A Sogdian merchant's wife left in Dunhuang wrote that she would rather be a dog's wife than his; her daughter added that the family's debts had made them servants

In 1907 the archaeologist Aurel Stein found five letters in a watchtower west of the Jade Gate near Dunhuang. They are written in Sogdian, the language of the merchants of Samarkand, and most scholars date them to 313 or 314. Two come from a woman named Miwnay. To her husband, Nanai-dhat, she wrote that she had waited three years in Dunhuang. She had sent many letters and received none. Five times she had a chance to leave. His relative Farnkhund refused to take her, saying he was not Nanai-dhat's servant. Artivan, his nearest kinsman, passed the matter back to Farnkhund. She had come to Dunhuang on her husband's order, against her mother and brothers. She asked him to say whether she was still his wife, or whether she should go into the service of the Chinese. She wrote that she would rather be a dog's or a pig's wife than his. Their daughter, Shayn, added a note: because of Farnkhund's debts, she and her mother had become servants of the Chinese. She added that her father could easily send twenty staters. To her own mother, Miwnay wrote that she lived on charity from a priest. The letters were found in a watchtower and never reached their readers^†.