Қара Қала: Ішкі Моңғолияның жоғалған қаласы

Ruined city in Inner Mongolia, China

Khara Khoto (; (Khar Khot); "black city"), also known as Heishuicheng or Heishui City , is an abandoned city in the Ejin Banner of Alxa League in western Inner Mongolia, China, near the Juyan Lake Basin. Built in 1032, the city thrived under the rule of the Tangut led Western Xia dynasty. It has been identified as the city of Etzina, which appears in The Travels of Marco Polo, and Ejin Banner is named after this city.

Khara Khoto is known by many names, including Hēichéng "black city", Tangut: /*zjɨ̱r² nja̱¹/ "black water" (transcribed into Chinese as 亦集乃 Yijinai), Modern Mongolian Khar khot (Middle Mongol language:ᠬᠠᠷᠠᠬᠣᠲᠠ Khara Khoto, "black city") and to Chinese as Heishui City ( Hēishuǐchéng, "black water city").

Russian explorers Grigory Potanin and Vladimir Obruchev heard rumours that somewhere downstream the Ejin River an ancient city was waiting. This knowledge gave impetus to the Asian Museum, St. Petersburg, to launch a new Mongol Sichuan expedition under the command of Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov. However, Khara Khoto was earlier discovered by a Buryat person called Tsokto Badmazhapov in the spring of 1907. Badmazhapov sent photographs and a handwritten description of Khara khoto to the Geographical Society in St Petersburg. On May 1, 1908, during his 1907–1909 expedition to Central Asia, Kozlov arrived at Khara Khoto and, with a dinner and gift of a gramophone to a local Torghut lord Dashi Beile, obtained permission to dig at the site. Kozlov initially sent ten chests of manuscripts and Buddhist objects to St. Petersburg, returning again in May 1909 for more objects. The books and woodcuts were found in June, while excavating a stupa outside city walls some westward. The findings from this research was incorporated in chapter 13 of Stein's first volume of Innermost Asia. Langdon Warner visited Khara Khoto in 1925. Sven Hedin and Xu Xusheng led the Sino Swedish Expedition on archaeological excavations of the site between 1927–31. In addition to books, these excavations unearthed building materials, daily items, production instruments and religious art. forming the basis for research of the Tangut language, written in Tangut script in subsequent years. The books and manuscripts sent back to St. Petersburg by Kozlov were studied by Aleksei Ivanovich Ivanov, who identified several Tangut dictionaries, including a Chinese Tangut glossary titled Pearl in the Palm , compiled in 1190. In addition to written artifacts, the Khara Khoto collection in the Hermitage Museum includes paintings on silk, mainly of Buddhist subjects in Chinese and Tibetan styles. In addition, batik dyed silk fragments have also been found. A small mud wall painting fragment confirms use of cobalt as a pigment in the form of smalt. According to Hermitage curator Kira Samosyuk, "Most of the paintings in the collection date from the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, while the majority of the fragments of porcelain with cobalt decorative glazing are from the fourteenth century. No painting is of a later date than 1378–1387; no Chinese text – later than 1371; no Tangut text – later than 1212. So it seems that the life of the town ceased sometime around 1380." One of the puzzles of Khara Khoto is that there was one building just outside the castle walls. Judging by its shape, it seems to be a mosque. It seems there were Muslims among the people that were ruled by the Tangut. Due to the polytheistic belief of the local people, the Muslims built their mosques outside. Traders from India and the further west would have prayed in the mosque and found relief after their arduous journey along the Silk Road

East Syriac Christianity reached the Tangut area at least during the Tang dynasty (618–907), which was before the time of the Tangut Empire. The Church flourished under the Mongol rule, and a metropolitan province bearing the name of Tangut was created in the end of the 13th century. A large number of East Syriac Christian manuscripts were discovered in Khara Khoto, among which, several were uncovered by Pyotr Kozlov during his Mongol Sichuan expedition of 1907–1909; several were brought to light by Aurel Stein during his third Central Asian expedition in 1914; and about 3000 manuscripts were found by an Inner Mongolian archaeological research team between 1983 and 1984. The languages used in these documents include Arabic, Mongolian, Persian, Sanskrit, Syriac, Tangut, Tibetan, Uyghur, Old Turkic and other Turkic languages. 228 of the 3000 odd manuscripts were studied by Japanese and Chinese researchers. One Syriac piece (H 101) was studied in detail by Shinichi Muto and given content analysis.