New Ruins in an Old Context: The Buddhist Site of Toplukdong (Domoko) in Khotan (7th–9th c. CE)

(Erika Forte, Kyoto University)

Among the archaeological discoveries of the last decades in the oasis of Khotan (Xinjiang, China)—a thriving Kingdom along the southern branch of the Silk Road in the 1st millennium CE—the remains of the Buddhist monastery in Toplukdong, near Domoko, have provided new relevant insights for the study of Buddhist material culture of Ancient Khotan in the 7th-9th centuries CE.

This lecture offers an analysis of the excavated structures and presents an art historical assessment of the ancient monastic site, in view of the larger archaeological panorama of Buddhist remains of the oasis.

Professor Erika Forte teaches Art and Archeology of Eastern Central Asia at the Institute for Research in Humanities at Kyoto University as well as Chinese Art History and Chinese History at the Institute for Liberal Art and Science at the same university. From 1997 to 2005, she was a permanent member of the joint Italian-Chinese Archaeological Excavation Project on the Buddhist site of the Fengxiansi monastery in Longmen (Luoyang, PRC). Currently, her research focuses on the Khotan region.

Photo by Erika Forte