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0183 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / Page 183 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000214
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CH. VI CLEARING OF ANCIENT DWELLINGS i o

and in perfect preservation, and close to it the mummified bodies of two mice.

It seems probable that this large but unfortunately badly eroded structure marks the position of a residence at least temporarily occupied by a person of consequence. To this points the great size of a hall, measuring forty-one by thirty-five feet, and the discovery made on a subsequent visit to the site that to the south-west of the ruin there extends for over half a mile an area where the ground not hidden by dunes is thickly covered with fragments of pottery and other hard debris. It is obviously ground once closely occupied by houses which, being built only with walls of sun-dried bricks or stamped clay (the material used also nowadays for ordinary dwellings in towns and villages of this region), could not hold out so long against wind erosion as the superior timber-and-wattle built structures of the well-to-do.

I cannot attempt to give details of the busy days spent in searching the chain of dwellings stretching southward (Fig. 46) . Some had suffered badly from erosion; others had been better protected, and the clearing of the high sand which filled their rooms cost great efforts. Kharoshthi records on wood, whether letters, accounts, drafts or memos, turned up in almost every one of these dwellings. Besides, there were found architectural wood carvings, household objects and implements illustrative of everyday life and the prevailing industries. Though nothing of intrinsic value had been left behind by the last dwellers of this modest Pompeii, there was sufficient evidence of the ease in which they had lived in the large number of individual rooms provided with fireplaces, comfortable sitting-platforms, wooden cupboards, etc. Remains of fenced gardens and of avenues of poplars