国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

Christ". A stone axe from a grave to the north of the ruins he is inclined to regard as a survival from neolithic time. The red clay vessels on his Figs. 2-20 he supposes to have originated in old times but assumes that they were still in use in the time of Christ.

I have not examined Mr. HUANG'S finds. My impressions are thus formed only from his illustrations. It seems to me as if HUANG has placed these finds in rather late periods. The date

Fig. 3. Painted clay pot   around 50o B.C. for his painted pot appears to be nearer the

(black and red) from

Yar-khoto. H. 144 mm.   truth.

After Huang 1933•

HUANG'S cylindrical clay vessels as shown on his Figs. 12-17 are very similar to some of ANDERSSON'S pots from the Chen-fan region in Kansu (of the Sha-ching stage) where they occur together with bronze ornaments of the Ordos style. ANDERSSON dates them around 500 B.C. or somewhat later.

These cylindrical clay vessels have indeed a non-ceramic shape, and HUANG'S corn-

parison between them and a lacquered wooden vessel from Lop-nor is quite correct. However, this similarity in shape does not necessarily mean a correspondence in time. The Lop-nor wooden vessel is certainly a Chinese import and can hardly antedate the last century B.C. The cylindrical clay vessels may have drawn their form from much older wooden vessels of non-Chinese origin.

If the cemetery from where HUANG excavated both the painted pot and the cy-

lindrical vessels is homogeneous there can be no long interval between these different kinds of pottery. We may place both around the middle of the last millenium B.C. Now my Toqsun sherds are stylistically more degenerate than HUANG'S painted pot, but there can hardly exist any pronounced chronological difference.

The finds from the western part of the Turf an Basin thus seem to answer to ANDERSSON'S Sha-ching group, though there is no conformity among the painted wares from these two regions.

D. THE CHARCHAN VASE.

When in Charchan in August 1928 I acquired from a Chinese merchant the beautiful earthenware vase shown in Pl. I. According to his statement it had been found in the Kohna-shahr bordering the present oasis of Charchan, i. e. a site which I will discuss in the last part of this volume. It was impossible to get any absolute confirmation as to the exact place of discovery. Every kind of minor articles of any age which the local people of Charchan offered me for sale was said to originate from Kohna-shahr (the Old Town), and in most cases this was true. These objects were however, of an age not previous to the Han dynasty, mostly from the Sung and Yüan dynasties. The vase must certainly be considerably older than the

18