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China and the Silk Road - Modern History of the Silk Road
A Chronology of the Silk Road
Estimated 500 BC - 14Th Century Emergence Maritime Trading Routes
This page was last updated on: December 24, 2019
This page was last updated on: December 24, 2019
-----> History of the Silk Road :
See Also - The
Han Dynasty
and the
Tang Dynasty
history.
Silk Road (10) Modern History of the Silk Road II : 1925 A.D. to 1950 Re-discovery of the Silk Road
1946: French Forces are withdrawn from Lebanon, at the very western end of the silk road. After withdrawal, the country of
1946: Jordan (previously since World War I the British protectorate (State) of Transjordania) becomes an Independent State in the form of a constitutional Monarchy led by King Abdullah Ibn Hussein. It is the birth of the Haeshimite Kingdom of Jordania.
April 17, 1946: After a long Colonial Rule and Foreign overlordships, Syria becomes an Independent State as the Syrian Arab Republic.
April 1946: The newly emerging Kurdish state of the "Republic of Mahabad" sign a military alliance with the adjacent newborn state of the "Autonomous Republic of Azerbaidjan". Five days later on April 26 of 1946 the Soviet trained, equipped and backed Kurdish Forces face 600 Iranian troops supported by Cavalry and backed with heavy artillery. Kurdish peshmerga fighters repel the first Iranian attack and declares a victory. On May 3 a cease fire agreement is reached with leaves only occasional clashes between both parties.
May 1946: Kurdish and Azerbaidjani State sign an Oil agreement with the Soviet Union, to be ratified in parliament later.
March 1946: In response to United Nations Security council resolution 2 (in history) (and later 3), the Soviet Union promises to withdraw its troops still lingering in northern Iran and supporting the fledgling Kurdish and Azerbaidjani States. In reality, the withdrawal of Soviet troops is slow and protracted.
June 1946: a second Iranian offensive against the emerging Kurdish State of Mahabad defeats Kurdish Forces. Inside the State tribal support for religious and political leader Qazi Mohammad dwindles, especially when promised Soviet support does not arrive. Meanwhile, the United States and Allies put unrelenting pressure on the Soviet Union to stop supporting revolt in Iran.
June 1946, the British Government cracked down on the Zionist movement in Palestine, arresting many leaders of the Yishuv (I.e. Black Sabbath). Golda Meir (גולדה מאיר) took over as acting head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency during the incarceration of Moshe Sharett. Thus she became the principal negotiator between the Jews in Palestine and the British Mandatory authorities. After his release, Sharett went to the United States to attend talks on the UN Partition Plan, leaving Meir to head the Political Department until the establishment of the exclusively Jewish "state of Israel" in 1948 (The Israeli Declaration of (Jewish) Independence (in Palestine) on May 14, 1948).
In response to a British crackdown on Jewish terrorist attacks on British and Arabs, Irgun Zvai Leumi (Led by Menachim Begin) mounted a reprisal terrorist offensive in Palestine. Among things, the King David Hotel - the locations of the British Administration in Palestine was bombed on July 22, leaving 91 dead. Later a the British Embassy in Rome was bombed. In Palestine Jewish terrorist groups again attacked Palestinian (Arab) villages and targets across Palestine, according to Irgun's own words and sources, a strategy devised to intimidate Arab (villages) and make them sue for a (long term) peace settlement with Jews in Palestine.
November 1946: Following another Iranian offensive backed with U.S. resources the newly formed "Republic of Mahabad" effectively ceases to exist. In the following 2 months the Iranian army clears all pockets of resistance, retaking all territories. Qazi Mohammad and the Kurdish State leadership are tried in court and subsequently hanged (in 1947). Peshmerga Forces are supposed to hand over their weapons for amnesty, however many Kurdish Arms are smuggled across the mountains to be available for a new Kurdish uprising in spring of 1947.
While the Kurdish State in north Iran crumbles the adjacent "Autonomous Republic of Azerbaidjan" suffers a similar fate. Its leadership ingloriously flees across the border to the neighboring Soviet State of Azerbaidjan (Today: Azerbaijan ).
February 1947: Birth of Mohammad Najibullah also Najibullah Achmadzai (Pashto: ډاکټر نجیب ﷲ احمدزی)(Life: 1947 - 1996), in life President of Afghanistan (In office: 4 May 1986 – 16 April 1992). With Soviet (USSR) support Najibullah was President during the Soviet Occupation and "management" of Afghanistan . This period ended around 1989 with the complete withdrawal of all Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Regardless a continuing civil war there after, Najibullah managed to hang on to power until the year 1992 when all forms of Soviet help were withdrawn forcing the newly established Afghan Defense Force to a grinding halt. He was deposed in April 1992 ending his career.
5 August, 1947: A massive 7.3 on the Richter scale earthquake rips through the remote Pasni Region in south-west Iran (now in Balochistan, Pakistan ) causing massive material damage but a mere 500 deaths (estimated).
November 1946 - February 1947: The first of now famous Dead Sea Scrolls (also known as the Qumran Scrolls) consisting mostly of deteriorated documents containing Hebrew script are discovered by herdsmen in Wadi Qumran, near the Dead Sea in the so called west-bank (of the Jordan River) area. With additional finds done by archeologists in the following decades (1948 - 1951 ; 1951 - 1956) and even as late as 2017 with the find of a 12th cave, the scripts reveal an early version of biblical text, some of which were previously entirely unknown to the world. Major linguistic analysis by Cross and Avigad dates fragments from 225 BC to 50 AD.
1945 AD: About half a Century after the Tours of the Great Explorers Sven Hedin and Aurel Stein another scholar, a British diplomat, a Cambridge Man and perhaps explorer the right honorable Professor Joseph Needham reached the trajectory of the Silk Road. Passing from Chongqing in Sichuan through a stop-over at Fengxian in Shaanxi Province and via Huixian in Gansu on to Lanzhou . To traverse the neglected and sometimes nonexistent road to the far west the Needham expedition traveled by army truck and reportedly visited the small peasant village of Shandan (in Zhangye Prefecture ) (where New Zealander Rewi Alley was dropped off), Jiuquan and JiaYuguan on the way to the famed Mogao Caves at the town of Dunhuang .
When the news of the Xiaohe finds first made it out to a world audience raised considerable interest, especially among archeological specialist. However, the true depth of their meaning would only be revealed overtime.
As the adjacent video vividly illustrates, it eventually turned out that a fairly large and developed ancient Civilization had existed in the Tarim River basin. A Civilization that had existed long before the existence of the magnificent cultures of the earliest Silk Road, as they were recorded by the envoys of the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) . These had so far been the earliest recorded civilizations in the regions.
What was even more shocking and is a news that still reverberates around the world was that the mummies found encapsulated and preserved within their tombs were apparently not of Asian ethnicity but of a Caucasian origin. Among things some had red or blond type hair and blue or green eyes.
As various researcher teams have since established, the settlement and the associated cemetery belonged to the Gumugou culture, also known as the Qäwrighul culture, which itself was part of a larger civilization which had lived surrounding the Lop Nor lake and along the rivers of the Tarim River Basin (and what is not Taklamakan desert). Another “beauty” found in the region, a mummy known as the “Beauty of Loulan,” also belonged to this culture. Various other stunning finds have been made recently at Loulan, Yingpan, Cherchen and other locations proving that as early as 2000 B.C. (when early Greek Civilization developed) a European type of peoples had been arriving from the far West (Iran, Iraq , the Black Sea and Turkey) traveling through Central Asia to the large Tarim River Basin fed by glacial rivers. There, they encountered Asian peoples with whom they
YouTube Video: PFS NOVA The Mysterious Indo-European Mummies of China (Part 1), describing the pre-Silk Road Aryan mummies.
intermarried and eventually build a Civilization with. As if all of this was not shocking enough, these peoples knew a primitive art of bronze working which is an art that was previously thought to have been developed in China independently from other parts of the ancient world. As historians now hold it, it is quite possible, if not increasingly likely that the migrations that occurred on the Eurasian continent in the millennia before the birth of Christ and the advent of the Silk Road have carried the ancient knowledge of bronze working into China at that time. One of the routes through which this knowledge must have traveled is the Tarim River Basin, which sort of establishes a silk road of knowledge in existence long before the opening of the historic Silk Road as dated by the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 221 AD) scribes to the year 138 BC.
1929: Arab-Jewish rioting in Palestine claimed at least 200 lives with many more casualties. It was the beginning of a long period of growing emnity which would eventually lead to the Arab Revolt in Palestine and subsequently to the (first) Arab-Jewish civil war in Palestine (1936 - 1939).
1929: Birth of Yassir Arafat, in life co-founder and leader of the P.L.O., Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1956 (Al-Fatah) in Cairo, Egypt.
1929: British archeologist Leonard Woolley published his book "Ur of the Chaldees" on Sumerian Civilization finds at Ur in Iraq.
1942: George Hogg, a British born journalist for the Manchester Daily, helps Rewi Alley - a New Zealander set up a school in Shuangshipu Town (Today: Fengxian , Fengxian County , Baoji City Prefecture , Shaanxi Province). It is called the Bailie School which will be the home for some 60 orphaned children. It is the beginning of a memorable adventure. In the next year George Hogg is made headmaster of the school, becoming the center of the Universe for the 60 odd orphans struggling for life in a very dark and turbulent period in Chinese history.
