Loulan Silk Fragment

Loulan, also called Krorän or Kroraina ( zh, s=, t=, p=Lóulán < Eastern Han Chinese ''lo-lɑn'' < Old Chinese ''rô-rân''; ug, كروران, Kroran, USY: Кроран), was an ancient kingdom based around an important oasis city along the Silk Road already known in the 2nd century BCE on the northeastern edge of the Lop Desert. The term Loulan is the Chinese transcription of the native name Krorän and is used to refer to the city near Lop Nur as well as the kingdom.

The kingdom was renamed Shanshan (鄯善) after its king was assassinated by an envoy of the Han dynasty in 77 BCE; however, the town at the northwestern corner of the brackish desert lake Lop Nur retained the name of Loulan. The kingdom included at various times settlements such as Niya, Charklik, Miran and Qiemo. It was intermittently under Chinese control from the early Han dynasty onward until its abandonment centuries later. The ruins of Loulan are near the now-desiccated Lop Nur in the Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang and they are now completely surrounded by desert.

History

Pre-Han Kingdom

By the 2nd century BC, Loulan had grown to dominate the region around the Tarim Basin. Archeological evidence suggests a sophisticated culture with major importance in the trade between central Asia and India. Southern merchants passed through mountain ranges such as the Karakoram, Himalayas and Hindu Kush as far north as the Taklamakan desert, to important trading cities like Loulan and its commercial rival Niya. This is evidenced by graffiti carved on stones along the route in Indic scripts such as Kharosti and Brahmi, while there are depictions of Siddhartha Gautama (evidencing the spread of Buddhism along the trade route). From here,
Loulan was on the main route from Dunhuang to Korla, where it joined the so-called "northern route," and was also connected by a route southwest to the kingdom’s seat of government in the town of Wuni in the Charkhlik/ Ruoqiang oasis, and from thence to Khotan and Yarkand.

A number of mummies, now known as the Tarim mummies, have been found in Loulan and in its surrounding areas. One female mummy has been dated to c. 1800 BCE (3,800-year-old), indicating very early settlement of the region. The disinterred corpses were not Chinese or Indian but had fair hair and light skin, some over six feet in length; this has led to suggestions that those from the Shanshan kingdoms were descendants of migrants from the Eurasian Steppe. The mummies were wrapped in cotton and silk, the former from the west and latter from the east, further providing evidence as to Loulan's commercial importance.

Early Han dynasty

The interactions between Loulan and the Han court (206 BCE – 220 CE) were described in some detail in the ''Book of Han'' (completed in 111 CE).

The first contemporaneous mention of Loulan, in Chinese records, are from 126 BCE. A letter from the '' Chanyu'' of the Xiongnu to the Chinese emperor, in which the Chanyu boasted of conquering Loulan, as well as the Yuezhi, Wusun, Hujie (呼揭) and another "26 states nearby". In the same year, the Chinese envoy Zhang Qian described Loulan as a fortified city near the great salt lake or marsh known as Lop Nur.

During the late 2nd century BCE, Emperor Wu of Han ( r. 141 BCE – 87 BCE) was interested in extending contact with Dayuan

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