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The Dzungarian Gate (; (カザフ語:''Жетісу қақпасы'' or ''Жоңғар қақпасы'')) is a geographically and historically significant mountain pass between China and Central Asia.〔''Cambridge History of China: The People's Republic, Part 2 : Revolutions Within the Chinese Revolution, 1966–1982'', Roderick MacFarquhar, John K. Fairbank, Denis Twitchett, Cambridge University Press, 1991, (p266 )〕 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."〔Three thousand miles equal 4828.032 kilometers. The exact distance from where to where to which Carruthers is referring is unclear. Douglas Carruthers, ''Unknown Mongolia: A Record of Travel and Exploration in North-West Mongolia'' (p415 )〕 Given its association with details in a story related by Herodotus, it has been linked to the location of legendary Hyperborea.〔J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair, ''The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West'', Thames & Hudson, 2000, p. 44〕 The Dzungarian Gate is a straight valley which penetrates the Dzungarian Alatau mountain range along the border between Kazakhstan and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.〔Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center. "The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth." http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/debrief/STS085/topFiles/STS085-503-61.htm〕 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.〔Douglas Carruthers, ''Unknown Mongolia: A Record of Travel and Exploration in North-West Mongolia'' p415〕 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,〔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 )〕 scholars such as Carl Ruck, J.D.P. Bolton〔Bolton, J.D.P. (1962). ''Aristeas of Proconnesus''〕 and Ildikó Lehtinen〔"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 )〕 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, the Hyperboreans have been identified by some as the Chinese.〔〔"If, as some scholars suggest, the Issedones were the Wusun of the western Gobi, the Arimaspi the Huiung-nu of Mongolia, and the Hyperboreans the Chinese, then the sea to which they extended was the Pacific, and Aristeas was 'the first civilized European to pass the Dzungarian Gate and learn of the existence of China'." Klaus Mehnert, ''Ein Deutscher auf Hawaii, 1936-1941'' s.n., 1983, (p. 240 )〕 == Geography == The windswept valley of the Dzungarian Gate, wide at its narrowest, is located between Lake Alakol to the northwest in Kazakhstan and Ebinur Lake () to the southeast in China.〔Paul E. Lydolph, ''Climates of the Soviet Union'', Elsevier Scientific Pub. Co., 1977, p. 174〕 At its lowest, the floor of the valley lies at about 1,500 feet (450m) elevation, while the surrounding peaks of the Dzungarian Alatau range reach about 10,000 feet (3,000m) to the northeast and 15,000 feet (4,500m) to the southwest.〔Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center. "The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth." http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=STS085&roll=755&frame=38〕 Douglas Carruthers, who explored the area in the first decade of the 20th century, writes: The Dzungarian Gate is a defile about six miles wide at its narrowest point, and forty-six miles long, connecting Southern Siberia with Dzungaria. It forms a natural pathway from the plateau of Mongolia to the great plain of North-western Asia, and is the one and only gateway in the mountain-wall which stretches from Manchuria to Afghanistan, over a distance of three thousand miles. On the west, the Ala-tau drops suddenly from peaks above snow-line to the level of the floor of the depression, 700 feet above the level of the ocean,—the lowest altitude in the inland basins of Central Asia, with the exception of the Turfan depression, which is actually below sea-level.〔Douglas Carruthers, ''Unknown Mongolia: A Record of Travel and Exploration in North-West Mongolia'' (p415 )〕 Geologically, the valley of Dzungarian Gate was created by the active strike-slip Dzungar fault system. In strike-slip faults the blocks slide past each other laterally, and in this case they do so in a counter-clockwise direction or dextrally,〔Mark B. Allen and Stephen J. Vincent, "Fault reactivation in the Junggar region, northwest China: the role of basement structures during Mesozoic-Cenozoic compression", ''Journal of the Geological Society''; February 1997; v. 154; no. 1; pp. 151–155〕 similar to the famous San Andreas Fault. Remarking on it as a geological and physical phenomenon, Carruthers continues: ()he Dzungarian Gate is as unusual as that of the Jordan depression. They are both examples of a rift-valley caused by the movement of the earth's crust, not by the action of water. This valley once formed the connecting link between the drainage of Dzungaria and that of Southern Siberia. The chain of lakes at either end of the valley (Balkash, Ala Kul, Ebi Nor, etc.), are the remains of the great Asiatic Mediterranean Sea; if their waters were to rise a few hundred feet they would break through the Gate, flooding the plains to the north and south.〔Douglas Carruthers, ''Unknown Mongolia: A Record of Travel and Exploration in North-West Mongolia'' (p. 416-417 )〕 Noting that, "In prehistoric days the Dzungarian Gate must have presented a still more wonderful sight" when it "formed a narrow strait joining the Dzungarian inlet with the vast seas of Western Siberia,"〔Douglas Carruthers, ''Unknown Mongolia: A Record of Travel and Exploration in North-West Mongolia'' p417〕 Carruthers quotes the British journalist and MP, Morgan Philips Price, with whom he travelled:〔Douglas Carruthers, ''Unknown Mongolia: A Record of Travel and Exploration in North-West Mongolia'' (pp. 417-418 ) "This was probably in the recent Quaternary and also in the Tertiary times. Deep deposits of fine mud, now carved out by streams into rolling downs, are to be seen on the north side of the Barlik Mountains. There deposits containing marine shells, which will probably prove to be Quaternary, rise to the altitude of . Near the Barlik Range there is abundant evidence of marine glaciation,—the debris of icebergs from a frozen sea. Nearer to the gorge the muddeposits begin ; they contain seams of pebbles,—falsebedded, showing that the currents and tides must have been strong. . . . "〕 One can picture the Dzungarian Gate in the Ice Age: a narrow strait through which the Arctic-AraloCaspian Sea ebbed and flowed into the seas of Central Asia, scoured by icebergs descending from ancient glaciers on the Ala-tau and Barlik Mountains and forested perhaps down to the water's edge,—not unlike the Straits of Belle Isle at the present day. Now a change has been wrought; earth-movement has drained the sea. But away to the north there still remain the lakes of Ala Kul, Sasik Kul, and Balkash, and on the south Ebi Nor,—pools left in the desert—all that remains of the great icy sea. The alluvial plains, once its bed, are now covered by desert grasses, while the forest clings only to the shaded slopes and gullies on the northern slopes of the mountains.〔Price's brief summary of his observations, as published in the ''Geographical Journal'' for February 1911〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dzungarian Gate」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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