CHAP. XXII.] A PROMISING FIND 343
oases included in the Khotan district until the construction in recent times of Keriya as a separate administrative unit. The pilgrim's description shows that the desert pressed then, as now, close round the small oasis. A huge jar of ancient pottery, nearly 3 feet in diameter, which had been found years ago at the old site to be visited, was at first the only antiquity that Niya could show me. But in the afternoon I received unexpected proof of the
VILLAGE BOYS AT NIYA.
great age of the ruined site I was to visit. Hassan Akhun, my inquisitive young camel-man, had accidentally come across a villager possessing two inscribed wooden tablets brought away from that site. When these objects were produced before me, I discovered to my joyful surprise that they contained writing in that ancient script of the extreme North-West of India known as Kharoshthi, and of a type which closely agreed with that prevailing during the period of Kushana rule in the first centuries of our era.
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