National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

The Chinese archaeologist HUANG WEN-PI, also a member of. Dr. HEDIN'S expedition, in 1930 found graves in three places near the northern part of the Qumdarya delta, and some of them he apparently examined. Judging from his written report to Dr. HEDIN, there ought to be an autochthonous tomb about 6 km. WSW' of the ruin T'u-ken (in the same region he found bronze arrow-heads, pottery and stone implements). About io li W of this place there are several graves, and about 6o li WSW from there another grave (mass-grave?), the last-mentioned being situated 8 li NW( !) of the river. His locations are far too brief and uncertain to allow of any identification with known sites, and his distances are much exaggerated. In one instance 70 li of his must correspond to about 12 km. instead of 3o —4o km.

When HÖRNER and CHEN surveyed the new lake Lop-nor and the Qum-darya delta, they located graves on two mesas, all more or less destroyed by age, but they did not undertake any excavations.

HÖRNER'S first burial place is situated 5 km. N 3o° E of his camp 79 in the delta, i. e. about 29 km. NNE of L. A. and 9 km. WNW of L. E. A leg of a pottery Ting tripod was found there (K. 13392). On the map Fig. 37 it bears the number 392.

1 This transcription is more correct in English than the Russian form Noin-ula.

2 This position is according to my own deductions.

found by HUNTINGTON is identical with STEIN'S L. T. The collections brought together from STEIN'S graves are rich and varied; in particular, the extraordinarily fine textiles with their marvellous colours and patterns have aroused great interest among students of textiles as well as among those interested in Chinese and Central Asian art in general. Their fundamental importance has only been increased by the discoveries of contemporaneous textiles in other places in Inner Asia, notably at Noyan-ola.' Altogether STEIN found eight cemeteries containing over fifty single graves and ten mass-graves, with many individuals in the latter. There will be occasion to make frequent reference to STEIN'S graves in the following chapters.

In 1931, Dr. ERIK NORIN of our expedition made a rapid search of STEIN'S cemetery L. H. and recovered two complete pottery jars. Unfortunately they were lost during the transport through Siberia together with a large amount of my own maps from Sinkiang. On a mesa in the neighbourhood of his camp 485 NORIN saw a tomb with a skeleton and rags of a coarse garment. It had probably been opened already. There were no traces of any coffin. If this is not identical with one of STEIN'S graves, which has been marked in the map Fig. 37 2.8 km. WSW of L. J., it must be very close to it.

A few kilometres to the west of the same camp NORIN's servants collected for fuel a donkey's burden of thick branches from some dead fruit trees.

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