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0013 Archaeological Researches in Sinkiang : vol.1
Archaeological Researches in Sinkiang : vol.1 / Page 13 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000195
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INTRODUCTORY NOTE

bout 4o years ago a happy combination of circumstances enabled me, though

not an archaeologist by profession, to discover ruins of several towns, villages,

fortifications and temples in Eastern Turkistan, ruins which had for many centuries, in certain cases even a couple of thousand years, remained hidden and forgotten in the desert sand. From many of these places I brought home to Sweden collections of archaeological specimens.

When in Peking at the turn of the year 1926-27 I was negotiating for permission to undertake a big expedition to Sinkiang, or Chinese Turkistan, Professor J. G. ANDERSSON suggested that also a Swedish archaeologist be added to the staff of the expedition. For this initiative I am profoundly indebted to him, for it meant not only a considerable extension of our program, but also an added significance to the expedition.

To this post, as the Swedish archaeologist of the expedition, was appointed FOLKE BERGMAN, who in this part of our Report Series gives an account of the archaeological work carried out in the province of Sinkiang. This monograph will be followed by several others dealing with the results of extensive research in Inner Mongolia.

It is for me both a duty and a pleasure to express here my warm and cordial thanks for FOLKE BERGMAN'S contribution to our scientific work in connection with the expedition.

I am also glad of this opportunity of expressing my warm feeling of gratitude to our Chinese friends for their hospitality to us over a long period of years,, during which we were able to establish a Sino-Swedish co-operation that has proved of great value and importance to both parties.

By a sequence of chances beyond our control we found ourselves, in the spring of 1934, in the Lop-nor country. The Central Government in Nanking had done me the honour of entrusting me with the task of localizing and investigating two motor-roads between China proper and Sinkiang. The civil war then in progress in the province led General SHENG SHIH-TS'AI, the military Governor-General of Sinkiang, to request us, for our own safety's sake, to move down towards Lop-nor for a couple