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

THE ASKHABAD WELL A QUATERNARY TIME-SCALE•

SOUTH KURGAN IRON CULTURE.

After an apparently long period of abandonment, the South Kurgan was again occupied, when a new cycle of aggrading was again filling the valley, by a people having an iron culture, during which at least 12 feet of culture-strata accumulated.

ANAU CITY.

After the abandonment of the South Kurgan, and at a time when the valley filling had progressed to a height at which the natural process of alluviation was superseded by the present system of artificial irrigation, the city of Anau was founded, early in our era, and, after accumulating 5 feet of culture-strata characterized by a red pottery, there appeared a greenish variety and a glazed and enameled and painted ware. In the middle of the fifteenth century, its large and beautiful mosque was founded, and in the middle of the nineteenth century the city was abandoned and became a ruin.

Such is the main outline of the most essential observed data on which the argument relating to the chronology of the assumedly interdependent physical and human history of the oasis of Anau is based, and which is assumed in its physical aspects and as regards the fundamental characteristics of the cultures to be regional in its applicability.

As regards uncertainties in the platting of the physical data, while the unbroken line representing the aggrading during the copper culture is drawn exactly. where it belongs, the point where the first aggrading ends and where the cutting-down begins may belong opposite a point 12 feet either way on the scale of feet on the culture scale. The gap between the c opper and iron cultures is based partly on archeological and partly on geological requirements affecting the rate of cutting-down; it may be wider, but may not well be much smaller. There is little doubt that a gap should show on the plate between North and South Kurgans, but in the absence of any means of estimating it, even proximately, I have preferred to leave it unrepresented.

Brown loam

Gravel with a little loam

Coanbblesd and gravel

S

Brown loam

Loam and gravel

300   ,(Sand

with gravel

    öw

n loam

Sand

400   Brown loam

    Sand

Brown loam

500. .+++ Gravel over loam •••••• Cobbles

Brown loam

600 °°° °° Loam with cobbles Brown loam

Loam with cobbles

AV

Cobbles under

700     Brown loam

Sanad

ó::•+ o   with gravel

,   ' Loam with gravel

800     Loam and sand

Brown loam

Sand over gravel Cobbles under sand

t+

• t oSb•r

Feet

0    

....:v

100

200

1000

1100

900

1200

1300

1400

1500

1600

00000

1700

1600

1900

Brown loam

oobambles and gravel

Brown loam

Sand

Brown loam Cobbles Brown loam

Sand

Cobbles over loam Cobbles

Brown loam

Sand

Brown loam Cobbles

Brown loam Sand

Brown loam Gravel over sand Gravel

Brown loam   THE ASKHABAD WELL.

2000   I can not leave this part of the discussion without refer-

Gravel   ring again to the Askhabad Well. As stated above, this

2100   extends to a depth of 2,200 feet, and its bottom is still in

Brown loam   delta sediments more than 1,400 feet below the level of the

2200    ocean. When we remember that the sinking of the zone of

Fig. 21

deposition Column, deposition is a geodynamic process due to the gravity of the

A.skhabad Well.   secular accumulation of thin layers of alluvium, we realize