Talk:Astana Cemetery
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Astana Cemetery covers the Astana cemetery near Turpan and its two cannabis finds: the hemp fruits of tomb 72TAM209 and the hemp-fibre tail of a clay horse from tomb 73TAM214, with the site, its excavation and phases, the dating and analysis of the finds, and the readings of them.
Data verification
Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.
Discussion
Sources
- Chen et al. (2012), PLoS ONE 7: e45137: the site, its area and phases, the excavations of 1959–1975, the history of the Turpan basin as the authors give it, the 18 hemp fruits of tomb 72TAM209 with their measurements and date, the seven grain crops, and the reading of hemp and rice as minor foods.
- Chen et al. (2014), Economic Botany 68: 59–66: tomb 73TAM214 and its epitaph of 665, the figurine 73TAM214:32, the identification of its tail as hemp bast fibre by infrared spectroscopy, the drying-twist test and light microscopy, the later date range for the fruits of 72TAM209, and the authors' account of hemp as a textile fibre at Turpan.
Source discrepancies
- Date of the hemp fruits in tomb 72TAM209. Chen et al. (2012), Table 1, date the grain of tomb 72TAM209 by an epitaph of 658. Chen et al. (2014) date the same fruits to 658–706, "according to an unearthed epitaph and the written documents discovered in the tomb". The article gives both, each attributed, and the infobox range covers both.
- One figurine or several. The abstract of Chen et al. (2014) says the tails of some of the horse figurines are made of plant fibre, judged by eye. The analysis is of one figurine, 73TAM214:32. The article states the result for that figurine only.
- Coordinates. Neither paper that studied the finds publishes coordinates for the cemetery; the infobox takes its position from gazetteers (see Georeferencing). Bai et al. (2021, Journal of Ethnopharmacology 275: 114114, Table 3) list Astana at 43.47° N, 89.84° E, a point about 80 km north-east of the city of Turpan, while both Chen papers place the cemetery below the Flaming Mountains on the Mutougou delta. Bai et al.'s point is not used.
- The modern hemp reference. Chen et al. (2014) name the modern hemp they compared as Cannabis indica Lam. The article calls it modern hemp.
Georeferencing
The coordinates (42.88, 89.53) are the cemetery as two gazetteers place it. Wikidata (Q746537) gives 42.8816° N, 89.5271° E, and the centre of OpenStreetMap's outline of the cemetery (way 187208251) is at 42.8804° N, 89.5273° E, about 0.1 km away. The point lies about 30 m below sea level on the floor of the Turpan basin, south of the Flaming Mountains, as both Chen papers describe the cemetery. It covers about 10 square kilometres, so a single tomb may lie up to about 2 km from the point. Éloise 23:05, 29 October 2026 (+07)