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
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

Buddhist
ruins near
Lapchuk.

Temple cella on double base.

•

Ruined town walls of Lapchuk.

1156   TO HAMI AND TURFAN   [Chap. XXVIII

ceiling of the domed cella still showed traces of a painted diaper, with rows of small Buddha figures alternately in red and brown robes. Shapeless piles of masonry of sun-dried brick, extending in a line to the south, looked as if they marked the position once occupied by a row of small Stûpas. Two miles further down by the road leading to Lapchuk I came upon another small ruin known as the ` Tâzganchük Gumbaz '. Just below it flows the rapid, clear stream which carries the united waters from Toghucha and Yar-bâshi down to the lands of Kara-döbe.n The cella measures here 5 feet 3 inches square inside and has an enclosing passage, 2 feet wide, entered from the east.

From this point downwards the gravel-covered depression widens considerably. In its middle meander the two canalized beds which take the waters from Toghucha and Ilikul down to the lands of Kara-döbe and Lapchuk respectively.12 Near the point where the two streams would naturally unite a low spur called Tuma bears a line of tiny cellas of the type already described. These I had to leave unvisited from want of time. Another three miles' descent from Tâzganchük brought me to a group of conspicuous ruins within sight of Lapchuk village. One of these, marked i in the plan (Plate 49. B) and seen in Fig. 261, consists of a central cella, measuring 9 feet by to within, and flanked on either side by a smaller cella. All three originally carried domes, but of these only the one covering the cella on the west has survived. All three cellas had their entrances on the south, the central one being approached through a kind of vaulted anteroom which gives access to an enclosing passage, also vaulted, 6 feet wide. On the walls of this passage there were some traces of fresco decoration, purposely effaced under a fresh cover of plastering or whitewash. The whole structure occupied a terrace of what seemed natural clay cut down on the sides, and showed signs of having been occupied as a habitation after it had ceased to be a place of Buddhist worship.

About 4o yards to the west of this structure stands a conspicuous temple cella on a high double base, marked ii on the plan. The cella, about w feet square within, still retains most of its dome, rising to a height of about i 5 feet, but broken over the entrance on the south. The bricks used here measured either 15" x 7;" x 3â" or i2" x 8" x 4". The cella occupies the top of a base 14 feet high, built of stamped clay, which, again, rests on a broader base, 5 feet high, of what looked like natural clay. The approach lay over a flight of stairs, now mostly broken, which led up from the south over a ramp partly vaulted. Another shrine could be recognized in a completely ruined building that measured about 63 feet by 53, situated circ. 200 yards to the south. Here, too, a natural clay terrace had been converted by cuttings into a base. Several smaller ruins which I had no time to visit were sighted on the gentle gravel slopes to the east and north-east.

To the south-west of the ruins I, II just mentioned there extends an area of eroded clay terraces, covered from a distance of about 800 yards onwards with Muhammadan tombs and small vaulted ` Gumbaz ' of the type usually met with in modern Turkestan cemeteries. Beyond this area rise the ruined walls of a small fortified town, forming a rectangle approximately orientated. The walls are built of stamped clay over parts of a high clay terrace which, as seen in Fig. 262, have been utilized for a natural rampart to raise the height of the circumvallation. The faces of the south and east walls measure about 185, and 120 yards respectively. Gates can be distinguished near the south-west and north-east corners. At the latter rises a massive square tower to a height of about 4o feet, seen from

" The name Tâzganchük (sic ; the form Tazgan-chilk of the map is erroneous) is likely to be derived from the stream. Täzgan, also tâzgun, lâzghun, is a common Turki designation for streams flowing rapidly and liable to heavy floods; -chilk: -chuk is a well-known adjectival suffix.

22 The map, owing to the smallness of the scale, shows the two streams as flowing in one bed, as they undoubtedly

would, did not irrigation interests necessitate the artificial maintenance of two separate channels side by side. On the west side of the ruined town of Lapchuk the stream from Ilikul is carried in a conduit across the one from Toghucha, which serves to irrigate Kara-döbe (a detail overlooked in the plan, Pl. 49. B).