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0196 Serindia : vol.3
セリンディア : vol.3
Serindia : vol.3 / 196 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000183
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OCR読み取り結果

 

                               
                               
                               
                               
                             

1242   TO KUCHA AND THE KERIYA RIVER END   [Chap. XXX

of some dead trunks of cultivated poplars and fruit-trees, it proved that a small agricultural colony must have existed near the fortified station.

The largest of the ruins, Ka. I (Figs 303, 304), was that of a good-sized dwelling with wattle and timber walls of a type practically identical with that found in the houses of the Niya Site. Its plan and internal arrangements (Plate 55) showed also very close resemblance to the latter. But here, as in the dwellings of Lou-lan, the timber used was exclusively of the wild poplar. The ruined house, in the main portion cleared,13 was filled with 6 to 8 feet of sand. Owing to the immediate vicinity of a dune rising to 12 feet or more, some rooms to the east could not be excavated with the dozen men or so available. For the same reason no search could be made for any refuse-heaps outside which might have preserved archaeologically useful relics. The objects brought to light are described in the List below. Among them may be mentioned the wooden lock and key, Ka. I. 001-2 ; a dagger-like iron tool, Ka. 1. 003 ; several amphorae, Ka. 1. 0019 (Plate Iv ; Fig. 307) ; strong woollen fabrics of different kinds, Ka. I. 0014-16. All these closely resemble finds of the same kind made at the Niya and Lou-lan Sites. So does also the piece of an openwork wooden screen seen in Fig. 307. A rectangular wooden tablet, Ka. I. i. 001, is also of a type frequent among the wooden documents of a Niya Site, but has lost all traces of writing.

At Ka. II were found the remains of a dwelling mainly of timber and wattle, badly destroyed by wind-erosion and subsequently overgrown by tamarisks, which had helped to form a sand-cone some 7 feet high above it, but were dead now. No objects were found on clearing this. The remains of a third ruined dwelling, Ka. III (Fig. 305), were also buried in a tamarisk-cone, which was, however, still living ; the walls were built here of timber with plastered vertical bundles of rushes and reeds. Apart from a large pottery jar, a plain wooden plank-bed, 7z by 4 feet, was the only find here. Four more small dwellings, of which the position is marked in the site-plan, were found either completely eroded down to the foundation beams or else too deeply buried by the side of high dunes to permit of excavation with the limited number of men available.

Scanty as are the newly explored remains of the site and the objects found on it, they yet furnish definite evidence that a small agricultural settlement must have existed here far away in the desert, and not merely a small frontier guard-post, as I had been led previously to assume. With regard to the probable date, too, of the site, not merely as regards its character, the new observations permit us, I think, to form a clearer view. The resemblance in the construction of the houses and in the type of the objects of daily use found there is sufficiently close to justify the attribution of the ruins approximately to the period when the Niya and Lou-lan Sites were abandoned, i.e. the third—fourth century A. D. With this dating the two coins found close to Ka. I fully agree ; they are both Wu-chu pieces, apparently of the second—third century A. D. The coins found on the occasion of my first visit, fourteen in all, were also either Wu-chu pieces or else uninscribed.'{ The few tiny bits of paper found in 1901 among the débris of the ruined quadrangle's raise no longer any chronological difficulty, since the discoveries at Lou-lan have proved that the use of paper by the side of wood as writing material had reached the Tarim Basin by the middle of the third century, if not somewhat earlier.

Even now we cannot determine the immediate cause which may have led to the abandonment of the small settlement. But my previous remarks as to the possibility of this having been caused by a change in the course of the river which deprived the site of its water-supply have since received striking illustration by what I was able to observe myself on my renewed visit. The river, which in 1901 was fully eleven miles away from Kara-dong at its nearest point, flowed seven

ISMarked with the broad arrow in plan, PI. 55.   'S See Ancient Kholan.

" Cf. Ancient Kholan, i. p. 447.   16 Cf. ibid., i. p. 451.

                             
                           

Excavation of ruined house.

                           
                           
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
                           

Other sand-buried dwellings.

                           
                           
                             
                             
                             
                             
                           

Evidence of agricultural settlement.

                           

Date indicated by Han coins.

                           
                           
                             
                             
                           

Changes in Keriya River bed.