cll. V ANCIENT RUG AND CARVED CHAIR 83
the east (Fig. 35), judging from the size and number of the apartments, must have been the residence of a man of position. Its rooms held a far greater depth of sand, and hence its structural remains were better preserved. A very striking feature of this building was a large central hall, measuring forty by twenty-six feet. The massive beams of poplar wood supporting the roof were forty feet long, and, like the corbel on which the central beams rested, fine specimens of carving. The stuccoed walls still standing to a good height were decorated with a carefully coloured design of large floral scrolls and festoons executed in tempera.
The hall had been completely cleared by its last dwellers or visitors, but from the smaller rooms adjoining to the north we recovered interesting relics illustrating the manu- factures and arts of the period. Among other small specimens of local textile industry there turned up portions of
[ a delicately worked woollen rug (Fig. 40) showing elaborate
geometrical patterns and harmoniously blended colours which only needed a little brushing to reappear in their original brilliancy. Only passing reference can be made
[ to the remains of wooden implements found in the kitchen
and of arms, such as a bow and wooden shield, left behind
[ in a storage place. Among articles of ornamental wood-
carving found here none can compare with the ancient chair shown in Fig. 41. Its pieces, though disjointed, lay together on the floor of one of the outer rooms. All the decorative motifs of the carvings are familiar to us from the Graeco-Buddhist relievos of the Indian North-West Frontier. I was glad to note at the time how closely the date thus indicated agreed with the chronological evidence of the Kharoshthi writing.
IIIF Color HighRes
