This paper proposes a method for identifying ruins recorded on the Silk Road expedition reports and today’s excavation reports using data such as Google Earth and old maps of the Silk Road made around 100 years ago. The identification of ruins was judged through collecting similaritybased evidences from methods such as “name matching” and “location matching”.We performed ruin identification for Turfan areas in Tarim Basin, and succeeded in linking many of the missing ruins to currently known ruins. However, we discovered that the arbitrariness of name and coverage in the concept of ruins require us to represent relationship between ruins not only for identity but also for inclusion and others. Finally we introduce our plan on the database of ruins in the Silk Road designed to archive relationships between ruins.

the Silk Road; Stein; Grünwedel; old maps; satellite pictures