Editing Sogdia (section)

== Modern historiography ==
{{further|German Turfan expeditions|Albert von Le Coq}}
[[File:KhunakCoin.jpg|thumb|A minted [[Bukhar Khudahs|silver coin of Khunak]], king of [[Bukhara]], early 8th century, showing the [[Crown (headgear)|crowned]] king [[Obverse and reverse|on the obverse]], and a [[Fire temple|Zoroastrian fire altar]] on the reverse.]]
In 1916, the French [[Sinologist]] and historian [[Paul Pelliot]] used [[Dunhuang manuscripts|Tang Chinese manuscripts]] excavated from Dunhuang, Gansu to identify an ancient Sogdian colony south of [[Lop Nur]] in Xinjiang (Northwest China), which he argued was the base for the [[spread of Buddhism]] and Nestorian Christianity in China.<ref name="rong 2009 p148">Rong, Xinjiang, "New light on Sogdian Colonies along the Silk Road : Recent Archaeological Finds in Northern China (Lecture at the BBAW on 20 September 2001)", in ''Berichte und Abhandlungen'' (17 December 2009); 10, S., p. 148.</ref> In 1926, Japanese scholar Kuwabara compiled evidence for Sogdians in Chinese historical sources, and by 1933, Chinese historian Xiang Da published his ''Tang Chang'an and Central Asian Culture'', detailing the Sogdian influence on Chinese social religious life in the [[History of Xi'an|Tang-era Chinese capital city]].<ref name="rong 2009 p148" /> 

The Canadian Sinologist [[Edwin G. Pulleyblank]] published an article in 1952, demonstrating the presence of a Sogdian colony founded in Six Hu Prefectures of the [[Ordos Loop]] during the Chinese Tang period, composed of Sogdians and Turkic peoples who migrated from the [[Mongolian steppe]].<ref name="rong 2009 p148" /> The Japanese historian Ikeda on wrote an article in 1965, outlining the history of the Sogdians inhabiting Dunhuang from the beginning of the 7th century, analyzing lists of their [[Chinese surname|Sinicized names]] and the role of Zoroastrianism and Buddhism in their religious life.<ref>Rong, Xinjiang, "New light on Sogdian Colonies along the Silk Road : Recent Archaeological Finds in Northern China (Lecture at the BBAW on 20 September 2001)", in ''Berichte und Abhandlungen'' (17 December 2009); 10, S., pp 148–9.</ref> Yoshida Yutaka and Kageyama Etsuko, Japanese [[ethnographer]]s and [[linguist]]s of the Sogdian language, were able to reconstruct Sogdian names from forty-five different Chinese [[transliteration]]s, noting that these were common in Turfan whereas Sogdians living closer to the center of Chinese civilization for generations adopted traditional [[Chinese name]]s.<ref name="hansen 2012 p98" />