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Explorations in Turkestan 1903 : vol.1 |
REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS. 15
cities of Chinese Turkestan, and much more, of a destructive character, by others. To the north we must cross the great deserts and steppes to reach in Siberia the nearest systematic excavations of Radloff and others.
In Persia, M. J. de Morgan has for several years been conducting a thoroughly scientific investigation at several points, and especially at Susa, where he has already obtained results of the greatest interest. The acropolis of Susa is 105 feet high.
M. de Morgan's preliminary tunnels, run into the hill at different levels, showed it to be composed of made earth from the base upward. Stone implements and
pottery abounded up to 36 feet from the top. The pottery improved from below
up, and among the fragments he recognized a variety belonging to a group peculiar to Egypt, Syria, Cyprus, and most of Asia Minor, but not known from Mesopo-
tamia. De Morgan had found this in predynastic tombs in Egypt, and ascribed it to a period before the eighteenth century B. C. At 45 feet below the top he found tablets 'and cylinders with cuneiform inscriptions which Schell considers as belonging to a period before the fortieth century B. C.
M. de Morgan asks : "If the refined civilizations of the past 6,000 years, with their great structures and fortifications, have left only 45 feet of débris, how many centuries must it have required to accumulate the lower 6o feet, when man used more simple materials in the construction of his abodes? "
The thickness of made earth in the abandoned sites of Turkestan is sufficient to give reason for expecting evidences of very long continued occupation. The
dryness of the climate makes possible the preservation of any traces of written or incised documents that may have existed. Excavation conducted with the idea that everything met with—the earth itself, the character, position, and association of fragments—is part of history, can not fail to be most fruitful in results.
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ations of Ancient Samarkand.
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