Shanshan was a kingdom located at the north-eastern end of the Taklamakan Desert near the great, but now mostly dry, salt lake known as Lop Nur.
Loulan tomb mural, 220-420 CE. Loulan Museum
Sichuan brocade fragment uncovered in Loulan Kingdom
The Yingpan man, Xinjiang, China, 4th-5th century CE. He may have been a member of the State of Shan.
Lop Nur or Lop Nor is a now largely dried-up salt lake formerly located in the eastern fringe of the Tarim Basin in the southeastern portion of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, northwestern China, between the Taklamakan and Kumtag deserts. Administratively, the lake is in Lop Nur town, also known as Luozhong of Ruoqiang County, which in its turn is part of the Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture.
Satellite picture of the Basin of the former sea of Lop Nur; the concentric shorelines of the vanished lake are visible.
Mushroom cloud of the first Chinese nuclear weapon test, Project 596, at Lop Nur in 1964.
Mask from second millennium BCE