Satellite photograph of the Dzungarian Gate, the pale, fault-lined valley running between Lake Alakol and Lake Ebinur through the Dzungarian Alatau mountain range.
Жетісу қақпасы (Jetısu qaqpasy) Жоңғар қақпасы (Joñğar qaqpasy)
Lake Ebinur (unlabeled) lies in the west of the Dzungarian basin, to the left of the letter "D" in "Dsungarei", within which it would fit. The larger Lake Alakol (also unlabeled) lies to its northwest, over the border in Kazakhstan. The valley of the Dzungarian Gate (yellow, given its elevation) runs from northwest to southeast through the mountain range that lies between the two lakes.
The Dzungarian Gate (or Altai Gap or Altay Gap) is a geographically and historically significant mountain pass between China and Central Asia.[1] It has been described as the "one and only gateway in the mountain-wall which stretches from Manchuria to Afghanistan, over a distance of three thousand miles [4,800 km]."[2] Given its association with details in a story related by Herodotus, it has been linked to the location of legendary Hyperborea.[3]
The Dzungarian Gate (Chinese: 阿拉山口; pinyin: Ālā Shānkǒu; Kazakh: Жетісу қақпасыJetısu qaqpasy or Жоңғар қақпасы Joñğar qaqpasy) is a straight valley which penetrates the Dzungarian Alatau mountain range along the border between Kazakhstan and Xinjiang, China.[4] It currently serves as a railway corridor between China and the West. Historically, it has been noted as a convenient pass suitable for riders on horseback between the western Eurasian steppe and lands further east, and for its fierce and almost constant winds.[5]
In his Histories, Herodotus relates travelers' reports of a land in the northeast where griffins guard gold and where the North Wind issues from a mountain cave. Given the parallels between Herodotus' story and modern reports,[6][7] scholars such as Carl Ruck,[8] J.D.P. Bolton[9] and Ildikó Lehtinen[10] have speculated on a connection between the Dzungarian Gate and the home of Boreas, the North Wind of Greek mythology. With legend describing the people who live on the other side of this home of the North Wind as a peaceful, civilized people who eat grain and live by the sea.
Its gateway status is now supplanted by the new gateway city of Khorgas.
^MacFarquhar, Roderick; Fairbank, John K.; Twitchett, Denis (1991). Cambridge History of China: The People's Republic, Part 2 : Revolutions Within the Chinese Revolution, 1966–1982. Cambridge University Press. p. 266. ISBN 9780521243377.
^Three thousand miles equal to about 4,800 kilometers. The exact distance from where to where to which Carruthers is referring is unclear. Carruthers, Douglas. Unknown Mongolia: A Record of Travel and Exploration in North-West Mongolia. p. 415.
^Mallory, J. P.; Mair, Victor H. (2000). The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West. Thames & Hudson. p. 44. ISBN 0-500-05101-1.
^"Astronaut Photo STS085-503-61 KAZAKHSTAN". eol.jsc.nasa.gov. Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center. August 1997.
^Douglas Carruthers, Unknown Mongolia: A Record of Travel and Exploration in North-West Mongolia p415
^Adrienne Mayor, Peter Dodson, The first fossil hunters: paleontology in Greek and Roman times, Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 27 (See also map, p. 28)
^"Considering that Pliny, referring to Aristeas, says that the Arimaspeans lived very near 'the Earth's gate' and the 'cave of the North Wind', we must seek them somewhere near the Dzungarian Gate, and not in the Urals or Tibet." Ildikó Lehtinen, Traces of the Central Asian culture in the North: Finnish-Soviet Joint Scientific Symposium held in Hanasaari, Espoo, 14–21 January 1985 Suomalais-ugrilainen Seura, 1986 p180
^Wasson, R.G.; Kramrisch, Stella; Ott, Jonathan; et al. (1986), Persephone's Quest - Entheogens and the origins of Religion, Yale University Press, pp. 227–230, ISBN 0-300-05266-9
^Bolton, J.D.P. (1962). Aristeas of Proconnesus
^"Considering that Pliny, referring to Aristeas, says that the Arimaspeans lived very near 'the Earth's gate' and the 'cave of the North Wind', we must seek them somewhere near the Dzungarian Gate, and not in the Urals or Tibet." Ildikó Lehtinen, Traces of the Central Asian culture in the North: Finnish-Soviet Joint Scientific Symposium held in Hanasaari, Espoo, pp. 14–21 January 1985 Suomalais-ugrilainen Seura, 1986 p180
The DzungarianGate (or Altai Gap or Altay Gap) is a geographically and historically significant mountain pass between China and Central Asia. It has...
and migrations north. Today most trade is north of the mountains (DzungarianGate and Khorgas in the Ili valley) to avoid the mountains west of the Tarim...
