ruins, and then walking through the desert to Mazar Tagh, where the group is picked up again by vehicles for return to Hotan or onward to Aksu in the north.
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   38°27'3"N   80°51'43"E
This article was last modified 3 years ago