In 1943 - Edmond O. Clubb, the American Consul in Tihwa (Urumqi) at the time, sent a message to Washington D.C. Making a mention of local rumors which say that the Russians, who have invaded the ( Kazakh Populated) northernmost region of Xinjiang, have found uranium and are making preparations for mining uranium ore.
1943: Menachim Begin became leader of Irgun (Zvai Leumi), the Jewish Zionist Nationalist Armed (terrorist) organization in Palestine. Begin would later become one of the lead Politicans and eventually President of Israel.
Late in 1944: Chinese Nationalist Forces (Kuomintang) search the Bailie School in Fengxian for the needed fresh recruits to help fight the Japanese invaders in what is now the "War of Resistance against Japanese Agression". In order to escape the forced recruiting the Chinese armies have been notorious for, headmaster George Hogg decides to relocate the Bailie School to a location out of reach of both the Kuomintang and the Japanese Forces. The destination ultimately chosen for the relocation will be Shandan, a remote town situated over 1100 kilometers (700 miles) from Shuangshipu (Fengxian) in the Hexi Corridor of Gansu Province along the ancient Silk Road out of Xian and Lanzhou .
In November of 1944, at the onset of winter, the first group of boys sets out on a journey across frozen high passes and through deserts in order to reach their destination. In January of 1945 a second group of the remaining 27 boys sets out on this trail as well.
After some 450 miles and a month of arduous travels, the first group reached Lanzhou and the Yellow River, where with credit arranged for by Rewi Alley, Hogg was able to rent 6 venerable diesel trucks which would transport everyone of the silk road and the Hexi Corridor to Shandan in Zhangye (City) Prefecture. The Bailie School was re-established in an abandoned old Temple in Shandan.
22 March, 1945: Arab League is founded by 22 Nations in Cairo, Capital of Egypt. It is an organization which declares a goal of safeguarding the Sovreignty of member nations, extending cooperation and working together to advance the interest of Arab Nations. Significantly, its first President was the Palestinian leader Haj Amin Al Husseini, better known as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (notorious for his cooperation with German Nazis in world war 2).
In July 1945, George Hogg stubs his toe while playing sports with his pupils. The toe is infected with tetanus. While two boys are sent by motorcycle to Lanzhou in a desperate rescue mission to retrieve the much needed antibiotics, George Hogg dies on July 22nd. He is buried a short ways outside of the small town of Shandan with a small headstone honoring his sacrifice and contribution.
July 26, 1944: Shah Reza Pahlavi, the former Iranian General turned founder of a new Monarchy in Iran dies in exile in Durban Johannesburgh, South Africa while his son retains the throne in Iran.
6 November 1944: The British administrator (Governor) of the British post-war mandate territory of Palestine is assassinated by Jewish terrorist of the LEHI Organization (Stern Gang).
November 1945 - September 1946: The "Iran Crisis".
Following the withdrawal of British and Commonwealth troops from Iran in September 1945, Soviet Troops linger in northern Iran. Having created, among things the Azerbaidjani Democratic Party (ADP), Soviet agents instigate insurrection in Azerbaidjani regions in northern Iran. The ADP spreads its influence throughout all of Azerbaidjani northern Iran and stages and subsequently dissolves the openly communist and modernist Tudeh Pary ("Party of the Masses") in the first week of September. Later in the same month, at the first ADP Party congress, the party establishes an armed militia which, with soviet arms, help and active support claim control of all villages and towns.
By mid-November when sufficient control is established the ADP declares the establishment of the "Independent" "Autonomous Republic of Azerbaidjan" in northern Iran.
In December of 1945, right after the establishment of the "Autonomous Republic of Azerbaidjan" in mountainous north Iran, the independent Kurdish State of Mahabad was established. The obligatory new religious leader of the newly emerging Soviet Russian backed State of the "Republic of Mahabad" is named Qazi Mohammad.
Tudeh ("Party of the Masses" ; Persian: حزب تودۀ ایران), the Iranian Communist Party, creates a mass movement for change in Iran while a Soviet backed insurrection is staged in north Iran. CIA agents and operatives launch a counter-propaganda offensive in Iran critizing inspiration and guidance taken from the Soviet Union, as well as the anti-Islamic character of Tudeh political ideas. The influence of the Tudeh Party continues in Iran and will be crucial in Iranian Politics in the next decade.
Koktogai
Region
X <--
Qinggil
BeiDa
Shan
June 4 to 7, 1947 - "Peitashan Incident". Chinese forces and local tribal militia in north-west Xinjiang's lower or little Altai Mountains do battle with troops from the Republic of Mongolia in the disputed border zone between current day Altai Prefecture of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and the Province of Khovd in the Republic of Mongolia. At the time it seems as if Russia, by use of its proxy the Peoples Republic of Mongolia, is steering towards a full takeover of all of Xinjiang (a territory fully claimed by the Peoples Republic of China based (incorrectly) on the assumption that the current Chinese Nation can lay claim to all the territory claimed by the Manchu invaders of China during their further conquest dubbed in China as "The Qing Dynasty (1644 AD - 1911 AD)". However, the Qing were Manchu and not Chinese thus it cannot have been a Chinese Dynasty (in proper)).
August 15, 1947: Formerly British ruled India is split between predemoninantly Muslim Pakistan (with current day Bangladesh as eastern Pakistani Province) and the majority Hindu and other State of India, creating the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and Democratic India. The political split causes a mass exodus of Muslims to Pakistan and others vice versa. In the violence and turmoil an estimated half a million people lose their lives. In the aftermath of the split, several territories, most notably the Jammu and Kashmir Region in the western Himalayas which
Map of the current day Republic of Mongolia showing the western border a line dviding the minor Altai Mountains (Chowd Altai) bteween Kazakh Territory (Altai Prefecture) and Mongolian Territory (Khovd Aimag). In this arrangement the Kazakh held on to pasturelands on the south-west slopes of the Mountains, whereas the northern- and eastern slopes fell under control of Mongolia and local Mongolian nomadic people. Naturally, disregarding politics the regions have always been interconnected.
Chinese controlled part of Xinjiang into the East Turkestan Republic and fight their way to the region of Koktogai which is also their native tribal pastureland. Not many historic details are known about this remote event, however ultimately the Kazakh's re-invading their own homeland were repelled, it is said with the help if Russian Forces, and ultimately ended up retreating into Chinese held territory more to the south.
Rumor has it that at the time the Koktogai Region had been the location of the first and only Russian Uranium mine, a crucial part of the ongoing Russian efforts to steal the American Atomic Bomb design, find uranium and produce nuclear weapons itself (At the time uranium was the only substance know to be usable as the nuclear fuel driving the atomic explosion). Based on the scarce information available it appears that the invading group of Kazakh's had received weapons from the Chinese Nationalist Army just prior to November 4 and that earlier in June of 1947 the Kazakh's had taken weapons from their Mongolian enemies at a place known as Peitaishan during the "Peitaishan Incident" (The BeiDa Shan are a mountain range also known as the smaller Altai Mountains (Chowd Altai) which extends in a south-eastern directions from the Altai Range and so forms the border between today's "Altai Kazakh Prefecture" of Xinjiang and Khovd Aimag (Province) in the far west of the Republic of Mongolia . This border had been disputed in the years prior to the "Koktogai Incident" and was fixed by various battles of the time. One such battle had included the Kazakh Tribe from Koktogai.
November 1947 AD - & U.S. Army Officers are flown out to the U.S. Consulate and "listening post" at Urumqi . On the long haul flight, they stop off at several points along the way in order to inspect sites designated by Douglas MacKiernan as possible spots for the location of (Ad Hoc) American strategic bomber bases to be used in case of war with the Soviet Union. Most notably, one of the sites included a
BeiDa
Shan
XINJIANG
NINGXIA
HEBEI
INNER MONGOLIA
INNER
MONGOLIA
TIBET
"Hexi Corridor"
Xinjiang-Uygur Autonomous Region Satellite Map 1A
A Satellite Image overview Map of Xinjiang-Uygur Autonomous Region entire and parts of neighboring Nations of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, The Tuva-, Khakassia- and Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation, The Republic of Mongolia, as well as Chinese Provinces and Territories of Gansu Province, Qinghai Province and Tibet Autonomous Region.
This Map Includes Cities and Towns (shown by size), the Irtush River Valley, the Dzungarian Basin of Xinjiang AR, the Taklamakan Desert in South-Central Xinjiang AR, a variety of border passes in the Karakoram Mountain Range and the Tian Shan Mt. Range, plus main waterways, rivers and lakes of this large region.
Kara-
koram
Semipalatinsk
+ Nuclear Test Site
Uranium 235
Lop Nor
Tarim River Basin
(& Taklamakan Desert)
Koktogai
Ili-Kazakh
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tibet
Tibet
Altai Mountains
Malan Nuclear Test Site
Tian Shan
large flat swath of dry desert land situated immediately north of Jiayuguan and Jiuquan in Gansu Province , two closely related rural towns better known for their position at the very western end of the Ming Dynasty Era Great Wall of China . Because the fortunes of the American alliance with the Kuomindang Government of Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai Chek) in the (2nd) Chinese Civil War turned sour and events were overturned by the victory of the Chinese Communist Party leading to the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China (Formally, Oct. 1st, 1949) no U.S. Bomber base ever emerged in the desert near the end of the Great Wall. However, although the American plan for a bomber base to reach Central Asia and the Russian atomic sites in Kazakhstan (Semipalatinsk ; Semey) "nearby" was thwarted, someone in the Chinese Administration had been informed and made due notice. Within 10 years of the American stop over and inspection of the site, the location at Jiayuguan / Jiuquan was secretly designated as a military base established for serving a role in the Chinese Atomic program and associated missile program). As was many years later, overtime the secret base served supporting functions for upcoming nuclear tests in the western deserts of China (P.R.C.) . Gaining a military airfield along the way at some time during the 1950's) it was further developed into China's first (nuclear) Ballistic Missile Testing Range which became designated with the codename: DongFeng 1.
TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE HISTORY OF DONGFENG BASE (DF1), NOW JIUQUAN SPACE LAUNCH CENTER (JSLC), PLEASE CLICK THROUGH TO: "History of Jiayuguan" , "History of Jiuquan (Suzhou District)" and the Chapter on Jiuquan City and Prefecture in Gansu Province.
On 20 May 1948, Folke Bernadotte was appointed "United Nations Mediator in Palestine", in accordance with UN-resolution 186 of 14 May 1948. It was the first official mediation in the UN's history.
January 1, 1949: Fighting ends in the undeclared Pakistan-India War in Kashmir through a United Nations mediated ceasefire agreement. The territory of Kashmir albeit still disputed is split into a Pakistani Controlled part and an Indian Controlled part, the line of split runs along the factual (military) lines of control held by the armies of both opposing the Nations. It is the start of long period of military occupations, cross border wars and insurrections of the local peoples.
15 May 1948 – 10 March 1949: The first Arab-Israeli War (also dubbed 1948 Arab–Israeli War) breaks out in western Asia after a unilateral declaration of the founding of the State of Israel by Jewish colonists and settlers in Palestine sparks all out civil war in Palestine. With the essentially illegal act of the unilateral founding of a Jewish State occupying large parts of Palestine while United Nations negotiations (the first ever in world history) are still ongoing, Arab States of the Region feel themselves forced into war with the newborn but illegal state of Israel. A coalition of Arab States including Egypt, Syria, and the Kingdom of Jordan, supported by expeditionary forces from the State of Iraq invade Palestine in order to put a stop to the emergence of the Jewish State of Israel.
While being cornered from all sides the newly created illegal State of Israel receives massive help from the United States of America from where large shipments of military equipment, ammunition and airplanes and financial aid are received. Jewish volunteers join the fight from all over the world particularly from the United States.
17 September, 1948: United Nations chief Palestine peace mediator, the Swedish Diplomat Folke Bernadotte, in World War 2 saviour of some 31 thousand Jews from German Concentration Camps, is murdered in Jerusalem by the Jewish Terrorist Stern Gang (LEHI group), eventhough this group had officially been disbanded and banned as part of the 29 May 1948 unilateral declaraton of the formation of the State of Israel in occupied Palestine. Ralph Bunche, previously the deputy negotiator, succeeds him as Chief Negotiator.
After the assassination, the new Israeli government declared Lehi a terrorist organization, arresting and convicting some 200 members as a token gesture to placate the United Nations. Meanwhile LEHI terrorist Chief of operations Menachim Begin (Life: Brest, Russian Empire 15 August 1913 - 9 March 1992 Tel Aviv, Israel) enters democratic politics later to become the 6th Prime Minister of Israel (21 June, 1977 - 10 October 1983) and even sharing a Nobel Preace Prize with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (1979) after signing a peace treaty with that State.
6 October, 1948 AD: The 1948 Ashgabat Earthquake (Turkmen: 1948 Ашгабат ыер титремеси; 1948 Aşgabat yer titremesi; Russian: Ашхабадское землетрясение 1948 года; Ashkhabadskoye zemletryasenie 1948 goda) strikes 25 kilometers south-west of Ashgabat in the Turkmen Soviet Republic ( Turkmenistan ). The 7.3 magnitude earthquake event rips open the ground, heavily damages concrete buildings, levels historic adobe homes and derails freight trains. Through heavy censorship by the Uzbek Government the true extend of the damage and loss of live remains unknown to most of the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.), let alone the outside world. A considerable percentage of the entire Uzbek population, an estimated 10 to 110 thousand people loose their lives.
15 October 1948 – 10 March 1949 In the so called October battles, Israel launched a series of military operations to drive out the Arab armies and secure the northern and southern borders of Israel.
November 1948 - After seeing off his newly wed (and 3rd) wife in Shanghai , around November 10 Joseph S. MacKiernan, a CIA spy in undercover function embarks on his last drive across China, taking one month to reaching his first goal, the City of Tihwa , today better known as Urumqi. During World War 2, the city had been MacKiernan's station. He reached Tihwa (Urumqi) on December 10 of 1948 AD ostensibly bringing with him a truck load of (secretive) equipment. The equipment likely included Geiger tellers and other sensors intended to be used in order to detect and locate any (Russian) atomic test in Central Asia .
Within half a year Douglas MacKiernan would become the first CIA Agent to be killed in the line of duty.
December 1948: the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194. It called to establish a UN Conciliation Commission to facilitate peace between Israel and Arab states. However, many of the resolution's articles were not fulfilled, since these were opposed by Israel, rejected by the Arab states, or were overshadowed by war as the 1948 conflict continued.
1949: After 60 years of neglect, archeological excavations resume at the ancient ruined site of Nimrud near Mosul (Historical Niniveh) in northern Iraq. Excavations are led by Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan, Britian's pre-eminent scholar and expert in the field of ancient Middle Eastern History. Numerous archeological missions have followed through the decades until the total destruction of the site by ISIL in March of 2015.
In 1949, Israel signed separate armistices with Egypt on 24 February, Lebanon on 23 March, Jordan on 3 April, and Syria on 20 July ending the First Arab-Israeli War (or in fact freezing it in place for about a decade while Israel was built). The Armistice Demarcation Lines, as set by the agreements, saw the territory under Israeli control encompassing approximately three-quarters of the prior British administered Mandate as it stood after Transjordan's independence in 1946 becoming the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan.
As a result of humiliating defeats suffered by the Arab Nations of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq, Israel controlled territories of about one-third more than was allocated to the Jewish State under the United Nations partition proposal and subsequent resolutions. After the armistices, Israel with a Jewish population of just over 600 thousand, had control over 78% of the territory comprising former Mandatory Palestine or some 8,000 square miles (21,000 km2), including the entire Galilee and Jezreel Valley in the north, whole Negev Desert in south, West Jerusalem and the coastal plain in the center.
The armistice lines were known afterwards as the "Green Line". The Gaza Strip and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) were occupied by Egypt and Jordan respectively. The United Nations Truce Supervision Organization and Mixed Armistice Commissions were set up to monitor ceasefires, supervise the armistice agreements, to prevent isolated incidents from escalating, and assist other UN peacekeeping operations in the region.
1949: Women win the right to Vote in Syria and later that year in the new Peoples Republic of China, established on October 1, 1949 with the National Capital at Beijing .
1949 onwards: Archeologist began to uncover fossilized remains and artifacts of Homo Erectus dated between 80 thousand B.C. and 500 thousand B.C. in many locations in Northern China.
August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. The nuclear test dubbed Joe-1 by western intelligence (after Joseph "Uncle Joe" Stalin) was conducted near the city of Semipalatinsk (Today: Semey) on the steppes of the then Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan and had roughly the same yield as the A-Bomb that destroyed Nagasaki in August of 1945, around 21 kilotons of TNT (equivalent). The test came as a considerable shock to U.S. Government circles but not to its intelligence circles in Central Asia , especially at Tihwa.
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January-February 1934: Battle of Kashgar takes place between united Uighur and Kyrgyz Forces of the East Turkestan Republic and Kuomintang Nationalist Army units composed of Hui consripts and officers. The latter are victorious capturing and then executing various rebel leaders and following.
March 1934: In western Chinese Turkestan ( Xinjiang ) reportedly, the rebellious Muslim Emir of the First East Turkestan Republic, Abdullah Bughra, was beheaded by the Chinese Muslim 36th Division of the National Revolutionary Army (Kuomintang) led by General Ma Zhongying. (According to various sources) His head is put on display in front of the Id-Kah Mosque, the main Mosque of Kashgar .
April 1934: Chinese Hui Muslim General Ma Zongying gave a public speech the the historic Id-Kah Mosque the main mosque of the silk road market town of Kashgar, in the west of Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang). The General urges local Muslims to be loyal to the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang Government (rather than claim Independence or be involved with Russia or other parties).
1934: Official discovery of The Xiaohe Tomb complex (also: Ördek’s Necropolis) is located to the west of "wandering lake" Lop Nur . This bronze-age burial site was originally discovered by Ördek’s, a helper of Sven Hedin during his early expeditions around Lop Nor. The information was thus passed to Folke Bergman, who may be considered Hedin's pupil in these matters, and subsequently missions were sent there in order to rediscover more lost silk road heritage. Since then, the site has become world famous.
Today the Xiaohe Tomb site is nothing more than an oblong sand dune found in a vast wind and sand blown wasteland.
Although the site at first was never excavated (among things due to political events in China), since the early 1990's the site has regained interest and by now is well explored. More than thirty well preserved caucasian mummies have been excavated. The entire Xiaohe Tomb complex contains about 330 tombs, about 160 of which have been violated by grave robbers.
An excavation project by the Xinjiang Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute began in October 2003. A total of 167 tombs have been dug up since the end of 2002 and excavations have revealed hundreds of smaller tombs built in layers, as well as other precious artifacts. In 2006, a valuable archeological finding was uncovered: a boat-shaped coffin wrapped in ox hide, containing the mummified body of a young woman.
