Melikawat (; ; there are other Chinese spellings as well) is an archaeological site located 18 miles (30 kilometres) south of Hotan,

Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

in north-western China. It was once a city that functioned as a major Buddhist center in the

Kingdom of Khotan The Kingdom of Khotan was an ancient Buddhist Saka kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin (modern Xinjiang, China). The ancient capital was originally sited to ...

and may have been the kingdom's capital. The first inhabitants of the site were probably

Tocharians The Tocharians, or Tokharians ( US: or ; UK: ), were speakers of Tocharian languages, Indo-European languages known from around 7600 documents from around 400 to 1200 AD, found on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (modern Xinjiang, China). ...

. Today, the site contains the remains of walls, glass and pottery.

References

{{coord, 36, 57, 43, N, 079, 54, 12, E, display=title Ancient Chinese cities Hotan Populated places in Xinjiang Buildings and structures in Xinjiang