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0083 Innermost Asia : vol.2
Innermost Asia : vol.2 / Page 83 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000187
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Sec. ii]   LIST OF ANTIQUES EXCAVATED AT KARA-KHÖJA   609

Kao. v. OII. Fr. of blown glass, showing characteristic scaling and iridescence due to decomposition. i" x

Kao. v. 012. Bronze collar, oblong, broken at one corner. 1F" X " .1".

Kao. v. 013. Fr. of pottery, red, coated with fine blue glaze. Elliptical, broken at one end. Probably attachment of handle or other applied part. " x " x i".

Kao. v. 014-15. Two frs. of combs. or4 wooden, part of arched back with teeth ; gr. length I $", thickness i". 015 horn, straight-backed ; part of back only, teeth broken off. Length 2k".

Kao. v. o16. Corner of brick ; grey, moulded in relief on face with border showing spirals, boss within raised circle, long-tailed bird (?), and other details indistinguishable. Considerably worn. Raised line on inner side of border, and possibly traces of design on field. 5i" x 3", thickness 2". Pl. LXIX.

Kao. v. 017. Two frs. of plain cotton (?) canvas ; natural buff, showing part of line of embroidered rosettes

in dark blue. Rosettes small circular, eight-petalled. Ragged. Gr. length 14".

Kao. v. o18. a—c. Three small frs. of silk fabric. (a) Plain buff. Gr. M. 21". (b) Fr. of greenish-indigo silk, perhaps originally figured but too perished to interpret now. Structure similar to (c), the thinner weft having yellow picks in it. Ragged. Selvedge on one edge. 4" x I". (c) Scrap of dull crimson figured silk, worked in scrolled pattern of fine stems and small leaves in a crimson darker than the ground. The outlines now present a series of holes where perhaps was originally a colour (gold ?) now gone. Warp is silk and relatively thick, forming a rib ; weft of two thicknesses, both thinner than warp. Selvedge at one side. i" x I".

Kao. v. 019. Fr. of woollen (?) tapestry ; in dark brown and blue, on buff ; showing large brown chrysanthemum leaf and conventionalized stems, &c. Leaf is surrounded by a buff outline varying in width from 8" to I". Near one edge is what seems to be a second leaf of same type, in blue. At base of first leaf are two short blue bands fused together near leaf stem and diverging as they leave it. 1oß' x 7". Pl. LXXXVII.

SECTION III.—SEARCH AMONG THE RUINS OF TOYUK

On November 15th I was able to leave Kara-khôja for a short tour to the north-east of the Turfân depression, after seeing the two surveyors duly started on their respective tasks. My main object was to acquaint myself with the topographical aspects of the ground that lies along the northern foot of the rugged outer range overlooking the Turfân basin proper, which I had not hitherto been able to visit in person. I hoped further to ascertain which of the ruins in that direction still offered any chance of useful excavation and to pay a rapid visit to the magistrate of the Pichan district, whose assistance would be needed in connexion with the survey work. The useful geographical observations gathered on my way through the defile of Toyuk and thence past the oases of Su-bâshi, Lamjin, and Khandô to Pichan, particularly with regard to the Kâréz irrigation which accounts for their recent expansion, will have to be recorded elsewhere.

In Pichan, which I had already visited in 1907, the Karen-irrigated area appeared to have been substantially extended in the interval. Its present official designation of Shan-shan may well serve as a warning against attaching too much value to Chinese identifications of ancient localities in the ` Western countries ', as expressed in the archaistic revival of old local names after the eighteenth-century conquest of the New Dominion. It is easy to recognize that the application of the name Shan-shan to Pichan was in all probability prompted by the wrong interpretation of Chinese notices relating to the oasis of Lapchuk, west of Hâmi, which, as M. Pelliot has rightly shown, was in the sixth century colonized by emigrants from Shan-shan, i. e. Lop, but never had any administrative or other direct relation with the ancient Shan-shan territory, which is separated from it by hundreds of miles of impassable desert.1

Before turning to the interesting site of Toyuk, where on my return from Pichan I found

Move to Pichan.

Pichan wrongly renamed Shan-shan.

1 Cf. Pelliot, J. As., 1916, jan.-févr., pp. 117 sqq., note. The texts indicating and explaining the erroneous location by modern Chinese scholars of Shan-shan at Pichan are quoted by M. Chavannes in his comments on the Wei-lids notice concerning the route of the centre, T'oung• pao, 1905,

pp. 531 sq., note. For the reasons which render the conjectural location of Shan-shan whether at Pichan or at Na-chih, i. e. Lapchuk, equally untenable, see also Serindia, i. p. 337, note 13.