In the period 1929 to 1935 a lesser known Swedish explorer by the name of Folke Bergman (1902 AD - 1946 AD) traveled through the Xinjiang Region in order to record its geographical features and in the search of archeological remnants of the rich history of the regions and the Silk Road. During these exploits, while in the regions of the Lop Nor lake , the explorer was inadvertently introduced to a local Uyghur hunter, one Ördek, who subsequently revealed to him a tomb site that had been discovered by him already in the year 1910 AD while working with Sven Hedin.
The site which Bergman was led to is now known in archeology circles as the Xiaohe (Little River) bronze age historical site. As was in the following months well document, the neolithic site at Xiaohe in Lop Nor consisted of the clear remains of small and primitive settlement which also had an adjoining cemetery on a hill marked by circularly arranged wooden posts. The site was close to a river bed, which Bergman named Xiaohe, or “Small River.”, hence the current name of the site.
Today the cemetery attached to the Xiaohe has been named the “Ördek’s necropolis,” in honor of Sven Hedin's Uyghur guide who originally
Sven Hedin and Folke Bergman seated togther inside a yurt during Hedins last great mission of exploration in 1934. The Xiaohe Tomb find was the crowning piece in years of exploration along the Silk Road in Xinjiang.
discovered the site. It is the location of infamous historic finds such as the first hashish (marihuana) and the first woven pants in world history, which by chance of a weaving quality unsurpassed in China until at least the 7th century AD.
Schematic overview of the main pathways of the Silk Road(s) in Asia, throughout the millennia between Rome and Byzantium in the west and Chang An, Luoyang, Datong or Beijing in the far east of Asia. Main road is depicted in red, by ways in blue. The Eurasian steppe route is often seen as separate but factually and historically should not be discounted as such. + Click Map locations to link through to information by location!
1929: Beginning of archeological excavations at Palmyra in Syria under supervision of the general director of antiquities in Syria, Henri Arnold Seyrig. While excavating the ruins, Seyrig managed to convince the villagers to move away by promising them the building of a new and better equiped French-built village next to the site which would become known as Tadmur. The clearing of the entire Palmyra site of population was completed in 1932.
1930: Kurdish national movement forces led by Sheikh Mahmud rise up in northern Iraq, but are eventually suppressed by British supported Iraqi Forces. While a similar Kurdish uprising in Iranian parts are defeated during the summer (June and July), the insurrections in northern Iraq last well into 1931. Afterwards a dream of Kurdish National independence remains alive and simmering.
Around the year 1930, by then legendary Silk Road explorer Sir Aurel Stein undertakes early excavations at Kerman (کرمان), ancient Capital of Kerman Province in western Iran famous for its Zoroastrian Culture. The research by Stein involves Shahr-e Sūkhté (Persian: شهرِ سوخته , meaning "[The] Burnt City") a mysterious bronze age site measuring 25 hectares containing numerous graves and other ruined structures.
1930: Constantinople (Historically: Byzantium), the former Capital of the Eastern Roman Empire is renamed Istanbul, which had since long been the locally popular (Turkish) name for the city.
In 1930: A mining team sent in to explore and prepare a certain location in Gobustan in current day Absheron Province of Azerbaijan , due south of Baku on the Caspian Sea coast, rediscovers the true archeological and cultural value of this location. Today known as the Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape, the miners discover abundant rock engravings and
engraved caves, alerting the world of their presence, thus saving a record of over 40 millennia of human activity for future generations.
1931: The clandestine fundamentalist Zionist Jewish organization of Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization) is established in Palestine. Its aims are to overthrow powers of British occupation forces and rival Palestinian and Arab groups in Palestine through the force of arms.
1931: Death of the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein Ibn-Ali, King of Hejaz. In previous decades he was a major leading figure in the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Rule, loser in the Arab Civil War and father of King Faisal I of Syria (1918 - 1920) who was also later King of Iraq (1923 - 1933). He was also Father of King Hussein (Rule: 1946 - 1951) of trans-Jordania (Today: Jordania).
1931: Kuomintang anti-bandit actions start against the Jiangxi Soviet established in the mountains of Jiangxi Province in China. It will the start of repeated campaigns against Communist strongholds in China , ultimately leading Communist Rebel Forces to embark on the "Long March".
1932: Black American writer, poet, political activist and photographer Langston Hughes (Life: 1902 - 1967), in his days and later remembered as the most influential writer of the 1920s (Harlem) Black American Renaissance (Movement), reaches the Silk Road as he tours several southern states of the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.), notably described by him as Nations much alike the dustry cotton producing states he knew so well from his early life in the United States. He thus travels through Moscow to spend several months on the road in Turkmenistan , Uzbekistan and Tajikistan . Under the title "A Negro views the Soviet Union" he leaves historic account of life in these souther parts of Soviet Central Asia, among things lauding the apparent racial and social equality and other perceived progress made in the Soviet Union under guidance of Marxism-Leninism.
(Read more in: "History of Tashkent".). In early 1933 he returns to Moscow to head for Vladivostok , Korea and Republican China and finally Japan.
September, 1932: The family of Saud establishes the Nation of Saudi Arabia, which it will rule from that day forward until today. Ibn Saud, victor in the Arab Civil War (1902 - 19250 is the first King of Saudi Arabia .
1933: Iraqi military forces with British air support once more defeat a Kurdish uprising in northern parts of Iraq. In the same year Iraq becomes and officially independent State with King Faisal (Previously of Syria) as the head of the ruling Monarchy.
August 9, 1933: Uighur Leader Timur Beg (Life: 1886 - Nov. 9, 1933) who previously had declared himself Emir is killed by Chinese (Hui) Muslim General Ma Zhancang, who with his 36th Hui Division has been dispatched to stamp out any rebellions in Xinjiang and reclaim the territory for China (the Kuomintang Nationalist Republic). Timur Beg is shot, then beheaded and subsequently the head of the dead Emir is put on display at the Kashgar Id-Kah Mosque (Uyghur: ھېيتگاھ مەسچىتى, Хейтгах Месчити Hëytgah Meschiti, Chinese: 艾提尕尔清真寺; pinyin: Àitígǎěr Qīngzhēnsì) (from Persian: عیدگاه Eidgāh, meaning Place of Festivities) center of Uyghur life in Kashgar since centuries as a warning to the local population.
November 8, 1933; Nadir Shah, the self proclaimed King of Afghanistan is assassinated. He was succeeded by his son Mohammed Zahir Shah (Rule: 1933 - 1973). It is the beginning of the last Monastic reign period in Afghan history, a time during which the Afghan Nation bloomed.
1933: A giant earthquake and aftershocks hit Gansu Province along the rim of the Tibetan Plateaux costing an estimated 70 thousand human lifes in towns and villages across the region.
1933: Andre Parrot, a French archeologist, led a team to do excavations at Tell Hariri, better known as the ancient Mesopotamian City of Mari (which is situated along the silk road in modern day Syria). It is the first archeological dig at the ancient city sacked by the competing Babylonians in the year 1760 BC (estimated).
1925: Zionist-Revisionist Movement was invented and founded by Vladimir Jabotinsky. The Jewish movement called for armed struggle against British occupation forces in Palestine. Among things, over the next years and decades the success of the movement would lead to growing Jewish migration into Palestine. The Zionist Theory would later be copied by the Jewish terrorist organization Irgun Zvai Leumi, which was headed by Menachim Begin. Begin would become a crucial military leader and later President of Israel making Zionism the founding theory of the State of Israel (founded in 1948 in Palestine).
1925: Reza Khan formally became the Shah of Iran, the newly founded revolutionary state previously known as Persia. The so called Shah of Iran founded a new Monarchy and Dynasty known as the Pavlevi's. Supported by foreign regimes and investments, the new Dynasty went on to rule the Nation with an iron fist.
1925: Unrest and insurrections become more and more frequent in Kurdish territories split between Iraq, Iran and the newly founded state of Turkey. In Turkish held territories a substantial uprising is defeated with arms driving the Kurds across the border into Iraq (and Iran) from where they start operating a guerilla type war. This guerilla war lasts through to this day.
1925: A nationwide uprising against French Occupation starts in Syria. Armed Druze rebels initially book military successes against the French in southern Syria. In December Damascus , the historic Capital of Syria, falls to Druze armed forces.
In 1927 A.D. a massive earthquake struck the city of Wuwei in the Hexi Corridor of Gansu Province , reducing most of the local buildings and monuments to rubble. The quake also known as the Gulang Earthquake event after the location of its epicenter is estimated to have measured around 7.6 to 8.0 on the Richter Scale and was felt across the Yellow River Basin to a distance of over 700 kilometers away. Although the regions were sparsely inhabited at the time, the total death toll of the quake event stands at an estimated 49.000 souls. Reportedly, in the town of Gulang almost the only thing left standing was a 20 meter long section of the city walls and some decorated archways. All cave houses and rural dwellings in the wider regions of Gulang and Wuwei city were destroyed.
1927: French occupying forces in Syria defeat the Druzes and their allies retaking control of Syria by force of arms.
1927: Canadian paleontologist Davidson Black an others discovered the remains of more than 40 homo erectus specimen at Zhoukoudian. The find location and find become known as the Peking Man. Although the bones of the Peking Man which are dated between 460.000 and 230.000 BC are eventually lost (a historic Mystery) the find and location become internationally famous sparking off the imagination of the world.
