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362   ANIMAL REMAINS FROM THE EXCAVATIONS AT ANAU.

We know further that great numbers of these large animals were killed by the Assyrian king Ashur-nasir-pal, on the hunting grounds near the Euphrates. Aristotle mentions the occurrence of the buffalo with horns curved back to the neck, in Arachosia, the Persian province Khokand; and Chosroes II (591 to 628 A. D.) is represented on a silver plate in the National Library of Paris as hunting this animal.*

There can be no doubt that two large bovine animals lived in very ancient times in Northern Persia in proximity to the Anau kurgans. Which of these two animals furnished the bones we are discussing and was the one hunted by the ancient Anau-li ? Fortunately there are among the bones from the deepest layers of the kurgan several which enable us to answer this question. These are fragments of a right branch of a lower jaw, which I have restored, a basioccipital bone, and a fragment of a horn-core.

Table of dimensions (in millimeters).

It is well known that one of the principal differences between the bubaline and the taurine form of the ox tribe consists in the slender form of the lower jaw and especially in the greater width of the incisive part (corpus) of the lower jaw in the buffalo, and the greater narrowness of the horizontal branch behind the

*Duerst, Quelques ruminants sur des oeuvres d'art asiatiques. Revue archéolog., r, pp. 239-244.

North Kurgan,
Anau,
- 20 ft.

Bos namadicus
Narbada
(Brit. Mus.).

Bos pri„cigenius

(Mus. Bern).

Bubalus arnee

(Paris).

Lower jaw.

Length   

Length of dentition   

Length of molars   

Length of premolars   

Length of toothless part   

Width of ascending branch   

Height of horizontal branch at premolar s   

'Width of incisive part   

   443   ••••

   171   161

I IO   10.4

   8o   56

   II5   ...

   142   ....

   51   45

   83   84

438

162

IoS

76 I17

136

53

78

455

I25

154 139 51 IO2

North Kurgan, I Bos pri,ni-

Anau,   Oenius, Kirken- Bos Mums.— 17 ft.   donghtshire \Valthamstow.

~(Mus. London).''

Basioccipital hone.

Length of condyle   

Width of foramen   

Width above condyle   

Width on upper protuberances   

Width on tubercula pharynge    

Length from upper protuberances to tubercula pharyngeæ...    

Lateral length of basioccipital

   530   505

   43   ....

   65   ....

   72   57

   37   26

   46   ....

   94   76

Provenience of horn-core.

Circumference   Vertical

at base.   diameter.

Length of core.

Anau   

Suen-Hua-Fu, China, Bos nanuzdicus (Mus. Paris)   
Ilford, Essex, England, Brit. Mus. (N. 25426) Bos primigenius..

Algeria, Bos opistonomus Pomel (Mus. Algeria) .   

Levallois-Perret (Paris), Bos primigenius (Mus. Paris)    

Rhine, Bos primigenius (Mus. Darmstadt)    

about 400

413 430 340 415 382

IIO

43

56 6o

37

44

92

about 83o

I00o

Boo

725

690

120 I22 I2.1 90 110 100