An Introduction to
The Zhang Zhung Kingdom
Archaeological Discoveries of Ancient Tibet
on the High Plateau

It is widely acknowledged that Tibet possessed a sophisticated 1200 year-old civilization based on Buddhist culture and thought, while little was known about its antecedents. That has now changed with a series of startling discoveries made by the explorer John Vincent Bellezza. Over the last decade, this autodidact has charted the remains of an ancient kingdom known as Zhang Zhung tucked away on the very highest reaches of the Tibetan plateau.

Until Bellezza began his work in the early 1990s, very little had been documented about the Zhang Zhung Kingdom, located in the northwest of Tibet. Many legends about Zhang Zhung exist in the vast collections of Tibetan scriptures but before Bellezza no one had used them to learn what was actually on the ground. In consultation with the Tibetan religious specialists known as lamas, Bellezza carefully collected and translated the legends of Zhang Zhung, paying special attention to the geographic clues contained within them. He then began to systematically explore northwest Tibet, the highest and harshest part of the country, for any signs of the kingdom.

Largely working on his own and often traveling long distances on foot or horseback, he charted the archaeological remains of Zhang Zhung, a task that required 10 years of demanding full time work. In more recent years he has become affiliated with the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences in the provincial capital, Lhasa. Along the way he has had to contend with roving packs of wild dogs, sudden blizzards, swollen rivers and a number of other hazards. When he began his explorations he had no idea what would be unearthed given the dearth of scholarship on Tibet's pre-Buddhist heritage. In the process, he exceeded his wildest expectations, discovering evidence that reveals the extent and character of the Zhang Zhung kingdom






Bellezza has painstakingly assembled an archaeological inventory of over 500 Zhang Zhung sites situated between 14,000 and 18,000 feet above sea level, in an area as large as California and Texas combined. His huge effort at documentation will help rewrite our understanding of Tibet's early history.

Bellezza's finds largely date to the Iron Age, a period stretching from some time in the First Millennium BC until the period of the first Buddhist kings of Tibet, in the 7th century AD. They include more than 100 fortresses, dozens of temples, villages, rock art, and numerous burial complexes.

As if in a time warp, some of these monuments have withstood more than 1000 years of earthquakes and one of the fiercest climates on earth. Remarkably, great walls and pillars remain much as they were left centuries ago. Many of the Zhang Zhung habitations were abandoned, and they were never resettled by the Buddhists of more recent times. The Zhang Zhung kingdom flourished in a period of great environmental degradation when the climate was becoming increasingly cold and dry. Extensive scientific study of glaciers, diatoms, spores and pollens, tree rings and changes in the landscape demonstrate that from around 1500BC there was a pronounced deterioration in the climate of most parts of the northern hemisphere, including Tibet. In many areas populations learned to cope with the difficult environmental conditions that persisted until around 1000AD, but in extremely high altitude northwest Tibet there was no buffer to fall back on. Bellezza believes it was primarily climate change that pushed an already ecologically marginal Zhang Zhung over the edge, leading to its utter collapse around 1200 years ago. He cites the loss of agriculture and the steppe forests in the region to support his claims.

Zhang Zhung is located in an environment of stunning beauty with an atmosphere so lucid that the stars cast shadows on moonless nights. Its many archaeological sites show that it was not merely a nomadic society but rather one with an extensive infrastructure, and highly developed channels of trade and commerce that extended well into Central Asia. According to Bellezza's findings, many of these sites were inhabited by the Zhang Zhung social elite; he theorizes that the bulk of the population lived in black yak hair tents as they continued to do so until very recently.
The chain of ancient hilltop fortresses on the uppermost part of the plateau verifies Tibetan scriptural accounts that speak of a proud and warlike people whose priests even carried arms and helped lead troops into battles. While radiocarbon dating of organic samples brought back by Bellezza from the ancient fortresses and tombs is just beginning, it appears that the heavily fortified Zhang Zhung kingdom fits into the general picture of Eurasian civilization in the Iron Age.

This was a period that saw the creation of citadels in many regions. In part, these strongholds were needed to protect sedentary agricultural cultures from nomadic steppe tribes such as the Scythians who swept across Eurasia in the last centuries of the First Millennium BC. This network of fortresses also seems to confirm that Zhang Zhung functioned as a tribal confederation, as is alluded to in Tibetan literature where the 18 kings of the kingdom occupied a half dozen centers throughout northwest Tibet.

In addition to the citadels in the heights, the inhabitants of Zhang Zhung built temples hidden in mountain valleys far from the interminable plains that blanket most of the region. Like many of the fortresses, these religious centers were built entirely of stone. Their irregularly shaped buildings contain a warren of tiny windowless rooms with corbelled stone roofs. The use of corbels, or series of stone beams resting upon one another, was known to many Iron Age cultures as far removed from Tibet as the British isles and the Mediterranean.

The Tibetan scriptures pertaining to Zhang Zhung describe groups of adepts practicing esoteric forms of mind training and magic at their religious sites. These practices belong to a still surviving indigenous Tibetan religion known as Bon, currently followed by only around 10% of Tibetans. Despite having been profoundly influenced by Buddhism, the Bon people continue to honor religious traditions and customs dating to Zhang Zhung times, albeit in an attenuated form. According to Bon tradition, the kings and priests of Zhang Zhung wore horned headdresses and white silk turbans, and dressed in robes of tiger, lynx and wolf skin. They are thought to have engaged in ecstatic flight and to have communed with the spirits of the sky, land and sea.

Among the most interesting Zhang Zhung monuments that continue to exist are the many burial complexes of the high plateau. These range in size and type from a few scattered graves to huge necropolises containing upwards of 10,000 pillars. The largest tombs found by Bellezza to date are 200 feet in length and more than 13 feet tall. These were clearly the final resting places of the rulers and priests of the ancient kingdom, and in collaboration with Chinese archaeologists Bellezza is planning to conduct the first excavations in the coming years. In the general vicinity of many of the Zhang Zhung tombs are pillars embedded into the ground which served as memorial stones, not unlike the tombstones of today. The presence of so many large burial complexes indicates that Zhang Zhung possessed highly developed notions of the afterlife and a stratified social hierarchy. The rise of great disparities in wealth and social status is one of the hallmarks of Iron Age civilization throughout Eurasia

Though prevalent in northwest Tibet, the extensive use of standing stones to mark tombs does not occur in central or eastern Tibet but is instead closely related to the ancient funerary customs of Central Asia. These pillars, and the rock paintings and carvings frequently found in their proximity, establish that Zhang Zhung had close cultural links with Iron Age cultures in Mongolia, the Altai and south Siberia. Bellezza notes that this lost inner Asian connection may prove instrumental to our understanding of how civilization developed in Eurasia in the period before the Classical world took root.
Unfortunately, many of the monuments of the Zhang Zhung kingdom are now threatened as local nomads take to building houses and corrals. Where convenient, archaeological sites are pilfered for stones to use in local construction projects. Of the 500 sites that Bellezza has surveyed to date nearly half of them have been damaged or destroyed in the last 20 years. Because his is the first investigation made of these sites no measures have yet been instituted to protect them. On a positive note, Bellezza's work has generated quite a bit of interest among Chinese and Tibetan officials, and he is hopeful that a plan to conserve this precious piece of human heritage will soon be forthcoming. Hence, this web site, to inform and begin to educate the public on ancient Tibet's important interface with early Eurasian history.
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