IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
288 A HIDDEN ARCHIVE
CH. XXIV
pair of tablets was completely protected against any attempt
at unauthorized inspection or tampering before delivery to
the addressee. The latter, after satisfying himself that the
seal impression was intact, could get access to the contents
either by cutting the string near the string-hole, and then
sliding out the under tablet from the folds of string running
beneath the seal, or else by severing these folds. In the
former case he retained a convenient fastening for the two
pieces, being able to pass the under tablet back again into
its original position, as we can still do now with a number
of double wedges first opened many centuries ago. The
name and title of the addressee are invariably shown to the
right of the seal cavity on the obverse of the covering
tablet, while a corresponding entry found ordinarily on the
reverse of the under tablet records the name of the mes-
senger or other person entrusted with the document.
Curiously enough none of the wedge-shaped double
tablets so far deciphered seems to bear a distinct indication
of the sender. But this peculiarity, so strange at first sight,
becomes intelligible in the light of what information is
already available about the general character and contents
of these missives. Their official origin was made clear
to me from the first by the introductory formula found
invariably at the commencement : Mahanuava maharaya
lihati, " His Excellency the Maharaja orders in writing."
Since then the researches of Professor Rapson and his col-
laborators have brought out the fact that the wedge-shaped
double tablets were generally, if not always, intended for
the conveyance of brief orders which concerned the bearer,
or in the execution of which the bearer was to co-operate.
Thus all the fully translated tablets of this class prove to
contain directions about the supply of transport and escort
to official messengers, about aid to be given to them in
certain enquiries, or for the apprehension of fugitives, etc.
It thus becomes highly probable that these ` wedges'
represent warrants issued for the purpose of accrediting
persons charged with the execution of administrative orders,
and of securing for them the needful assistance of the local
authority. The clay impression from the seal of the
superior officer sufficed to attest the order which his
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