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

SKELETONS EXCAVATED IN SOUTH KURGAN.   493

than the left, which was beneath it. For the only time in the burials of either kurgan the main axis was west and east. The left hand lay palm down in front of the breast just under a small clay bowl (see plate io, fig. 2), while the fingers of the right hand lay around the neck of a little jar, the lip of which was tipped to within 0.5 inch of the teeth of the lower jaw. (See fig. 547.)

Skeleton No. 24 (a) .—North of these first burials and more in the body of the hill the workmen came to the ill-preserved remains of a child at + 25 feet, lying contracted on the left side. The bones were little better than traces in the earth, but it was possible to determine that the main trend of the body was northwest by southeast, and that the right knee was drawn up so close to the ribs that the heel nearly touched the tip of the spine.

Skeleton No. 25 (s) .—Slightly north and 4 feet to the east of skeleton No. 24, in the north wall of the terrace, there occurred evidences of the burial of a child in a contracted position, on the right side. More details I could not gather about the mode of burial, except that the main axis ran southeast to northwest. Many of the bones had utterly disappeared, and the whole was so decomposed as to be the mere ground plan of what had once been a skeleton. Below the body was found a layer of ashes and charcoal, slightly depressed in the middle and ranging from i to 3 inches in depth. The level of this burial was the same as the one before it, + 25 feet.

Skeleton No. 20 (a).—From directly over a wall, which Dr. Schmidt was later able to trace for some feet north and south, I took the bones of a child which had been buried contracted on its right side. Its level was 23 feet 7 inches. Though the long bones of the right leg were wanting, the foot was in such a position as to clearly indicate that that leg, like the left, had been drawn up at an angle with the trunk. The trend of the vertebræ lay southwest and northeast.

Skeleton No. 2602).—Four feet northeast of skeleton No. 19, at a level of + 23 feet, were human bones more nearly of an adult size than any that had yet come to light in the South Kurgan. They seemed of about the proportion of an Anglo-Saxon boy of 15 or thereabouts. The cranial sutures were almost ossified and the ephiphyses of the longer bones partly joined.

The body lay on its right side in a contracted position with the hands in front of the face. The main axis ran northeast to southwest. All the lower skeletal bones were in better condition than the cranium, which for some reason had quite disintegrated, all but certain portions of the front of the lower jaw.

Skeleton No. 27 (e) .—The last remains we found in this terrace were under the door-stone and threshold in the west wall described by Dr. Schmidt (see report of Dr. Schmidt). They consisted merely in an adult skull lying on its right side and beyond it the left arm with the elbow bent to bring the fingers under the chin. At a distance of 14 inches out from the body lay the fingers of the right hand, but not even a trace of other bones was found. This was all the more remarkable in consideration of the fact that those bones which were discovered were in a comparatively good state of preservation. The level of these remains was + 23 feet. Beneath the body was a horizontal layer of ashes and charcoal, below which in turn were found the remains of an apparently tumbled wall.