A city cut downward
Yar City stands on a terrace between two channels, with rooms made by digging rather than by building up.
All articles
Turpan
4 articles
Grapes, then a room of shade
In Grape Valley the fresh fruit and the drying room are part of one walk, from irrigated vine to hanging bunch.
From shaft to pool
A karez is a sequence of holes, a dark channel, a ditch and a pond, made so that water spends less time in the sun.
Rammed up, not dug down
Qocho, east of Turpan, raised its walls in layers of earth and kept three enclosures inside them. Yar, the other inscribed city in the basin, was cut into its terrace instead.