IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
320 FROM ROSHAN TO SAMARKAND CH. XXI
appearance of the men I met on the way and subsequently was able to examine anthropometrically at Kala-i-Wamar.
Clean of limb they were, and made wiry by constant move-. ment on such impossible tracks—no cattle or horse could ever be brought over them. They all showed clear-cut features,
often of almost classical regularity, generally light-coloured eyes and fair hair. Among the Iranian-speaking hillmen of
the valleys I traversed in the Oxus region, the people of
Roshan seemed to me to have preserved the Homo Alpinus type in its greatest purity. The expert analysis which my
friend Mr. T. C. Joyce, Keeper of the Anthropological Department of the British Museum, has made of the measurements and observations collected by me has since confirmed this impression.
Before reaching the Bartang river's junction with the Oxus more forbidding gorges had to be passed where the
track clings to almost vertical rock-faces by frail wooden `Rafaks' or ladders. Then at last a stretch of fairly open ground gave access to Kala-i-Wamar, the chief place of Roshan. There a day's delightful halt was spent over anthropometrical work in a pleasant orchard adjoining the ruinous castle from which the Mirs of Shughnan used to rule this
dependent tract. It allowed me also to recover some interesting pieces of old wood carving which for the sake of intended
alterations had been removed from the Ming-bashi's house and put away with the lumber (Fig. 146) . Amidst their
ornamentation it was easy to recognize the survival of decorative motifs, such as a stylized clematis-like flower,
which were familiar to me from the Graeco-Buddhist relievos of Gandhara and the wood-carvings of the Niya and Lou-lan sites.
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