Part One
TRANSOXANIA AND KHURASAN
(G. A. Pugachenkova)

Part Two
SOUTHERN CENTRAL ASIA
(A. H. Dani)

Part Three
EASTERN CENTRAL ASIA
(Liu Yingsheng)

This area is mainly steppeland and mountain pasture. East of it was Uighur territory, north of it was the territory of the Naiman, west of it were the middle reaches of the Ili river, and to the south was the T’ien Shan. In the more favoured, lower regions, urban settlements developed from ancient times.

BESHBALK

Beshbalk (Turkish, Five Towns) was also called Bel Ting by the Chinese, meaning ‘Northern Court’. The name Beshbalk first appears in the description of the events of 713 given in the ancient Turkish Kl Tegin inscription. The lexicographer Mahmd al-Kashghari described it as one of the largest of the five towns of the Uighurs. After the fall of the Uighur Kaghanate of Mongolia in 840, some of the Uighurs fled to the eastern region of the T’ien Shan, and these were named the Kocho Uighurs by the Chinese; Beshbalk was the summer residence of the Uighur Khans, and the political centre of the Kocho Uighurs.

In the early thirteenth century, the Idiqut of the Uighurs submitted to Chinggis Khan. Beshbalk became a part of the Mongol empire controlled from the capital Karakorum, but still ruled by the Idiqut. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, it finally became a part of the Chaghatay Khanate, but its political importance was apparently reduced, and towards the end of the fifteenth century, Beshbalk was gradually abandoned.

At the end of the tenth century, Wang Yande, the envoy of the Northern Song dynasty, mentions in his record that within the town were the Gao Tai temple and the Ying Yun Tai Ning temple and that the local people were skilled craftsmen, famed for metallurgy and the making of jade ornaments.

The present site of Beshbalk is at Jimsar in Xinjiang. It consisted of five parts: an outer town; the northern gate district of the outer town; the extended town of the west; the inner town; and a small settlement within the inner town. The outer town had an irregular rectangular shape; the distance between north and south was greater than that between east and west. The Wall of the outer town was 4,430 m long and was made of pis. There was a gate, and there were defensive structures on each side of the wall and at the base of the buildings at each corner. This part of the city must have been built in the time of the T’ang dynasty. There was a fortress at the northern city wall, and leading out of it was the northern gate town, the gate of which faced east. This part of the city must also have been built in the Fang period. From the western wall of the outer town to the gate there was an extended town, measuring 690 m long from north to south and 310 in wide from west to east, and again datable to T’ang times. In the middle of the outer town, a little to the north, stood an inner town, around the four sides of which was a trench; this part must have been built in the Kocho Uighur period. In the eastern part of the inner town, a little to the north, was a small settlement, attributable to the same period.