Altai Mountains by the Irtysh River valley, and from the Dzungarian Alatau, by the DzungarianGate); it is therefore ranked highly by topographic prominence...
Karakash Hotan Keriya Niya Charkilik Qiemo Loulan Dunhuang Jade Gate Ürümqi Kulja DzungarianGate Karamay Tacheng The Chinese called this the Tien Shan Nan...
and his advisers assumed that the Mongols would invade through the DzungarianGate, the natural mountain pass in between their (now conquered) Khara-Khitai...
basin, formed along the Dead Sea Transform. Ebi Lake in China at the DzungarianGate on the border with Kazakhstan Lake Elsinore, in the Elsinore Trough...
the southeast end of the DzungarianGate, Ebi Lake is the center of the catchment of the southwestern part of the Dzungarian Basin. The lake previously...
Land Bridge, 200 km from the Alataw Pass, the historically important DzungarianGate, with a cross-border visa-free special economic zone for trade and...
important link in the Eurasian Land Bridge. It is situated in the DzungarianGate, a historically significant mountain pass. The agreement between the...
Sino-Soviet border. Between these mountains and Siberia the so-called DzungarianGate opens out onto the vast Kazakh steppe to the west. The area has three...
562±4 mi) from the oceans. These points lie in a close triangle about the DzungarianGate, a significant historical gateway to migration between the East and...
chosen by the student body by popular vote to be the griffin after the Golden Gate University Griffins, where they operated out of from 1997 to 2000. The Gryphon...
southernmost of the four, the one closest to the DzungarianGate and the Aibi Lake on the other, Chinese, side of the Gate. On the maps compiled in the 18th and...
dynasty (25–220 CE) tomb, Guangxi, southern China Dvārakā–Kamboja route DzungarianGate Global silver trade from the 16th to 19th centuries Godavaya Hippie...
thus the most academically cautious approach". Issedones and Zyrians DzungarianGate The few fragmentary quoted lines are assembled by Kinkel, Epicorum...
the Zhetysu Alatau from the crossing to Or to Lake Alakol and the DzungarianGate. The settlement of Sagabuyen, whose ruins are located on the Northern...
castle-gate is a griffon, who on one occasion tells Matthew that he "was hatched and raised in the mountains of Arimaspia.". Poetry portal DzungarianGate Suda...
kilometres (31 mi) east of Taldykorgan in Kazakhstan and end at the DzungarianGate. The Dzungarian Alatau in the north, the Borohoro Mountains in the middle and...
other major cities of Central Asia, and eastwards to China through the DzungarianGate. The city of Otrar is known to have been under the control of a Qarakhanid...
which led his colleague Carl P. Ruck to place Hyperborea beyond the DzungarianGate into the northern part of the Xinjiang region, adding that the Hyperboreans...
Ceratopsian skulls are common in the DzungarianGate mountain pass in Asia, an area once famous for gold mines, as well as its endlessly cold winds. This...
Autonomous Region. Located on the Chinese side of the DzungarianGate pass through the Dzungarian Alatau mountain range at the 2358.376 km point of Lanxin...
The city is located at the DzungarianGate (Alashankou in Chinese), a pass connecting the two countries through the Dzungarian Alatau mountains. West of...
under his second and third sons Chagatai and Ögedei passes through the DzungarianGate, and immediately start laying siege to the border city of Otrar. Mongol...
Hildinger translated Giovanni's book into English. Exploration of Asia DzungarianGate Ostrowski 1993, p. 98. Schels, P.C.A. "Johannes de Plano Carpini"....
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