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

EXCAVATIONS AND FINDS AT THE NORTH KURGAN.   95

Generally speaking, however, there was no change in terrace v as regards the pottery above the level of +32.2 feet, excepting that between +36 feet and + 32 feet 2 inches fragments of polychrome ware occurred, painted black and red. These may be introduced here as group v.

The "mixed" pottery—i. e., about equal quantities of fragments of groups x and y—was found only below the level of the flat stones which belong at +32.5 feet, the level of the floor which must have borne the older pot (I); but here also it was evident that the deeper we dug the more the fragments of the group x decreased, while those of group y gained in numerical proportion. Between + 28 feet 5 inches and + 25 feet we found group y almost exclusively represented. Still lower this group ruled alone ; therefore it is only below pots e and f , found in situ, that the real " mixed " layer begins.

The skeletons lying in this " mixed " layer are referable to the epoch in which the older pot (f) was in use. It is not certain whether the deeper standing walls were built during the use of the ceramic group y.

For the relative age of the gray monochrome ware, the observations in terraces Iv and v yield definite data. It occurs in the " mixed " layers, together with the red monochrome, as far as the level +28 feet 5 inches; hut, like the red monochrome ware, it is wholly absent below the level of + 25 feet. It must, therefore, have been contemporaneous with the red monochrome ware. Only the later analysis of forms and technique can show whether it went through the same evolution.

Now, since the pots found in situ in terrace AT agree throughout in form, technique, and position with those of terrace I, we may assign them both to the same period of house-building as the upper settlements of the hill. On the basis of the pottery we can assert that this building period had its beginning above the level of + 25 feet. Its end is marked, in so far as the layers are still preserved, by the thick wall A in terrace I and by the skeleton of terrace iv.

Below the level of + 25 feet lie the strata of an older culture. Regarding these, we can say, at the present stage, only that their peculiar pottery is represented in the group y.

To what extent do the remaining terraces complete this picture? What do they teach us concerning the deeper layers of the older culture?

Terrace II (see fig. 31).—In the special report of Warner it will be seen that in terrace II, also, several layers have grown one above the other. It is true that in the upper layers of this terrace bake-ovens and pots of the same kind as those found in terraces I Iv, and v, are lacking. On the other hand we have here, as there, similar places with depressions, which are filled with white ashes, one at the level of + 26 feet 5 inches, and the other immediately under the first at + 25 feet—i. e., two different superimposed layers. Considering the smallness of these depressions, it is not probable that they served the same purposes as the bake-ovens in terraces I and Iv. Rather must we assume that these holes served for the protection of the smoldering charcoal and for the collection of ashes—i. e., that they were open fireplaces or hearths.