July 11, 1927: At 15:08 PM The Jericho Earthquake of 1927 shook Mandatory Palestine and the British Governate of Trans-Jordan causing heavy damage in the cities of Jerusalem, Jericho, Ramble, Tiberias and Nablus. In the event hundreds of lives are lost and heavy damage was incurred by a number of historic monuments among the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Arabic: كَنِيسَةُ ٱلْقِيَامَة Kanīsatu al-Qiyāmah; Greek: Ναὸς τῆς Ἀναστάσεως Naos tes Anastaseos; Armenian: Սուրբ Հարության տաճար Surb Harut'yan tač̣ar; Latin: Ecclesia Sancti Sepulchri; Hebrew: כנסיית הקבר, Knesiyat ha-Kever ; also Church of the Ressurection) and the Al-Aqsa Mosque (--) in Jerusalem. In Nablus the Great Mosque of Nablus and Mosque of Victory (Al-Nasr Mosque ; Arabic: مسجد النصر Masjid an-Nasr) suffered damage while in Ramla and Tiberias housing collapsed and heavy damage reported to most of the towns.
1928: British archeologist Vere-Golden Childe published ”The Most Central near East”, a key work in the study of Central near Eastern History and the development of farming.
1928: Archeologist of the Oriental Institute of Chicago arrive at Khorsabad (Dur-Sharrakin) in north Iraq to start renewed archeological excavations at this important silk road relic site. Excavations by teams from the Oriental Institute continue until 1935. Among things a collosal 40 ton stone bull is found and, in parts, retrieved to Chicago.
January 1929: King Ammanullah of Afghanistan abdicates his throne. In the aftermath Afghanistan descends into civil war. Forces of Mohamed Nadir Khan take the traditional Capital of Kabul in October after which he has his main rival Habibullah Hazi executed. Nadir Khan then becomes King Nadir Shah of Afghanistan.
In the turbulent year Babrak Karmal, the later first and only Communist President of Afghanistan is born as Sultan Hussein in Kabul.
In 1929, a four man team of archeologists; British Agnes Conway and George Horsfield, a Palestinian physician and folkore expert named (Dr) Tawfiq Canaan, and Danish Ditlef Nielsen take up archeological excavations and do surveys at the ancient hidden city of Petra in trans-Jordania (Today: Kingdom of Jordan).
China Historic Map - Route Long March 1934/35 - 1A
A Schematic overview Map of the current Peoples Republic of China depicting the main route(s) of the epic Long March of 1934 and 1935.
Map clearly delineates PRC China current National borders and includes Provinces and Autonomous Regions, Main Cities and relevant Towns, initial Communist Soviets (Self-administered rebel areas), the routes followed by various elements among the Communist Groups and Armies, locations of important meetings points, main natural obstacles such as mountain ranges, the flow of large rivers such as the Yangtze River and Yellow River, position of the Great Wall of China in Gansu Province, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, North Shaanxi Province etc, rough estimated routes of main railroads of the time and other details of interest.
Mouse over locations and link through for additional information on each location.
October 1934: Start of the Communist Long March in China. The Epic march which last about a year for some and for the last parties a little more will also lead the Communist Armies to cross over the easternmost parts of the Tibetan Plateaux there after reaching the Silk Road and the Great Wall of China .
In the second half of 1935 Communist Forces cross from Gansu into Shaanxi on their way to the take-over of a Rebel Soviet based at Bao'An in Shaanxi (Today: Zhidan of Zhidan County, Yenan City Prefecture , later renamed after the soon dead 1st Rebel Leader Li Zhidan).
1935: The old name Persia was dropped in favor of the more modern sounding Iran, which is still the correct term for the Nation and country today.
1936: A huge earthquake shook Quetta, in Balochistan of India (Today: Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan ). The human death toll from the quake is estimated at over 50 thousand.
1936: Palestinian Arabs engage in a six month long general strike which then evolves into another armed conflict with armed groups of Jewish migrant-settlers (the Arab-Jewish Civil War 1936 to 1939) as well as British occupation forces.
1936: In adjacent Lebanon Christian Maronites create the Phalange Party with its own accodding armed militia in order to defend their local interest against local political turmoils, wars and ongoing strife between Arabs and Jews in Palestine.
1936: Less than a year after their arrival in the Shaanxi Soviet Base in the Yanan Area, Kuomintang Forces make ready to open a military offensive against the Yenan Base led by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. The gathering of forces and the unique political and military opportunities lure Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Chek to Xian, startpoint of the silk road, to personally oversee the offensive. Instead of a military offensive moving north, the city and Nation witness the capture and holding hostage of the National President aka Generalissimo Chiang who is only freed after agreeing to sweeping changes in policy among them the formation of a United Front in a war against Japan and the active fighting back of Kuomintang Forces against this invading enemy. The offensive is postponed.
1937: Birth of Saddam Hussein (Life: 1937 - 2006), in later life army officer, Dictator and President of Iraq until his deposition in the 2nd gulf war in April of 2003.
1937: While in Palestine fighting between Jewish settler-migrants and concerned Arabs are a daily occurrence, the Palestinians gain growing support in neighboring nations and in British politics.
July 7, 1937: the so called Marco Polo Bridge (Lugou Qiao) incident south of Beijing launches a full scale and official war against China and Japan. The Sino-Japanese War will last until Japanese defeat in 1945 wrecking millions of lives across China and Asia. First open hostilities by Japan versus Western Allied Nations also occur with the sinking of the American gunboat Panay in the Yangtze River near Nanjing .
In 1937, 1938 and 1939, - recorded as the bloodiest years in Russian history - a Young British Diplomat named Fitzroy MacLean travels eastward from Moscow into the unknown and forbidden Russian heartlands. He first travels to the Kaukasus and then into Central Asia. In the course of his journey he reaches Azerbaijan and Georgia, and later, traveling by train along the trans-Siberian railway, Semipilatinsk (Semey) and Alma Ata (Almaty) in Kazakhstan. With the Russian security service NKVD on his trail MacLean then makes an illegal trip by cutting southward and traveling to the ancient Silk Road cities of Tashkent and Samarkand in Uzbekistan. At the end of his professional leave period and not willing to risk antagonizing his NKVD followers, MacLean does not initially reach Buchara (Today: Buxuro) , but turns back and travels by train back through Kazakhstan to his diplomatic Station at the Embassy in Moscow. He is left dreaming of a visit to Buchara, the "end of the line" in Russian central Asia, and the renowned market City of Kashgar across the Tian Shan mountains in Chinese controlled Turkestan as it is then known to westerners.
The next year, in 1938 MacLean once more traveled by means of the Trans-Siberian railroad from Moscow down to Alma Ata (Almaty) from where, this time around, he set out to reach the Chinese controlled city of Kashgar in "Chinese Turkestan". According to McLean in his book "Eastern Approaches" traveled the rather odd route via Ajaguz (today: Ayagoz) 165 kilometers due north from Almaty in East Kazakhstan in order to take what he says was the main road to Urumqi . In truth however, Urumqi lies due east of Almaty, so another more direct route seems to have been logical. However perhaps MacLean made this extra effort in order to avoid being turned back by authorities, who were of course more active along the main border road and crossing.
Regardless of his obvious western appearance MacLean writes how he managed to make it to the border town of Bakhti, which is a place that today is hard to identify or find on maps. Subsequently, MacLean did cross the border into Chinese Territory aboard a bus, however in the next main town, identified as Chuchuqak, he was intercepted by local authorities. Although he falsely claimed to be on an official Mission from the British Empire to the Nationalist Government of China, he was turned back and had to return to Almaty. Soon after, aroused Soviet authorities made sure that MacLean was "evicted" from the city and put back on a train to Moscow .
1938: Year of great Soviet Stalinist Purge with tens if not hundreds of thousands executed across the Soviet Union.
1938: Death of Muhamed Kemal Ataturk, great first founder of the Turkish Republic (1919 - 1938).
1939: Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini goes to Iraq , there beginning a long association with German Nazis which would allow him to flee to Germany during most of world war 2 (1939 - 1945).
1939: Archeologist Isaak Jafarazade undertakes the first excavations and studies of the Gobustan petroglyps and rock art at Gobustan in Absheron Province of Azerbaijan. His was the first of many archeological mission to follow in the decades after. Today a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site, over 6000 inscribed rocks have been identified along with burial grounds and settlements representing a period between the wet period following end of the last ice age (some 40 thousand B.C.) and the 8th century B.C. altogether providing a unique history of Azerbaidjani cultures and past practices otherwise long forgotten.
1940: A heavy earthquake kills an estimated 30 to 40 thousand people in and around Erzincan in Turkey.
1940: Abraham (also Avraham) Stern (Life:December 23, 1903 - February 12, 1942 AD) founded the terrorist Jewish Stern Gang (Also known as LEHI: Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) an extremist breakaway group of the already radical Irgun, the National Military Organization in the Land of Israel. Stern would be killed some 2 years later by British Forces, but after his death the organization would continue its activities until being outlawed after the establishment of the Jewish "State of Israel" founded entirely in zionist foundations. LEHI was responsible in the so called King David Hotel bombing of the British administrative headquarters in Jerusalem on 22 June 0f 1946 and also in the massacre in the Palestinian Village of Deair Yassin on April 9, 1948. Until LEHI was outlawed (In the new self-declared "state" Israel) later in the year, Yitzak Shamir, later President of Israel would be the commander of operations of the LEHI group.
1941: In the aftermath of the French defeat at German Hands in the year 1940, French General Georges Catroux has the foresight to declare the independence of Lebanon. Although factually, colonial French rule will continue until 1946, it is the beginning of a new Era for Lebanon.
