Sec. it BURIAL SITES OF DAMBA-KÔH AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD 79
120 feet above what appears to have been a former main bed of the river. Being separated from the remainder of the ridge by a narrow neck and protected on either side by steep slopes of calcareous sandstone, the top forms a small but easily defended natural stronghold. It measures about 90 yards from east to west and 25 yards across where widest. Approach to it on the east lies over the narrow neck, and is protected there by a bastion roughly built with uncut stones. Lower down along the southern slope remains of a rudely built circumvallation with towers are traceable amidst masses of rock debris. On approximately the same level and about 25 feet below the centre of the crest rises a small tower built with stamped clay on a high foundation of rough stonework. Legend connects it with a chief's daughter who, when her four brothers denied her to her wooer besieging the fort, starved herself to death. There were no structural remains calling for excavation. But `ribbed' pottery and fragments of glazed ware suggested occupation in medieval times. The ground below to the south and west is covered with old Muhammadan graves.
Another site, known as Basôt from a now abandoned hamlet and situated about 6 miles to the south-east of Damba-kôh (see Map, Sheet I), proved similar to the latter in character, but smaller. A short rocky outcrop of calcareous sandstone about 60 feet high, running from east to west, is covered up to its crest with scattered cairns. Most are roughly circular and built with small pieces of disintegrated sandstone; none of them rises to more than 21 feet. Another small ridge, about 300 yards farther to the south, bears some ninety cairns on its gentle eastern slope. Some are of roughly rectangular shape, and better built. Here pieces of green-glazed pottery were frequent.
At a distance of about 600 yards to the east of these dambs there rises a small conical hillock to a height of about 180 feet, falling away very steeply on its northern and western sides. At its eastern foot it is adjoined by a small semicircular circumvallation, measuring about 110 yards from north-east to southwest and some 50 yards across where widest. A line of much decayed dwellings raised on a clay bank from 8 to 12 feet high marks the enclosure. Here and there within this, as well as on the slope above, fragments of glazed pottery in rich green and blue colours as well as of plain flat-ribbed ware were to be found in plenty. The site is thickly covered with the remains of dwellings and walled-up terraces, all built with large undressed stones laid in irregular courses without plaster or earth. A number of thick potsherds showing broad ribbing, 1/ inches wide, like Bas. 8 (Pl. XXVII), belonged evidently to vessels of large size. Fragments of painted ware, like Bas. 10, 11 (Pl. xxvii), showed designs similar to those seen at Damba-kôh. High up on the northern edge of the hill slag and burnt clay marked the position of a kiln. Here, too, the occupation of the
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