Bulayïq

{{Short description|Archaeological site in China}}

File:Sogdian Turfan Psalter.jpg

Bulayïq ({{lang-zh|t=葡萄溝|s=葡萄沟|first=t|p=Pútáogōu}}) is a locality and archaeological site in central Xinjiang province in western China. It is located {{convert|10|km|mi|sigfig=1}} north of Turpan city in the foothills of the Tien-shan Mountains.Nicholas Sims-Williams, [http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bulayq-town-in-eastern-turkestan#prettyPhoto BULAYÏQ], Encyclopedea Iranica. It is also known as

Bīlayuq.P. Zieme, Türk dili araştırma yıllığı belleten; 1978-79, Ankara, 1981, p. 90

The site is located in the arid Tapin basin. The remains there include a tell with mud brick ruins protruding from the desert sands. The ruins were excavated in 1905 by a German team led by Albert von Le Coq.Le Coq, Albert von Auf Hellas Spuren in Ost-Turkestan. Berichte und Abenteuer der II. und III. deutschen Expeditionen, Leipzig, 1926, p. 88 JRAS, 1909, pp. 319 and 321Adrien Pitea, [https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004417182/BP000005.xml St. Isaac of Nineveh’s Gnostic Chapters in Sogdian: The Identification of an Anonymous Text from Bulayïq] 2020.

Among the ruins was found a monastic library, where a trove of ancient manuscripts in various Iranian languages were found.Erica C. D. Hunter, [https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/17184963.pdf Syriac Sogdian and Old Uyghur manuscripts from Bulayiq]. The texts show the influence of Orthodox and Nestorian Churches. Almost all known Christian religious texts in the ancient Sogdian language are from the Bīlayuq library.Scott Fitzgerald Johnson, The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2015) [https://books.google.com/books?id=KEYSDAAAQBAJ&dq=Bulay&pg=PA1021 page 1021].

The texts show the development and spread of Christianity in Central Asia.Nicola Di Cosmo; Michael Maas, Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity: Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppe, ca. 250–750 (Cambridge University Press, 26 Apr. 2018 ) [https://books.google.com/books?id=y01UDwAAQBAJ&dq=Bulay&pg=PA210 p 211-213]