August 25, 1941: Operation Countenance, the joint Anglo-Soviet Invasion of Iran starts. It is mainly an operation intended to secure the Oil Fields of this Nation in order to use them in war-time production of fuels and other materials. While Soviet Forces occupy much of the mountainous northern regions of Iran, Britian invades across the plains to take control of most strategic oil rich territories in the south. The operations are complete by September 17.
1942: British forces move into Syria taking the Syrian Capital of Damascus from the (Vichy) French on the 22nd of June 1942. In the next month French Forces in Syria formally surrender to Allied Forces (in the Middle East). British take control over Palmyra, its ancient ruins and its nearby military airfield.
1942: Jews in Palestine found the Palmach, an (illegal) armed militia group (paramilitary organization) which would evolve and emerge as a leading Elite Unit of the Israeli Army Haganah (1921-1948 ; later IDF Israel Defense Force). During World War 2, some Palmach Forces fought on the British side against the Axis Allies. After 1945 until 1949 the Palmach were considered the leading frontline troops of Jews in Palestine.
elects to join India, remain heavily disputed creating grounds for lasting conflict between the newly created states. Border wars lasted until 1949, with new border wars occurring in 1965 and 1971 (not counting Chinese (P.R.C.) involvement in Jammu and Kashmir after the Chinese Invasion of Tibet in 1949 along the Tibet-India border).
Around November 4 of 1947 - A dissident tribe of Kazakh's who have earlier been evicted from their homelands in the Altai Mountains in northern Xinjiang , which at time has been made part of the semi-autonomous "East Turkestan Republic" (also known to westerners in China at the time as "The Soviet Occupied Zone (of Xinjiang)", cross from the
Schematic Map of the Yellow River Flow Path 01A
A Full Schematic Map of the entire flow path of the Yellow River. Map overviews Qinghai Province, Parts of Sichuan Province, Gansu Province, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, parts of the Republic of Mongolia, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Shaanxi Province, Shanxi Province, Henan Province and finally Shandong Province, giving a Full Overview of the length of the Yellow River. Clearly visible details of geographical features such as mountain ranges, rivers, valleys and lakes. The Map includes main cities along the River, popular and famous scenic spots, the dams and water reservoirs on the Huang He and other relevant informations.
Click the links to find more information on each individual location !
1947: After an official cooperation between the two main parties in China breaks down completely (as long anticipated), China once more descends into open civil war.
While the Kuomintang holds control of Central and Southern China while also retaining control of Western China (Parts of Xinjiang, the Hexi Corridor of Gansu Province , the city of Xining and today's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region , the Communist hold sway in the country-side in northern and eastern China as well as large parts of Manchuria (developed through Soviet support).
The Kuomintang launches a military campaign to eradicate (Communist) Bandits from their home bases, bringing active civil war to the Yellow River Basin in China.
While several Foreign reporters manage to join the Communist forces in Northern Shaanxi Province (among them American Female writer and political activists Agnes Smedley) a Kuomintang Nationalist Army column led by Hu Zongnan (Chinese: 胡宗南; pinyin: Hú Zōngnán; Wade–Giles: Hu Tsung-nan; 16 May 1896 – 14 February 1962) advances on the Chinese Communist Rebel Capital of Yanan (also Yenan) in current day central Northern Shaanxi Province .
The town which has been the Capital of Communist Resistance in China since 1935 and the end of the so called "Long March" episode of the (1st) Civil War is taken in a Kuomintang Nationalist Party military offense on May 19, 1947. Although western journalists will report and through stories present the event as a heroic narrow escape of the core group of Communist Party leadership, in fact the Communists make an organized strategic withdrawal aimed at luring their old enemy General Hu Zhongnan astray from his home territory in order to fight him at a later time.
As described in several western reports (books) of the time, Mao Zedong is taken northward across the Yellow River (Huang He) in a boat, ultimately to live a mobile life on the run fleeing and fighting until the capture of Beijing in early 1949.
Regardless enormous numerical and technical superiority, ultimately the army of Hu Zhongnan was entirely unable to fight the Communist Armies, only some 20 thousand strong, led by General Peng Dehuai. The Kuomintang Forces held Yanan for about a week, then abandoning their efforts after suffering a defeat at Xihuachi due west of the city. In but a few years General Hu Zhongnan was left defeated retreating without army to Taiwan in 1950.
During the communist retreat out of Yanan as part of the "Battle of Yanan" a renowned photo of Mao Zedong sitting on a horse was made. Later this photo was (often) wrongfully attributed as being taken during the Long March, a historical event which took place over 10 years earlier.
May 1947 AD - Douglas S. MacKiernan, an undercover CIA Agent posing as a Government Clerk starts his first journey on the Silk Road. Although they originally embark from Nanjing ( Jiangsu Province), they reach Xi'An the ancient Capital of Shaanxi Province from where they make a 2400 mile journey along the so-called "Xinjiang Highway" which is actually the ancient pathway of the Silk Road. On this journey MacKiernan travels together with an old friend, Edwin Martin (In 1971-73 the U.S. Ambassador to Burma (Myanmar). During the long and exhausting haul from Xi'An through Lanzhou and up the Hexi Corridor into Xinjiang via Hami (Kumul) and then to Urumqi (Tihwa) MacKiernan drove a 6x6 army four wheeled truck, while his buddy Eddy Martin drove an army jeep. As far as is known, this was the first ever trans-Silk Road trek through China by motorcar ever performed by Americans (As stated: British Professor Needham had made a similar journey only to Dunhuang in Gansu Province in 1945).
The journey made along the path of the Silk Road to Mogao would prove invaluable to Joseph Needhams later work, the worlds largest and most complete encyclopedia on the contributions of the Chinese Civilization to the overall development of world civilization. In its first few volumes the Joseph Needham revealed and proved how the Chinese Civilization had invented many things, centuries before anyone in the West had done the same. Among these, the movable block printing press, the magnetic compass, forms of hard iron, the first seismograph, methods of construction and many more inventions. Most notably, the finds done by Aurel Stein at Mogao in the shape of the Diamond Sutra together with numerous other scriptures, would provide the ultimate proof that the Chinese Civilization of the East had invented printing centuries before a German Man named Guttenberg in the West had done so, as the Diamond Sutra is not hand-written, but block printed.
The Needham Encyclopedia Book, Science and Civilization in China (SCC) published by the Cambridge University Press, today counts 7 Volumes, composed of 24 books and is still growing after the death of Needham , the original main author on 24 March 1995.
Photo taken in 1945 by Professor Joseph Needham at the Mogao Buddhist Caves in Dunhuang after the arrival of the expedition at the site. Visible is a line of caves on the northern (downstream) part of the ridge which is also where the famous Library Cave which previously contained the Diamond Sutra (first printed book in world history) taken away by Aurel Stein in his 1906-07 stint in western China.
1937: A French archeological team (The Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan) starts excavations of the ancient city of Kapisa situated near Bagram in some 80 miles north of Kabul in Afghanistan on an enduring mission which will last through to the start of World War 2. In this period between 1937 and 1940 French archaeologists Joseph and Ria Hackin excavated a collection of fabulous ivories today identified as the "Begram Ivories". Al well over a thousand decorative inlays, carved from ivory and bone and formerly attached to wooden furniture are excavated before the archeological mission is forced to an end. Many years later after careful study, the extraordinary, 1st-century and 2nd century historical treasure trove demonstrates Afghanistan's trade connections to the far east, Egypt and the Roman world. Today they are held as rare and important exemplars of Kushan art of the 1st or 2nd centuries AD, attesting to the cosmopolitan tastes and patronage of local dynasts, the sophistication of contemporary craftsmanship, and to the ancient trade in luxury goods. Among the finds found in two bricked up storage rooms were a large number of bronze, alabaster, glass, coins, and ivory objects, along with remains of furniture and Chinese lacquer bowls. Among the many ivories was a priceless vase identified as the "Phase of the Pharaoh". Having returned to Europe after the German invasion of their motherland, the two were subsequently killed while fighting for the Free French Forces in 1941, leaving their interpretation of the objects unfinished. The objects were divided, in accordance with the system of partage, between the Musée Guimet and the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul. Those which were held in Afghanistan were last exhibited in 1978 before the closure of the National Museum in the year prior to the Soviet invasion, and disappeared at the height of the fighting in the internecine war that followed the Soviet withdrawal (which withdrawal occurred between 15 May 1988 and ended on 15 February 1989). Later, having been found again in 2004, many of artefacts reappear in a temporary collection of British Museum in London. When they are returned to Afghanistan large parts of the country are still in a state of war.
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Lebanon is for the first time factually independent, although having been granted Independence of the Nation had been formally declared as early as 1941.
1942: For the second time in its history, the original Confucian Temple of Zhongwei (中卫)(on the northern bank of the Yellow River (Huang He) in the west of current day Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China (P.R.C.)) dated to the year 1439 AD of the Ming Dynasty (Later Gao Miao Buddhist Temple) was destroyed. A fire broke out sweeping through the temple complex.
1925: Due to excessive taxation and savage random violence of the ruling Hui Muslims of the Ma Clique of warlords another (Golok) Tibetan (and Mongolian) rebellion broke out in Tibetan Amdo Province (Today: parts of Qinghai Province, China (P.R.C.), with thousands of rebels driving out the Muslims. Ma Qi responded with 3,000 Chinese Muslim troops, who retook Sangqu Town and Labrang Monastery and machine-gunned thousands of Tibetan monks as they tried to flee. Ma Qi besieged Labrang numerous times and the Tibetans and Mongols fought against his Muslim forces for control of Labrang, until he gave it up in 1927 due to the start of a Hui Muslim Civil War between rivalling Generals and factions (Kuomintang Jihad in Gansu (1927-1930)).
