them. It takes almost an hour to ride through the village and reach a road leading along a ravine that runs into the bed of a smaller river flowing in a deep channel from the mountains. On the opposite bank of the river three fairly well preserved walls are to be seen. The fourth, along the river, which presses against the bank here, has disappeared owing to a landslide. The walls are in a NW—SE direction. Their length is r ro, 17o and 246 paces. In the centre is a rectangular pond-like depression, probably a water reservoir. On either side of it are two mounds of earth, one of them of appreciable size. In the middle of the SE wall there is a 6 x 6 foot turret-like projection. Along the southern part of the SW wall are a large number of transverse walls that divide the area into several rooms, most of them very small, though a couple are larger. In the NW corner a kind of turret juts out. In the NE, and especially in the SE there are many remains of small square rooms. In the SW wall there are a couple of hollows like the open fireplaces of the Sarts. The whole place resembles a barracks and it is easy to suppose that these are the ruins of an old fortress. Along the SW wall is a moat-like depression. A deep ravine has formed round all the three walls. Its dominating position on the high bank of the river contributes a good deal towards this. SW of the ruin the cultivated land comes to an end and you enter a white sandy plain, sand as far as you can see. For a distance of about 2/3 of a mile square I saw many fragments of clay vessels, bits of bone and slag. The digging that I had done in three places to a depth of i —i 1/2 metres yielded no result but bones, slag and pieces of clay vessels. The latter were rough in quality, red and black, some of them indicating vessels of large size. No ornamentation and no colouring. No skulls were discovered and I cannot say whether the bones were those of human beings or animals. The greater part were much decayed. — Inside the ruin I had I 1/2 metre sections made in 6 or 7 places and dug up the larger mound of earth. I did not dig deeper, as everything pointed
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IIIFカラー高解像度
