I’ve seen people and books mention the fact they existed in passing but nothing ever delved deep into what they might have looked like. The idea of lost settlements in the lesser known isolated deserts of Eurasia frequented by people from around the continent working the old transcontinental trade networks sounds so otherworldly and full of mystery that I’m surprised it hasn’t made its way into popular media before. Did they actually exist or was it just passing words and exaggerated stories of people returning home from foreign lands? Thank you.
Buddhist Monk Hsuan-tsang (Xuan Zang) took a visit in some of these towns like Gaochang just before Tang's conquest (640). He also visited the horde of Western Turkic Khaganate and met its ruler in person, at least we believe his biography.
While his report of western lands, Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, is more famous, I suppose his biography written by one of pupil, Huili ([Beal trans. 1914] - see the reference section below for the link), might be rather more useful to know the political and religious situation of the region (though its description tend to be often so concise, to our disappointment).
Another kind of important primary sources on the oasis towns are local administrative and commercial documents excavated from some towns like Turfan, mainly written in Sogdian language. Sogdian merchants sometimes also played an diplomatic role in the towns.
It is not easy to find the translation of these documents, but one of the recent reputed overview book on the Silk Road by Valerie Hansen is based on its analysis, and she now includes a few translation of the related documents in the expanded edition of her book ([Hansen 2016] - see the reference section below).
The following site is also extremely good at Sogdian art and material culture (archaeological evidence), at least in English: https://sogdians.si.edu/
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