IIIFカラー高解像度
国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
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| IIIFカラー高解像度 |
| Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 | |
| 中国砂漠地帯の遺跡 : vol.1 |
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引用情報
| CH. XX | A NUMISMATIC FIND | 245 |
and some of the stucco pieces were blackened by smoke, a clear proof that the ruin had suffered from fire. Wooden tablets inscribed in Brahmi ; boards used for holding Pothis, with remains of leaves still adhering ; fragments of a text illuminated with miniatures, also emerged from this small shrine in gratifying variety.
But the discovery which pleased me most was a numismatic one. Deep down on the floor of the passage
through which the entrance to the cella had led, there
came to light first a scattered batch of Chinese copper coins of the T'ang period, and then, as if to satisfy my
craving for exact chronological evidence, from a corner
two completely preserved rolls of coins, counting some twenty and fifty pieces respectively, still held together by
the original string which the last owner had passed through
their square holes. Rapid examination showed that the rolls were made up, apart from some older uninscribed
pieces, of T'ang coins only, the latest being issues of the
Ta-li period (A.D. 78o-783). As votive deposits of this sort must belong to the period immediately preceding the
abandonment of the shrine, the date of this event in the case of the whole group of ruins could thus be definitely fixed at the close of the eighth century.
Of the excavations which followed, and which kept me incessantly at work until October 1st, I can only give the
briefest account here. They laid bare a series of small dwellings close to the west and north of the large temple which had probably served as abodes of monks (Fig. 78). Here the walls, partly of sun-dried bricks and partly of
timber and plaster, still stood over six feet high, the sand accumulated within having evidently been high enough
from the first to hide and protect them. Once more I could sit down on a bench by an ancient fireplace and collect in numbers humble domestic implements, such as wooden locks and keys working with a curious arrangement of movable pins which has its exact parallel in a system of locking still traceable from Khotan to Egypt ; brooms, bags with raw cotton wool, etc.
By running trial trenches through the surrounding sand I traced other small shrines and monastic quarters
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