different from the coarse material found at other sites, were also of foreign origin, has not as yet been definitely decided. But the discovery of a .seal made of a piece of ancient Chinese porcelain plainly points to such imports.
Far more numerous, of course, were the objects for which local manufacture may be assumed. Mixed up with pottery fragments of all kinds there were rags of cotton and woollen materials, some showing /delicate patterns and colours ; eating-sticks and spindles of wood ; remains of leather shoes and women's slippers coloured red just like the ` Charuks ' still in favourite use ; thick wooden horse-combs ; spoons made of bone ; and other articles of domestic use. The large number of sheep's knuckle-bones, often painted red or yellow, shows that gambling with this simple form of dice must have had its votaries in the household. Besides these there were was found also an ivory die, of the peculiar elongated shape still popular in India, and marked with round punches on its four sides.
When the rubbish had all been cleared out, I found that one corner of the room was occupied by a circular mud-platform, about 5 feet in diameter and 3 feet high, with its centre hollowed out to a depth of 10 inches. The men from Niya at once expressed the belief that it was a trough, such as is used to this day in the houses of better-class people for keeping flowers fresh under water or wetted leaves. If the contrivance really served this object, it must have continued in use during all the time the rubbish around it was accumulating. For the hollow on the top was found filled only with drift-sand.
The other rooms of the house had evidently been cleared long ago. Yet even here the search was not entirely fruitless. In the sheltered corner of the apartment next adjoining N. xv. I came upon a heap of wheat straw which, as the piece of matting below it showed, must have fallen from the roof. Among the straw there were stalks still retaining their grains in perfect preservation. There was no pony at hand like Turdi Khwoja's venerable animal at Dandan-Uiliq on which to try the value of the antique straw as a foodstuff. But my quaint old guide himself, the " Aksakal of the
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