1930 - 1932: The Sino-Tibetan War breaks out after a factual state of war has existed between (Golok) Tibetans and Mongolians versus the Hui Muslims of the Ma Clique of Warlords (since 1917) and Hui Muslim warlords having survived the Kuomintang Jihad in Gansu (1927-1930) once more set their eyes on expansion into Tibetan Territories. In 1930 the Tibetan Army under orders of the 13th Dalai Lama responded by pushing into Xikang and Gyêgu (since renamed by the Peoples Republic of China as 结古镇 ; Yushu) in Amdo (since renamed Qinghai by China (P.R.C.)) in a dispute over monasteries. Ma clique warlord Ma Bufang secretly sent a telegram to Sichuan warlord Liu Wenhui and the leader of the Republic of China, Chiang Kai-shek, suggesting a joint attack on the Tibetan forces. After help arrived, the Hui Muslim armies rapidly overwhelmed and defeated the Tibetan Army. Ma Bufang overran the Tibetan armies and recaptured several counties in Kham Province ( renamed Xikang province by the Kuomintang Republic of China). Sêrxü County (Tibetan: སེར་ཤུལ།, Wylie: gser shul, simplified Chinese: 石渠县; traditional Chinese: 石渠縣; pinyin: Shíqú Xiàn), also known as Sershul, Dzachuka, Serxu (sershul)(Since renamed Shiqu, and absorbed by the Peoples Republic of China as part of Garzê Prefecture in Sichuan Province, China), Dengke, and other counties were seized from the Tibetans who were pushed back to the other side of the Jinsha River (Chinese: 金沙江, p Jīnshājiāng, "Gold Dust River"). Ma and Liu warned Tibetan officials not to cross the Jinsha River again. A truce was signed ending the fighting.
1930: According to record a black stone pagoda was found hidden inside the historic and monumental White Horse Pagoda (simplified Chinese: 白马寺; traditional Chinese: 白馬寺; pinyin: Báimǎ Sì, Wade-Giles: Paima szu) of Dunhuang
( Jiuquan City Prefecture, Gansu Province, China (P.R.C.), the original of which is dated to the year 384 AD . The black stone pagoda measured some 80 centimeters in height and was carved with a Vajra, a Sanskrit word meaning both thunderbolt and diamond. Unfortunately, the black stone pagoda object was lost soon after its discovery and has not been seen since.
August, 1944: Renovations are carried out at the historic silk road monument of the white horse pagoda in Dunhuang ( Jiuquan City Prefecture, Gansu Province, China (P.R.C.), the monument commemorating the dead horse of the Buddhist master, teacher and translator Kumārajīva, who in the year 384 lost his horse at Dunhuang while traveling along the silk road carrying Buddhist scriptures and knowledge to the Chinese heartlands and who later translated 384 volumes of 74 Buddhist scriptures into Chinese language among them the renowned "Diamond Sutra". The Diamond Sutra (Sanskrit: Vajracchdikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra or 'Diamond Cutter Perfection of Wisdom Sutra'), one of the scriptures Kumārajīva brought to China, was first translated into Chinese by him in 402. No specifics of the repairs and renovations are available. Today, the monument is still a cultural and historic landmark of the city of Dunhuang and to date the stupa carries two plaquettes; one stating "Renovated by Bai Wencai in the Emperor Daoguang Period of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)", and a second one reading "Renovated by Zhu Wenzhen and Lv Zhong in August of the 23rd year of the Republic of China (1911-1949)".
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The described plaquette on the white horse stupa in November 2007.
August 1930: At the age of 68 years, Aurel Stein sets off of his fourth expedition in "Chinese Turkestan". This was the first time he traveled with another westerner, a Yale postgraduate, Milton Bramlette, who, half his age, was forced to retreat from Kashgar because of an upset stomach and the conditions. Stein's fourth expedition ended in failure as his excavations were curtailed by bureaucracy and a change in attitude among Chinese scholars. He eventually had to cut short his stay and leave his few finds in Kashgar and subsequently he did not publish any account of the episode. He did however take photographs of some of the ancient documents he had managed to find, his photographs becoming the sole records of the existence of the documents today.
1932: Having lost access to the treasures of Chinese Turkestan due to changing attitudes and the political situation there, Aurel Stein turns his eye to Persia. Between 1932 and 1936, he carried out four expeditions to Persia all with the theme of reviewing the Greek influence on Persian culture. The first of these expeditions was brief four month tour starting in January 1932, at which time he traveled through the Persian part of Makrān, and, when it proved empty of ancient settlements, moved northwards through Geh and Bint in Persian Baluchistan to the Bampur trough. As an ancient line of communication between Fārs and India, this proved a more fruitful focus for excavations, but, with the heat of the summer threatening, he moved up the Iranian plateau to Bam and thence to Kermān. Stein exited Iran via Bushire traveling from there to Istanbul. Subsequently, after the heat of summer had gone he returned to Kermān via Baghdad, Kermānšāh, and Tehran and continued his explorations of the Makrān, to the Boluk valley, the Rudān river, and thence to the Gulf coast and Bandar(-e) ʿAbbās, where he celebrated his 70th birthday. He continued along the coast to Tāheri, the once-thriving market and harbor town of Ṣirāf, then inland to Varavi (Fārs) and, due to encountering problems with transport and support, traveled back along the coast. These two expeditions were recorded in an article in the Geographical Journal (Stein, 1934) . Tow more expeditions in Iran (Persia) were to follow.
1933: Aurel Stein launches his third subsequent expedition in Iran. Between 1933 and 1934, he traveled in Fārs, the ancient Persis, starting from Shiraz and covering about 1,300 miles, visiting each oasis in turn. His report on the expedition is published in 1935.
1935: Aurel Stein embarks on his last scientific expedition in Asia which will keep him occupied for a full year. He returns to Persia and travels from western Fārs to Iranian Kurdistan, with various Iranian traveling companions among them the young Inspector of Antiquities, Mirzā ʿAziz-Allāh Bahman Khan Karimi, who kept his own account of the expedition. The expedition met with lasting success uncovering evidence of Neolithic sites and those of later era's at locations including Bampur (Balochi: Bonpur ; Persian: بمپور, also Romanized as Bampūr and Bampoor) in Iranian Baluchistan (where Sir Aurel Stein carried out reconnaissance in 1932), Dunkha Tepe (Dinḵā Tappe) and nearby Ḥasanlu (Teppe Hasanlu or Tappeh Hassanlu (Persian: تپه حسنلو)), Tall-e Eblis lying south of Kermān in the current day Kermān Province of Iran, and last in the far south near Ṣirāf an ancient port on the coast of the Persian Gulf in what is now the Iranian province of Bushehr. In this expedition Aurel Stein became the first expert to make a dig at Teppe Hasanlu and the nearby Dunkha Teppe (also Dinkha Teppe), both archeological sites later made famous by extensive digs in the 1950's and 60's. From this last expedition Stein returned with thousands of items, the largest part being pottery sherds. Under the rules of the expedition other items were kept by Iran ending up in the collection of the National Museum of Iran where they can still be found today. A full report of the expedition was published by Stein in 1938.
April 1 943: Aurel Stein, who had long wished to travel to Afghanistan received an invitation to do so from from the American Consul there, Cornelius van Heinert Engert, an old friend. Despite his constant gastritis and periods of faintness, he was given a clean bill of health to travel and reached Kabul in October 1943. Sir Aurel Stein died a week after his arrival, on 26 October, and was buried in the Gora Kabur (“white graveyard” ; also known as the British Cemetery) in Kabul where his tomb still remains today .
1938 - 1939: Sir Aurel Stein carries out aerial surveys of the (former) Eastern Borders of the Roman Empire in Syria.
1928: Having been granted the right to build a Fortress at Pattakesar Village at the Oxus River (Amur Darya) near Termez in 1893 and subsequently creating a large fortress, military base and river port there, the village of Pattakesar takes name of the old city of Termez becoming the new city of Termez (Uzbek: Termiz/Термиз; Russian: Термез; Tajik: Тирмиз; Persian: ترمذ Termez, Tirmiz; Arabic: ترمذ Tirmidh) of the era of the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R .).
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1946: Discovery of the Hittite Neo-Lithic site of Karatepe (Turkish for "Black Hill"; Hittite: Azatiwataya) at some 23 kilometres from Kadirli (formerly called Kars, and possibly the ancient Flavias or Flaviopolis, Φλαβιόπολη in Ancient Greek) in the Çukurova plain in Osmaniye Province (Turkish: Osmaniye ili), in the Mediterranean Region of Turkey. The site was accidentally discovered by sheepmen from Saimbeyli. They informed Ekrem Kuşçu, the village school teacher, who in turn notified Naci Kum, the director of Adana Museum. The oldest finds at the extensive site are dated to the early 8th century BC to the early 7th century BC and include a bilingual inscription, in Phoenician and Hieroglyphic Luwian which has been popularly dubbed the "Rosetta Stone of (Karatepe) Turkey".
