's Empire (2nd century AD) including Khotan|285x285px found in Khotan. The oasis of Hotan is strategically located at the junction of the southern (and most ancient) branch of the
Silk Road joining China and the West with one of the main routes from ancient
India and
Tibet to
Central Asia and distant China. It provided a convenient meeting place where not only goods, but technologies, philosophies, and religions were transmitted from one culture to another.
Tocharians lived in this region over 2000 years ago. Several of the
Tarim mummies were found in the region. At Sampul, east of the city of Hotan, there is an extensive series of cemeteries scattered over an area about wide and long. The excavated sites range from about 300 BCE to 100 CE. The excavated graves have produced a number of fabrics of
felt,
wool,
silk and
cotton and even a fine bit of tapestry, the
Sampul tapestry, showing the face of a
Caucasoid man which was made of threads of 24 shades of color. The tapestry had been cut up and fashioned into trousers worn by one of the deceased. An Anthropological study of 56 individuals showed a primarily Caucasoid population. A study in 2010 showed that an Eastern Eurasian lineage common in Siberia dominates the
mitochondrial DNA of the mummies from the
Xiaohe Cemetery. Their
Y chromosome is distributed throughout Eastern Europe, South Asia, Central Asia, and Siberia. There is a relative abundance of information on Hotan readily available for study. The main historical sources are to be found in the Chinese histories (particularly detailed during the
Han and early
Tang dynasties) when China was interested in control of the
Western Regions, the accounts of several Chinese pilgrim
monks, a few Buddhist histories of Hotan that have survived in
Classical Tibetan and a large number of documents in the Iranian
Saka language and other languages discovered, for the most part, early this century at various sites in the Tarim Basin and from the hidden library at the
Mogao Caves near
Dunhuang.Additionally, Khotanese materials from the
Dunhuang library cave provide insight into the region's interactions with its neighbors, particularly Dunhuang and the
Tang dynasty. However, Cave 17 at Dunhuang does not record the fall of Khotan—overnight, it ceased being a Buddhist stronghold and became predominantly Islamic, marking a dramatic and largely undocumented shift in its religious landscape.
Indo-Greek Khotan In the Hellenistic period, there was an
Indo-Greek colony in Khotan. Hellenism in this region, as also in some parts of India, left a lasting mark with
Greco-Buddhist art. Govett Ernest wrote an article on a
Chinese Greco-Buddhist bronze head, giving an example of this lasting impact.
Buddhist Khotan , in
Wanghuitu () circa 650 CE. '' The ancient Kingdom of Khotan was one of the earliest Buddhist states in the world and a cultural bridge across which Buddhist culture and learning were transmitted from India to China. Its capital was located to the west of the modern city of Hotan. The inhabitants of the Kingdom of Khotan, like those of early
Kashgar and
Yarkant, spoke
Saka, one of the
Eastern Iranian languages. Khotan's indigenous dynasty (all of whose royal names are Indian in origin) governed a fervently Buddhist city-state boasting some 400 temples in the late 9th/early 10th century—four times the number recorded by
Xuanzang around 630. The kingdom was independent but was intermittently under Chinese control during the Han and Tang dynasties. After the Tang dynasty, Khotan formed an alliance with the rulers of Dunhuang. Khotan enjoyed close relations with the Buddhist centre at Dunhuang: the Khotanese royal family intermarried with Dunhuang élites, visited and patronized Dunhuang's Buddhist temple complex, and donated money to have their portraits painted on the walls of the Mogao grottos. Through the 10th century, Khotanese royal portraits were painted in association with an increasing number of deities in the caves. Besides this, a particular site,
Melikawat functioned as a major Buddhist center in the
Kingdom of Khotan. In the 10th century, Khotan began a struggle with the
Kara-Khanid Khanate, a Turkic state. The Kara-Khanid ruler,
Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan, had converted to
Islam: Some Khotanese Buddhist works were unearthed. The rulers of Khotan were aware of the menace they faced since they arranged for the Mogao grottoes to paint a growing number of divine figures along with themselves. Halfway in the 10th century Khotan came under attack by the Qarakhanid ruler Musa, and in what proved to be a pivotal moment in the
Turkification and Islamification of the Tarim Basin, the Karakhanid leader Yusuf Qadir Khan conquered Khotan around 1006.
Islamic Khotan Yūsuf Qadr Khān was a brother or cousin of the Muslim ruler of Kashgar and
Balasagun, Khotan lost its independence and between 1006 and 1165, became part of the
Kara-Khanid Khanate. Later it fell to the
Kara-Khitan Khanate, after which it was ruled by the
Mongols. When
Marco Polo visited Khotan in the 13th century, he noted that the people were all Muslim. He wrote that:
Qing period Ch´ê Ta-jên's guests festing on a terrace in Nar-Bagh, 1912 (1878) showing Khotan (near top right corner) and the
Sanju Pass,
Hindutash, and Ilchi passes through the
Kunlun Mountains to
Leh,
Ladakh. The border claimed by
British Raj is shown in the two-toned purple and pink band. The
Qing dynasty of China conquered the
Dzungar Khanate during the final stage of the
Dzungar–Qing Wars in the late 1750s. By 1760, Hotan became the territory of the Qing dynasty along with the rest of Xinjiang. The town suffered severely during the
Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) against the Qing rule and again a few years later when
Yaqub Beg of
Kashgar made himself master of Kashgaria, ruling the newly founded Turkic state known at the time as
Yettishar. However, Xinjiang was
reconquered by the Qing dynasty by 1877 and was converted into a province in 1884. On July 11, 2006, the townships of
Jiya and Yurungqash (Yulongkashi) in
Lop County and Tusalla (Tushala) in
Hotan County were transferred to Hotan City. In June 2012,
Tianjin Airlines Flight 7554 was hijacked en route from Hotan to Ürümqi. In a report from the
Uyghur American Association, in June 2012, notice was said to be given that police planned to undertake a search of every residence in Gujanbagh (Gujiangbage), Hotan. Hotan is the last municipality in Xinjiang with a majority Ugyhur presence in the core of the city. The UAA viewed this as an attempt to systematically intimidate the Uyghur population in Hotan. The Sultanim Cemetery () in central Hotan was a historical Uyghur graveyard that also included a religious shrine. According to a 2019 interview by the
Uyghur Human Rights Project, the cemetery entombed four commanders of Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan, who conquered the city around 960 CE and spread Islam. Due to space limitations after over a thousand years of burials, multiple bodies had to reuse the same grave, and additionals layers were dug underneath old ones. Between 2018 and 2019, the
cemetery was demolished and the western part of the land turned into a parking lot. ==Geography and climate==