IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.2 |
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| THE SAME. | |
| CLAY PYRAMID NEAR KALTA. |
Citation Information
THE KURUK-TAGH AND JING-PEN. 33
greater power of resistance. The back wall was 6 m. long, the other two rather shorter. It was 4.13 m. above the bottom of the gully, and was level, with the native earth for its floor. In the vicinity were numerous shards of black and red clay jars. These were spherical in shape and of considerable size, and had a very small
ear; they had manifestly been used for holding water.
Thence we rode on farther, keeping to the bottom of the broad, winding gully, between the scarped terraces on both
sides. Here we came across the biggest tora of the place, 8.2 • - m. high and 31.4 m. in circumference at the base, standing
on a table-topped or insular hill in the river-bed; it consisted Fig. 33. THE SAME.
of hard débris cemented together by dust and clay. On the
top of the hill there were seven other more or less decayed toras, possibly forming in part the remains of a former fort-wall, though they may also have been ornamental I'otajs, similar to those which are found at the present day standing near important stations on the chief highways of East Turkestan, and which seem to have for their object to indicate the number of li to some other notable station in the vicinity. The bigger tower may possibly have served the same object as the pyramids which I discovered in 1896 beside the road from Korla to Jing-pen; these were merely »sign-posts) to mark the road or else outlook towers. Only one of the seven other towers preserved anything like its original form, namely a cube, crowned by a cupola, in a similar fashion to the usual Mohammedan gumbes or burial monument. Like the other six it was only about the height of an ordinary man.
'~~~y~~
---j~ - '
~~—~ _---~~_
Fig. 34. CLAY PYRAMID NEAR KALTA.
After passing yet another ghuristan and about a score of graves, we came to the most interesting of the ruins that survive, namely a circular wall of precisely the same appearance as the one which I previously discovered at Merdek-schahr and at Ju-jing-pen. Its internal diameter amounts to 182 m., and the wall is II m. thick and 6.60 m. high. The four gates face respectively S. 8o° W., N. 8o° E.,
Hed i n, Journey in Central Asia. II. 5
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