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

available. The first place selected was a small dwelling (i in plan, Plate 49) of which the basement story, cut out of the clay soil, retained a deep layer of débris left undisturbed by diggers for manuring earth. Four copper coins of the Tang period, with the legend K`ai yiian, were picked up almost on the surface. Some feet lower down, but still 5 feet above the floor, there were found 96 more Chinese copper coins, lying close together. Out of these, 93 bear the legend K`aiyiian which, first introduced by the founder of the Tang dynasty in A.D. 618-27, was continued in the mintage of his successor for more than a century. Two others are issues of the Chien-yüan period (A.D. 758-6o), while one is a Wu-chu piece anterior to A. D. 600. From the way in which these coins turned up it seemed probable that they belonged to a small hoard of late Tang times that may have been placed in an upper-story wall and had fallen down with it. The only other find made was the bronze knife-handle, Y.K. i. ooi, Plate VII, ornamented with fine floriate scroll-work in relief. Immediately adjoining this basement on the south-east were found the badly decayed walls of a diminutive shrine ii, about 4 feet square, with an enclosing passage only 1 â feet wide. From the débris filling the latter a sheet of paper was recovered, with close lines of Uigur writing on both sidés.

Less than 200 yards to the south-west, and close to where the north end of the closely built town area adjoins the western ' Yär', a large room, iii, near a partially excavated Buddhist shrine, attracted my attention as having escaped recent manure-digging operations. In it was brought to light the interesting bronze open-work ornament Y.K. iii. 002 (Plate VI), evidently broken from some larger piece, showing little gilded Buddhas seated on stems rising from a lotus branch ; also a wooden key of the type recovered at Khädalik,20 and the well-made quilted shoe ornamented in an imbricated scale pattern, Y.K. iii. oo 1. Of two Chinese copper coins found in the same place, one shows the nien-hao Chien-chung (A. D. 780-4), the other being a K`ai-yüan piece. The previously mentioned shrine to the south, iv, occupied a high terrace, cut as usual at this'site out of the natural clay soil. The passage at the back of what must have been a central platform for images had not been excavated by those who previously were at work here, and it yielded a number of well-modelled stucco relievo fragments, including the face of an over life-size Buddha statue, Y.K. iv. o01. Of the fine fresco work which once decorated the base of the central platform only small fragments, Y.K. iv. oo6, 007, were recovered.

I may add that my visits to Yär-khoto were also utilized for physical measurements on a large number of men from the adjacent villages (Fig. 264);20a for the considerable mixture of racial elements, to which the population of the Turfän basin is likely to have been subjected in the course of history, made the collection of adequate materials for its anthropological study particularly desirable.

LIST OF ANTIQUES EXCAVATED OR ACQUIRED AT TÜRFAN SITES

OBJECTS EXCAVATED AT RUINED FORT OF CHONG-HASSAR

H. A. o01. Fr. of rim of wide-mouthed pottery jar; wheel-made, of well-levigated grey-drab burning clay, kiln-fired, hard but flaky texture. Solid rim, sq. with cavetto edge ; on side rudely scratched wave pattern. Orig. diam. c. 9". Fr. 61" x 4".

H. A. 002. Fr. of rim of wide-mouthed pottery jar ; wheel-made, of well-levigated grey-burning clay, finished inside with engobbage; kiln-fired. Rim turned out at right angles sq.-edged. Below rim rudely scratched wave

pattern. 4r x 21'.

20 See Kha. v. oo6, above, p. 192.

H. A. oog. Fr. of straight-walled pottery jar ; wheel-made, of peculiarly ill-levigated grey-burning clay, smoothly finished outside, fired in a smother ' kiln '. Rim thickened outwards, with small notched mouldings along outer edge. Below these band of rough comb-drawn wave pattern, below which two sunken bands enclosing band in low relief. 4' X 3', thickness c. ", orig. diam. c. 9f'.

*H. A. 004. Stucco relief fr. ; one of many showing seated Buddhas prob. from large vesica. Buddha sits in meditation on lotus (pink and green) ; red mantle covering

20a For these measurements see below, Joyce, Appendix C.

Coin find of Tang

times.

Relics from Buddhist shrine Y.K.