URUMQI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Dusk was thickening over Urumqi, but every seat in the meeting room was taken. At the podium, Erica Hunter, a scholar in her 70s, was walking her audience through her latest findings on Syriac manuscripts, which offer a window into the cultural interactions and commercial networks that once flowed along the ancient Silk Road.
Researchers from a dozen countries listened intently, occasionally lowering their heads to take notes.
Hunter, an affiliated researcher at the University of Cambridge's Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies in the United Kingdom, is an internationally recognized authority on Syriac texts and the relics of Eastern Christianity.
In recent years, she has traveled repeatedly to Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China at the invitation of Chinese scholars, joining colleagues from around the world to explore the Silk Road's cultural history.
Her latest trip brought her to the two-day symposium titled Towards Anxi from Afar: Academic Symposium on Qiuci Studies, held in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1. Alongside more than 180 scholars from 15 countries and regions, she discussed the latest research on ancient Silk Road documents, ethnic and religious questions, sci-tech archaeology and heritage conservation.
"I always draw inspiration from this culture," she said.
That affinity began with manuscripts. In the early 20th century, German expeditions arrived in Turpan and excavated the site of the Xipang Jingjiao Monastery (a Nestorian Christian site), carrying away a trove of relics that included Jingjiao documents written in Syriac. The manuscripts ended up chiefly in Berlin, and it was there that Hunter's study of Eastern Christianity in Turpan began.
More than a century later, archaeological discoveries in Xinjiang have brought new materials to light.
In 2021 and 2023, Sun Yat-sen University, working with the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Xinjiang Research Institute of Turpan Studies, carried out systematic scientific excavations at the Xipang monastery site, unearthing large quantities of Buddhist sutras, Daoist scriptures and Jingjiao documents. The discoveries drew wide attention at home and abroad, and Hunter was among the overseas scholars who followed every development.
Liu Wensuo, a professor at Sun Yat-sen University who led the excavation, recalled Hunter's enthusiasm for the discoveries, describing her as a scholar in the purest sense. When she learned of the finds, he said, she was so excited that she would have flown to Turpan without even stopping to collect her suitcase.
Hunter has come to Xinjiang every year since 2023, presenting a new paper each time. Her aim, she said, is to bring both the newly unearthed Xipang corpus and the materials preserved in Germany into the view of a wider circle of international scholars.
"In the study of Jingjiao history and culture, Professor Hunter is a recognized authority," Liu said, adding that her work has been important in reconstructing the functions of the Xipang monastery and the life of its monastic community.
For Hunter, the scattered collections are not separate archives but parts of a single body. More than a century ago, part of Turpan's relics were dispersed around the world while the rest stayed where they were found. "They are like the two arms of a person," she said. "Only by reconnecting what history severed can the full picture of the Silk Road be pieced together."
Through the international academic branches of Qiuci studies, Turpan studies and Beiting studies in Xinjiang, Hunter has built deep ties with colleagues from China and elsewhere. During breaks, she rose from her seat and moved slowly around the room, greeting old friends despite difficulty in walking.
She sees the merits of such interactions in attempting to piece together scattered insights on the Silk Road's history.
"Russian scholars can share materials from St. Petersburg, while German researchers can discuss those in Berlin," she said. Everyone, she added, brings a different perspective, and scholars from every country can draw new knowledge here.
The openness on display at the symposium strikes Hunter as a mark of China's cultural confidence and academic inclusiveness. "A country that lacks confidence will not share its scholarship," she said. "A confident country chooses to share."
The many multilingual documents and artifacts unearthed in Xinjiang testify to a history in which diverse religions coexisted and flourished side by side. In Hunter's eyes, this former crossroads of civilizations has never been a distant point on a map to be measured, but a place worth returning to again and again. ■