1947: Karatepe was excavated from 1947 to 1957 by a team led by Helmuth Theodor Bossert (1889–1961), revealing the ruins of the walled city of king Azatiwataš., an ancient fortress situated along the historic caravan trail, called "Akyol", which connects Cilicia with Central Anatolia over Andırın-Göksün. The route was used by Hittites, Crusaders and recently by the Yörüks. Restoration work was then carried on for many years, which included some further soundings. Excavations reveal that Karatepe became an important Neo-Hittite center after the collapse of the Hittite Empire in the late 12th century BC. Relics found at the site include vast historic tablets including and eighth-century BC bilingual inscription, in Phoenician and Hieroglyphic Luwian, which reflects the activities of the kings of Adana from the "house of Mopsos", given in Hieroglyphic Luwian as mu-ka-sa- (often rendered as 'Moxos') and in Phoenician as Mopsos in the form mpš. It was composed in Phoenician and then translated to Hieroglyphic Luwian. This inscription has served archaeologists as a Rosetta stone for deciphering those glyphs. As we learn from the inscription, its author is Azatiwada (or Azatiwata), the ruler of the town. He was also its founder; the inscription commemorates the town's foundation. He acknowledged himself as a subordinate of Awariku, the king of Adanawa (Adana), which was the ancient kingdom of Quwe. Azatiwataya seems to have been one of the frontier towns of Adanawa. Other lesser finds include statues and ruins, even two monumental gates with reliefs on the sills depicting hunting and warring and a boat with oars; pillars of lions and sphinxes flank the gates. More recent excavations were carried out in the 1990's. Today t he artifacts are exhibited today in the Karatepe-Aslantaş Open-Air Museum (Turkish: Karatepe-Aslantaş Açık Hava Müzesi), which is part of the Karatepe-Aslantaş National Park (Turkish: Karatepe-Aslantaş Milli Parkı), which was established in 1958.
YouTube Video: Documentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls facts & myths.
1947: First archeological excavations are started at the Soghdian Ruins of Panjakent (Tajik: Панҷакент; Persian: پنجکنت; Russian: Пенджикент)(also spelled Panjikent, Panjekent, Panjikant or Penjikent) along the Zeravshan River in Sughd Province of Tajikistan by Y.Yakubovsky, A.Belenitsky working for the Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg, Russia.
1927-1929: Having retired from his military career in 1927, Reginald Charles Francis Schomberg (D.S.O.)(Life: 1880 - 1958), member of the British armed forces, diplomat and according to some a spy, travels in Central Asia exploring the Karakoram Mountain Range and Chinese Turkestan ( Today: Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region, China (P.R.C.)). In 1930 - 1931 Schomberg returns to Chinese Turkestan on what allegedly was a secret spy mission. His memoirs of these journeys are published in 1933 under the title " Peaks and Plains of Central Asia"(Martin Hopkinson Ltd.).
1930 - 1931: Colonel R.C.F. Schomberg once more crosses the Karakoram mountains from British controlled territory up to East Turkestan (Current day Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region). As has been proven through an exchange of letters between Schomberg and Aurel Stein found in 2004 in the archives of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs and catalogued, his mission was not merely to explore more of the Karakoram Range and East Turkestan, in fact he leads a camel caravan loaded with arms intended for one of the warring factions in East Turkestan. The long journey is documented in part in the book "Peaks and Plains of Central Asia", by Reginald Charles Francis Schomberg (1933 Martin Hopkinson Ltd) which describes his impressions and experiences while traveling in and around places such as Kashgar, Aqsu, Kucha, Korla, Kulja, Urumchi, Turfan, Khotan and Yarkand. The book omits the secret and controversial parts of the mission involving the delivery of German produced guns to Xinjiang. After delivery the guns fall into the hands of the opposing armed faction rendering the secret part of the mission a failure.
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Xinjiang Autonomous Region Geographic Map 1A
A Geographic overview Map of the entire Xinjiang-Uygur Autonomous Region and large parts of neighboring Nations of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, The Republic of Mongolia, as well as bordering Chinese Provinces and Territories of Inner-Mongolia AR, Gansu Province, Qinghai Province and Tibet Autonomous Region. This Map Includes Cities and Towns (shown by size), Main Monuments & landmarks of Xinjiang AR, the Taklamakan Desert in South-Central Xinjiang AR, major highways, provincial railroads, a variety of border passes in the Karakoram Mountain Range and the Tian Shan Mt. Range, plus main mountains, waterways, rivers and lakes of this large region.
1930: Czechoslovak journalist, literature and theatre critic, writer and member of the communist party of Slovakia Julius Fučík (Life: February 23, 1903 - September 8, 1943) travels to the Soviet Union for four months. His journey includes the destination of Frunze (Today: Bishkek) in the Kirghizia, USSR which he reaches on June 1, 1930. In Frunze he visits the Czechoslovak collectivist colony Interhelpo. After his visit he painted a very positive picture of the situation there in the book V zemi, kde zítra již znamená včera ("In a Land, Where Tomorrow is Already Yesterday", published in 1932). On a second journey to the Soviet Union Fučík revisits Frunze and the Khirgizia Soviet Republic in 1935. Both journeys were well documented in photo and film. Today Fuchik Street and Fuchik Park (named after Julius Fučík in 1957) remain in the city of Bishkek honouring his visit and person.
1930: A fire breaks out at the by then abandoned (1923) Sumela Monastery (Greek: Μονή Παναγίας Σουμελά, Moní Panagías Soumelá; Turkish: Sümela Manastırı), the Greek Orthodox monastery dedicated to the Virgin Mary (Panagia, meaning "The all-holy one" in Greek, a title often used for the Virgin Mary) first constructed at Melá Mountain (Turkish: Karadağ, which is a direct translation of the Greek name Sou Melá, "Black Mountain") within the Pontic Mountains (Turkish: Kuzey Anadolu Dağları) range, in the Maçka district of Trabzon Province in the East Black Sea Region of modern Turkey in the year 386 AD. The wooden parts of the Sumela Monastery were destroyed. In the following years, looters and vandals damaged the other parts of the Monastery. With the ancient religious site mostly abandoned and prevailing Greco-Turkish antagonisms high it would not be until well into the 21st century that large scale repairs of the monastery were undertaken and the site becomes a prime destination for tourists visiting the area.
YouTube Video: History of the Sumela Monastery of Trabzon, Turkey by Emre Akgul (2017).
1931: The Afghan National Museum (Persian: موزیم ملی افغانستان, Mūzīyam-e mellī-ye Afghānestān; Pashto: د افغانستان ملی موزیم, Də Afghānistān Millī Mūzīyəm)(also known as Kabul Museum), founded in November 1924 at Koti Baghcha Royal Palace in Kabul, under auspices of King Amanullah is again moved, the end up at what is its current location in Darulaman, (Today in) District 6, Kabul, Afghanistan. By this time the collection had been enriched by the work of the Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan, which began after a treaty was signed with France in September 1922. Over the following decades the collection is expanded and the Museum survives without incident until April 1979.
Between 1930 and 1934: A major excavation sponsored by (British Palestine) Mandate Authorities was undertaken by C. N. Johns at the Crusader Château Pèlerin ((Latin: Castrum Perigrinorum, French: Château Pèlerin, Italian: Castello Pelegrino), also Atlit fortress and Castle Pilgrim) founded by the Knights Templar in the year 1218 AD. The castle was part of the area used by the Mandate Authorities to house illegal refugees during the later Mandate period. Regardless his struggle to clear the site of its inhabitants for purposes of preservation, the refugees remained on the site for another decade. C.N. Johns was employed from 1930-1948 as Field Archaeologist, and later as deputy director of the Department of Antiquities of the Palestine Mandate. His findings were later published in the book: "Pilgrim's Castle (Atlit), David's Tower (Jerusalem) and Qal at Ar-Rabad (Ajlun): Three Middle Eastern Castles from the Time of the Crusades (Variorum Collected Studies Series, 579)".
1926: An archeological dig is done at the ruined Teutonic Knights crusader castle and headquarters in current day Upper Galilee of Israel known as Starkenberg Castle (French: Montfort Castle ; Hebrew: מבצר מונפור, Mivtzar Monfor; Arabic: Qal'at al-Qurain or Qal'at al-Qarn - "Castle of the Little Horn" or "Castle of the Horn"). These were the first official archeological excavations of this site.The dig was led by William L. Calver and the expedition organised by Bashford Dean, curator of the Arms and Armour Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. As far as is known, the dig was mostly a failure as the team failed to come up with any of the historic artefacts it had desired. Not until the year 2011 another archeological dig would be started at the ruined castle site.
1926: As part of the activities of the DAFA (Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan), established in 1922, in 1926 French geologist and archeologist Jules Barthoux (or Jules Couyat-Barthoux)(Life: 1881 - 1965) explores northern Afghanistan in search of promising archaeological and historical sites fit for further investigation to be performed by French archeological teams of DAFA. One of them was the ruined fortress city of “Aï Khanem” (Ai-Khanoum, also Aï Khānum, or Ay Khanum, lit. “Lady Moon” in Uzbek)) at the confluence of the Kokcha River with the larger Oxus River (Amu Darya) in current day Takhar Province of Afghanistan on the border with Tajikistan. The site, which has been (re-) discovered by Captain John Woods on an expedition to search for the source of the Oxus River in 1838, was marked as one of many of considerable interest as identified in Barthoux’s notes and in Foucher’s report of his tour to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris, and even on a map of Afghanistan in an article in the French national newspaper Le Temps on 6 July 1930, as a place of archaeological interest. It is the start of serious interest in the site by the world archeological community. However, the Ai-Khanoum site will not see archeological excavations until a new reformist and modernist Afghan King Zahir Shah presses the French Archeological Delegation to do excavations at the site following a hunting trip and recovery of found artifacts in the year 1961. The first excavations start in 1964.
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